Lack Of Employment

The manner in which a return to economie protection would restore the lost prosperity of this country is clearly set forth in a recent essay of Robert P. Porter, the distinguished statistician and investigator. Mr. Porter says that there are nearly 23,000,000 persons in this country engaged in gainful pursuits, thereby earning between. 11,000,000,000 and Y12,000,000,000 annually, during busy times. Theír incomes aggregated that amount up to the spring of 1893 and during the entire period of the McKinley law. What happened when these earnings were cut down from 25 to 60 per cent.? Mr. Porter tells us. The niiner who had been digging minerais either ceased to dig or found hi3 hours and pay shortened and his output diminished. The transportaron companies which had carried the raw material and maiiufaetured product passed tlieir divideitds and reduced expenses. The manufacturer slowed down and discharged a large proportion of his hands. With the increase in the number of idle men, the daily sales of the grocery stores, meat shops alnd dry goods stores feil off and more men were discharged from. employment. _ With less food purchased by the families of the idle operatives and clerks, the farmer, whose land had continued to produce in great abundance, found hi# income shortened and his margin of profit savings wiped out. His produce did not sell as it had been wont to do because of the lessened demand of people who were economizing. Naturally, with everybody else poor the doctors and.other professional men began to feel pinched, and to sum it all up the country had hard times. That is the condition today. What is the remedy? The Bryan shouters lay all the trouble to Wall street and teil the people to vote for free silver. But what good will free silver do if no one has a chance to earn it except the few wno nave Duiiion to sellt And what relation has silver to the causes of depression? We have very much more silver per capita in circuJation now than any country on a silver basis - $8.89, as against $4.54 in Mexico and $2.08 in China. While as for money of all kinds we have $24.33 per capita as against $20.78 in England and $17.59 in Germany. Henee it cannot be lack of money or of silver money whieh accounts for the prevailing distress. It must be lack of employnient, and for this Wall street has very little to answer. Wall street is not an employment bureau, but the protective tariff is. To that, as Mr. Porter points out, the idle workingman must look for his wage. Economie protection gives the miner, lumbei'man, sheep-raiser and farmer an outlet for raw material into the home market; the manufacturer works np the product and restores his pay roll; the employé moves into a largor house, improves his furnishings. dresses himself and family better and buys a greater variety of food; the custom of the tradesman returns, and in a little while the 23,000,000 bread-winners in this country are earning their original billions again and good times are once more in evidence. The whol process has been as logical as cause and effect. It is for this we plead on bekalf of every wage-earner who wants a return to the old prosperity, the lively business era of 1888-92. That cycle of plenty was due, not to abundant harvests, for we hava those now; not to foreign wars, for Europe was at peace: not to surplusage of money, for we have more coin now tkan then. The reason for it was that foreign sellers were kept out of the American market ia the interest of American industry. It follows, therefore, if we turu them out at the fall election and keep them out thereafter, the old conditions will come back and the United States will eease to be the tramping ground of idle workingmen and blossom agaia with the fruits of thrift and