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The Commoner.
WILLIAM J. BRYAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR
" VOL. 7. No. 19.
Lincoln, -Nebraska, May 24, 1907.
Whole Number 331.
CONTENTS
..- LET THE PEOPLE RULE;
A PALPABLE HIT.
OPPOSING OKLAHOMA STATEHOOD.
ADVERTISING CONFIDENCE GAMES.
FRIENDS AND FRIENDS.
MR. RYAN OF NEW YORK.
THE OHIO SITUATION.
MR. HARRINGTON ON PUBLIC OWNER-
. -SHIP.
- LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE'
WASHINGTON LETTER
COMMENT ON CURRENT TOPICS
HOME DEPARTMENT
WHETHER COMMON OR NQT
NEWS OF THE WEEK
A PALPABLE HIT
In an editorial entitled, "Wages Delusion,"
the Louisville Courier-Journal makes an inter
esting answer to a republican newspaper that
claimed that the cotton mill operators in North
Germany get only $191.04 a year, while in
'Americathoy get fc 3.0 4. 5 7. -WWMTfie
Courier-Journal says: -"It looks a lit
tleT queer to see arguments for protection made
on the ground that it gives our laborers $304.57
a year. There are 313 working days in a year,
barring holidays with pay, so that the wage is
less than a dollar a day. Now a iarm laborer
at $20 a month and board gets $240 in money,
and the board would, even at a low rate, bring
the total up as high as that of the cotton-mill
operator. It is well known that the farm laborer
has no protection, and it is hard to see how
the cotton-mill operator gets any benefit from
it. Laborers in many unprotected employments
get more than a dollar a day. Moreover, the
owners of cotton mills import laborers free from
foreign countries. If the protective tariff makes
prices of commodities high and we know it
does why .is there not a tariff on imported
labor? That is the logic of protection to labor
by a tariff, if it is to be done at all, but the fact
of it is that it is not intended to vmake labor
high. The men who make this argument in
order to get labor support are the same men
who import foreign labor to keep down the
prices they must pay to laborers at home. They
are the men who sell to customers in America
steel rails for $28 a ton, and sell them abroad
at $20 or $2 a, making a big profit on an article
which confessedly costs about ?16. The argu
ment that protection makes high wages is a
ridiculous fallacy. They have always been higher
in America than in Europe. But in Europe the
highest wages are paid in free-trade England,
and the countries where, they are lowest have
the most rigid systems of protection."
OOOO, .
THE MONEY MARKET
"" The Pittsburg Dispatch complains of the
"tightness of the money market" and offers 3
proof the fact that the cities of Pittsburg and Al
legheny offered four per cent bonds aggregating
1 ,800,000 and did not receive a bid. Then it pro
ceeds' to Maine the raituonds for this state of af
fairs. A day or two before these bonds were
offered and no takers in sight, the state of Ne
braska went into the open market and bought a
big lot of Idaho state bonds in competition with
eastern bidders. The state of Nebraska has also
bought Massachusetts bonds recently, these In
vestments being for the state school fund. Per
haps it is- not a "tightness of the money market"
that Is responsible for'the failure of the two Penn
sylvania cities to get a bid. , , -
. -. , ' ,
. -j'
m
THE PLEA OF THE PARTISAN
"LET THE PEOPLE RULE"
Mr. Bryan's Speech at Banquet Give n by People's Lobby at Newark, New
Jqrsey, May 1, 1007
Mr."Chafrman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I
shall speak until half past one
A "Voice As long as you like.
Mr. Bry,api I am informed that you have
to take the cars over hero at half past one
A Voice Or walk home.
Mr. Bryan And I do not want to talk after
the cars leave. " ',
I would thank you for waiting so long, and
would appreciate it as-a compliment to me if
I did not know that you have been entertained
by speeches during this long wait and hav thus
been well repaid for the waiting.
I am very glad, indeed, to take part in a
non-partisan demonstration of this kind. I have
so many opportunities to be partisan that I wel
come an opportunity to be non-partisan, al
though I am not sure that I need to make much
change In my speech.
I find it very difficult to be partisan now
even when I want to-be, for if I make a stralght
'out democratic speech, the first thing I know
the president makes one of the same kind and
then the subject immediately becomes non
partisan. I was at a banquet at Washington two
years ago last January where the president was
the chief guest. It was a banquet given by the
Gridiron clubhand that club, as you know, is
made up of newspaper men and they are the
brightest men we have in the country. The
Gridiron club banquet is, I think, the most de
lightful thing of the kind in the world. It is
the custom at such banquets to spring jokes
upon the guests and at this banquet the news
paper men were joking the president about what
he was taking from the democratic platform, and
when it came my time to speak referred to the
matter also. I said that I had not felt so good
in Washington for years as I did then, to find
that things that I had been advocating and had
been called an anarchist for advocating had
been made, respectable by being advocated in
high places; I enumerated several things that
bad been taken from our platform, but assured
the banqueters that I did not speak of these
things in a complaining way. Our platform was
made for use and If we can not get a chance to
use it,. wo are glad to have any one use it who
will.
It rejoices me to see our opponents joining
w,ith .us In the support of these reforms. It re
joices me so much that if I can not take back
what I have said about the republicans I do not
feel like saying it again. In fact, I am about
In the position of the young fellow who courted
his girl for a year before he had the courage to"
propose to her; one evening he made bold to fell
her that he loved her and to ask her to marry
him. She was a very frank sort of a girl and
replied: "Why, Jim, I have been loving you
for all" these many months and I have just been
waiting for you to tell me' so that I could tell
you."x Jim was overcome with delight; in the
fulness of his joy, he went out and, looking up
at the stara, exclaimed: "O Lord, I hain't got
nothin' agin nobody." That is the way I am
beginning to feel, and it is mighty nice to feel
that way after so many exciting campaigns.
I am glad to come over into New Jersey
and join with these democrats and republicans
who are more interested in carrying out an idea
than they are in winning a barren victory for
any party. I am glad that there is a contest In
the 'republican party between the reformer and
. the standpatter. It "is a good sign and I can
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