August 16, 1890





Record and Guide.





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Vol. XLVI.





AUGUST 16, 18S0.





No. 1,170





THE tightness of the money market has again brought a chorus
of expostulations against Secretary Windom's cautious pur¬
chases of bonds; but, unless money becomes so scarce that some
heroic action is necessary, it is hardly likely that the Secretary
will adopt a more liberal policy, when the future of the govern¬
ment's finances is so precarious. With money as tight as it is,
however, it is not reasonable to expect an immediately advanc¬
ing market; and if this course is not enough to keep prices in a
rut for some time, the uncertainty as to the corn crop would be^
sufficient to compass that result. Speculators have, perhaps,
over-estimated the effect of the smaller production of wheat and
the other cereals. Ultimately the earnings of some of the granger
roads will undoubtedly be affected by it; but, if the price of
farm products so advances that the farmers can get an equal or
larger money equivalent for a smaller amount of product, the
trade in other commodities will help these railroads out. It will
take, however, either some very good or some very bad news to
relieve Wall street of its present dullness. And for the present
there seems to be no probability of either.





CERTAINLY one of the most depres-sing factors in the present busi¬
ness situation is the uncertainty which tariff tinkering is caus¬
ing in many lines of business. Instances of the disturbing effect of
these changes are numerous. The House tariff bill put a duty f>ii the
importation of pearl buttons that was practically prohibitory.
Europe was immediately ransacked in consequence for pearl
buttons ; and in the last two months sufficient stock was imported
to last five years without making another button. Prices have
doubled at the same time. Buttons which were selling at 22
cents per gross are now being marketed at 50 or 60 cents.
Nobody will get any advantage from this, except a few speculative
importers. The same game was being played with linen thread, on
which the House bill put high duties. Merchants began at once to
import linen thread, but when a few of our manufacturers issued a
circular stating that they would guarantee, duty or no duty, that the
price of domestic linen thread would not advance a single penny
in the next four years, the Senate Committee having obtained the
circular, saw that an increase of duty would do no good to such an
industry and took it off. What uncertainties are caused by this
tariff legislation, and who will or will not be benefited by it may
be judged from such examples as these. It is not a cheerful matter
to think that there are still before us a good many years of this
tinkering.





IT is to be presumed that at the meeting of an organization con¬
stituted for a definite purpose the leader of that organization
will, in his official speech, tell his comrades what progress had been
made towards tbe attainment of that end. If this be true, the only
conclusion we can draw from Gen. Alger's speech before the
Graud Army of the Republic is that that organization has degen¬
erated into d body of pension-grabbers, whose sole aim is to
exploit their own services as citizens and their countrymen's
gratitude into cash annuities. We say "degenerated," because
the Grand Army of the Republic was originally organized with
quite a different object. It is natiural and desirable that soldiers
who had successfully brought to a close a long and stubborn war
should wish to crystaUize the relations subsisting among them by
some permanent association. It was with this intention that the
Grand Army of the Republic was originally formed, but, if any
further proof was necessary. General Alger's speech clearly shows
that it maintains its existence at present only to bring political
pressure to bear on a parcel of demagogic Congressmen to grant
them further subsidies from the Treasury. The present Congress
has passed laws which will bring the total pension expenditure up
to the outrageous sum of $150,000,000 per annum. Yet, after this.
General Alger has been obUged to say: " I am aware that many are
disappointed, but the committee has been powerless to accomplish
more than has been already done." What in the world do these
men want ?   The expenditures for pensions a hready nearly triples the





total expenditure oi the government before the war, and, if used
to borrow money with, would pav interest on a sum two-fifths
greater than the whole of the debt incurred by the war. But Gen.
Alger has some consolation to offer us for our expenditure. Says
he: " Large as this sum is, it is a great gratification to know that it is
distributed among our own people. Four times a year this money
goes to all parts of the country. There is not a community which
does not feel its influence and to which it is not a help. It pays
the necessary bills to the merchant and the farmer, who in turn
are enabled to pay their debts, and so on. While these are not
reasons for paying pensions, they are a source of consolation to the
people who bear the burden." This is the first time we have ever
seen it claimed that it would be a " source of consolation" to one
person whose money has been (what shall we say) taken from him
that it is used to pay some one else's debts. Wall street would be a
good field in which to preach this cheerful doctrine. Let Gen*
Alger go to Mr. Speculator A., who has been relieved of $50,000 by
a philanthropic fiuctuation in sugar trust certificates, and point out
to him what a great blessing this little ejum will be to Mr. Specu¬
lator B., who had sold the sugar certificates. Mr. B. can now pay
his tailor, his landlord, and the numerous other people to whom he
owes money. It is true that Speculator A.'s tailor, etc., might
have to go unpaid; but this would be a small matter to anyone
not the tailor. It seems a pity that the pension-receivers should
not have tbis consolation also. Gen. Alger ought to have urged
them to keep the money to pay other people's debts.





THE failure of the strike on the New York Central Railroad is
pretty certain, once more for a time, to fill the air with the
idea that the power of labor organizations is well-nigh broken, so
prone are people to snatch at liasty conclusions and accept judg¬
ments from the superficial appearance of things. In this they will
surely receive considerable assistance from the daily press. No
tmprejudiced person, however, who has followed the history of
labor organization during the past fifty years or longer is likely to
be fooled into allowing a little fact right before his eyes to cut
from his vision the larger facts that are beyond, or permit himself
to be made, in Bismarck's phrase, a " victim of current history."
Labor, at any rate, is not at all likely to make the mistake. It
appreciates to the full the difference, wherein is the quick of the
matter, between the failure of organizations and of organization.
The Knights of Labor, the Chivalric order of Hodcarriers, the
Brotherhood of the Noble Company of Pants-makers,- or by what¬
ever other fantastical appellation organizations choose to announce
themselves, may make mistakes, lose authority, coherence, and
pass utterly away amid the derision of Capitalists, who have a keen
sense for that sort of thing, without to the smallest extent shaking
the trust of the '"working class" in organization. The material
benefits they have obtained by this means are too manifest, for
them at any rate, to question.





IT is, of course, impossible to say positively whether the action
of the New York Central authorities in discharging certain
of its employes, which led to the trouble, was or waa not intended
as a broad hint that the managers of the road regarded the Knights
of Labor, and other similar organizations as well, with an unfriendly
spirit. They probably did, despite the lofty tone of indifference
adopted by certain officials; and if this be so, to play at " not
knowing" an organization, of consequence enough to be secretly
obnoxious to the company, is apiece of foolish affectation, for if
the employes of the railroad or a laige number of them, belong to
an organization, are guided by its laws, and are willing to loyally
abide by its decisions, the open recognition of it or of its accredited
representatives is surely merely a matter of form. Despite them¬
selves the company miiat recognize such an organization, if they be
merely aware of its existence aud know of its power, for it is only
in the nature of things that they will surely deal somewhat differ¬
ently with an employe whose cause may be taken up by an
association to the paralyzation of traffic, and a single powerless
individual. No corporation is hankering after even a successful strike
in which they gain all their " points," and so far as skilled labor is
concerned " new hands," however welcome they may be in an
emergency, do not and for a long time cannot really fill the places
of the "old hands." There is no doubt that labor organizations
have not infrequently been imjust in their demands and ignorant
and tyrannical in their actions; but this is not sufficient to
make a case for their utter condemnation. Employers them¬
selves have not been always exactly saints. If the matter is
looked at fairly and without prejudice it cannot be denied that
labor organizations have become a permanency in the social system;
have on the whole worked for the bettering of the masses and are
destined in the future to be of more importance and beneficence
than ever. Like other new institutions they will have to meet
much opposition and justify themselves to mankind by wisdom and
honesty of purpose. Official recognition by this corporation or that
is perhaps a secondary matter. In the present case of the New
York Central it was not w(»rth the pains taken to attain it.   The