151PLE REMEDY
ONE OF THE WAYS TO CURTAIL
OPERATIONS OF TRUSTS.
HOME PATRONAGE PRINCiPLES
Systems That Oppose the Advance
ment of Rural Towns and Agri
cultural Communities.
Never before have the people of the
country been so awakened to the im
portance of home protection as they
are at present. The wide knowledge
spread by means of the public press
as to the operations of the great trusts
and how the masses are made to serve
the more favored classes is having its
effect. The residents of agricultural
communities are beginning to realize
the dangers of business concentration
in sections of the country dominated
by the capitalistic classes. They are
fast becoming aroused to the truth
that this concentration is a menace to
the prosperity of the nation, and di
rectly affects every producer, every
laborer and every citizen of the coun
try who depends upon his work for
support.
The building up of great trusts com
menced less than a score of years ago.
At the same time there were other
systems inaugurated that tended to
wards robbing the home towns of
business and concentrating this busi
ness in the large cities. One of these
systems, most notable in its injurious
operations and its force to draw
wealth from communities where it is
produced, is the mail-order system of
business. None will say that this sys-
tem is illegitimate, but no economist
can show wherein its principles are
sound. By the system communities
are impoverished and kept from pro
gressing. He who will give study to
the basis of country development will
see that it is the labor employed that
not alone enhances the value of the
farm lands, but builds tip the towns.
When there is little to employ this la
bor, th ■ result is depression, stagna
tion and non-progress. The great evil
of the mail-order system which has
grown up, is its taking away the
means lhat small towns have of em
ploying labor, and the drawing from
■each community the profits in com
mercial transactions that represents
the wealth that is procured. It is
•sophistry to claim that the resident of
a community who sends his money to
a foreign town and saves the ten per
•cent, that may represent the home
merchant's profits, is not. a factor in
impoverishing the community. While
the saving may remain in the com
munity the employment of labor essen
tial to every business is given to the
foreign place, and the home town is
robbed of this employment giving
power.
Every dollar that is sent away from
a community where it is produced
•either b>' the tilling of the soil, by the
growii \of live stock, by the work of
the daj laborer, or by the storekeeper,
impoverishes the community to that
•extent, and this dollar ceases to be
any factor in the advancement of the
community. Presuming that there are
in a community 2,000 people, suppose
that each one of these 2,000 people
send away to some foreign place SSO
per year. This in the aggregate is
SIOO,OOO per year that goes to the sup
port of a foreign town. Suppose that
• each one sending his money away
saves ten per cent.; the savings for a
year would be $5, and in ten years SSO.
Look at the other side —$100,000 busi
ness per year would support in the
Thome town five good stores. Each one
of these stores would give employ
ment to a number of hands. The small
percentage of profit that would be
made would be retained in the com
munity and be invested in new enter
prises. Year after year there would
".be a continual increase in the pros
perity of the town, and the building
up process would add to the value of
all the town property, and to the
farms within the trading radius of the
town. While by sending away the
farmer would in ten years' time save
but SSO, whereas by patronizing the
home town the profits that would
come to him in substantial increase
in real estate values would be ten
times this amount. The building up
of the town would improve the home
market, affording every producer on
the farms better prices for all his pro
duce.
Then there is another thing, the
•town supports the churches, the
schools and other public institutions.
The efficiency of these institutions are
dependent upon the life and activity
of the town. Where poor towns exist,
the schools do not receive the support
that is necessary to make them good,
neither are the churches of the high
standard they should be. Home pat
ronage means good schools, good
■churches and all conveniences that
add to the pleasure and enlightenment
•of a people.
All the residents of a community
have common interests in it —the
hanker, the lawyer, the doctor, the
merchant, the farmer, the day laborer
•—all have equal interests. Thus we
find that a community is in reality a
large cooperative assembly. What is
interest to one is of material inter
est to the other. But more important
than all is that by a practice of the
bome patronage principle the possibili
ties of building up trusts for the con
trol of industries of tne country are
reduced to the minimum; in fact, a
strict adherence to this simple princi
ple of building up and protecting home
industries precludes the building up
of harmful trusts and combinations.
D. M. CARR.
SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES.
Two Vital Things for the Welfara of
the Masses.
There is wisdom in the old slogan,
"A school on every hill top and a
church in every valley." Citizens of
the United States may well feel proud
of the great educational system which
makes it. possible for all classes to ac
quire the proper mental cultivation.
They may also feel proud of the re
ligious liberty that each and every
citizen enjoys. There is no estab
lished church to Interfere with the
free exercise of conscience, neither is
there any law that interferes with the
exercise of religious belief.
The United States can be looked
upon as a nation where schools and
churches flourish to the fullest. The
public school system is one of the
most perfect that civilization has yet
evolved. Of course there are com
munities where local conditions are
not so favorable for schools as other
places. It will be observed that the
more important is the city or the
town, the more advanced are the edu
cational facilities offered the people.
The residents of rural communities
have their state or district school, the
curriculums of which are restricted.
It is to the nearby town that the chil
dren who are residents of the farm
districts must look for their higher
education, which is a necessary prep
aration for entry into college, and for
business life. How important it is,
then, to the resident of the farm dis
trict that his home town be an active
place and of sufficient business im
portance to justify the maintenance of
a high class school! It can be seen
how each resident of a farming com
munity should be interested in the
home town and all that pertains to its
upbuilding, if on no other account,
purely on account of the educational
facilities.
Running parallel in importance with
the schools are the churches. The
hotter the home town the better are
the church buildings, and the greater
i« the talent that fills the pulpit. lioth
schools and churches have education
al qualities that should not be lightly
valued. They mean the highest men
tal and moral development, and upon
this development depends the good
citizenship and the advancement and
perpetuation of the nation.
OVERLOOKED OPPORTUNITIES.
Chances in Average Small Town for
Profitably Engaging in Business.
According to the United States cen
sus of 1900 there was produced in the
United States 1,29.'!,662,433 dozen eggs.
The same statistics give the annual
production of poultry at 250,623,114.
The butter made on farms each year
is in excess of 1,000,000,000 pounds.
The-cheese made on farms averages
about 20,000,000 pounds annually.
These statistics are interesting, and
with each farmer growing poultry and
eggs and making butter and cheese, it
hardly seems possible that such com'
binations as dairy trusts and egg and
poultry trusts could exist, but that
they do is nevertheless a fact.
Every small town in a farming dis I
trlct can command sufficient butter, I
egg and poultry trade to support a
prosperous exclusive produce estab
lishment. The practice has generally
obtained in agricultural districts of
storekeepers in various lines taking
farmers' produce in exchange for
goods. The produce thus received by
merchants is forwarded to the com
mission houses in the large city, and
these houses are factors that make it
possible to maintain trusts in the pro
duce business. It appears that if each
town had its exclusive produce estab
lishment to buy what the farmer has
to sell instead of the produce going
through the local stores, that better
prices could be paid the farmers and
the business made a most profitable
one if rightly conducted.
According to the natural laws of
business industry succeeds best where
advantages are most abundant. Thus
it seems that the produce offers a
most excellent field in the majority of
agricultural towns.
GOOD ROADS MOVEMENT.
Millions of Dollars Annually Saved to
the Farmers of the United States.
One of the most important move
ments that has been inaugurated of
recent years, and which has resulted
in wonderful benefit to the people is
the good roads movement. Within the
United States there are approximately
about 8,000,000 farmers. If during a
year each of those farmers can be
saved $lO in time, or in wear and tear
upon horses and wagons by means of
improved roads, it means a saving of
$80,000,000 annually; the truth is
that the improved roads that have
been built up the past half dozen years
through agitation of the good roads
movement saves each farmer in the
land from SSO to SIOO. Thus it can be
seen that the savings brought about
through this movement aggregate hun
dreds of millions of dollars each year.
Good roads are important to the
progressive town. This fact has be
come so recognized that wherever
there exists a live agricultural town
its citizens will be found to be staunch
advocates of road improvement, and
there is a civic pride and friendly corn
petition in the matter of having good
roads leading to the towns. The work
of road improvement has only fairly
begun. A number of state legislatures
have taken up the vrork and during
the next dozen years great changes
will be wrought as to the building and
maintenance of public highways.
Gave Much Work to Women.
The invention of the typewriter lias
given work to rnort lhaa 1,000,000
women.
CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 1907.
.j§ (L hiltlraw,
HtraDRMVE million American worn-
B en and children are work-
JH I ing in gainful occupations.
Three million of these la
l)or outside the home.
These women workers are
"ij.v handicapped by their
physical weakness and un
t'-K-r accustomed environment.
vSkK they have entered our
Jjfffjyj' sharply competitive Indus
li+SftSa trial system, and must
often take tip single-handed a strug
gle for existence in which the war
ware is no less sharp because the
weapons are the tools of manufacture
and the stake the supply or failure of
their daily bread.
The fact that they have been able
to do this without loss of virtue, and
with an increasing degree of justice
from the men who are their competi
tors and employers proves chivalry
to be something more than a beautiful
dream of the past.
The great army of men represent
ed by the American Federation of
Labor are pledged to the fulfillment
of these vows, not only by the ties
which tho human heart holds most
sacred, but by the fundamental prin
ciple underlying the organizations,
and the stern economical necessity
that gives persistence and force to all
their efforts.
Whose little ones gather the spools
and watch the endless threads of the
cotton mills, or run to and fro on
the countless errands of tlie great
stores? These are not the carefully
protected children of the capitalist or
professional man. The frail young
girl who stand 3 long hours behind
the counter or sacrifices health and
eyesight in some basement work room
is the daughter and sweetheart of a
wageworker. In proportion as the
conditions surrounding the working
man's life become less brutalizing, his
finer human sentiments urge him to
insist on the protection of those
bound to him by the tenderest of hu
man ties.
The labor organizations are not
only pledged to the protection of
women and children workers by these
most primitive and potent of human
ties, but by ideals that give deeper
meaning to the movement.
Economists assure us that wages
are largely determined by the stand
ard of comfort demanded by the
workers. The high standard of th*
American workman is threatened, not
alone by the competition of foreign
ers, unable to adopt it, but also by
the more insidious inroads due to
child labor, or to some forms of fe
male competition. 1 How is a child
whose immature mind and body have
been stunted by the deadening round
of machine tending to learn pride of
race or attain the manly vigor neces
sary to claim and defend the priv
ilege of his> class? Occasionally one
of exceptional strength may overcome
the difficulties of his youth, but the
majority grow up to reinforce that
class of incompetents, mentally, mor
ally and physically, who prove heavy
burdens within the unions, or with
out them menace their fellow-work
men more seriously by their short
sighted readiness to accept the lower
standard against which the unions are
struggling.
Dr. Englemann, in a recent in
vestigation of the health of women of
the professional and working classes,
finds that women who have undergone
the severe mental training necessary
for a professional career suffer much
less front the ills peculiar to women
than the working girls, with their
long hours of standing and confine
ment. Direct observers, like the Van
Vorsts, lay great emphasis on the uni
versally unsanitary conditions tinder
which women work, and the resulting
prevalence of anaemic and distorted
physiques. These women will be the
mothers of the next generation of
American workmen. The most ef
fective and far-reaching efforts to
promote class and national welfare
will begin with their protection.
In the closing paragraphs of an ar
ticle in the Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social
Science, Walter Macarthur says:
"The attitude of the American
trade unionist is that of appeal to the
spirit of independence and to a reali
zation of the truth that the workers
are themselves the sole repository of
power to better their lot. The solemn
lesson of history, to-day and every
day of our lives, is that the woriters
must depend upon themselves for the
improvement of the conditions of la
bor."
Aside from inherited incapacity for
organization, women have been de
terred from any systematic and per
sistent effort to beiter their condition
as workers by the feeling that their
employment was but a temporary ex
pedient, from which they would be re
leased by marriage. While this
must continue to be true of a large
number of women workers, still as a
class there can be 110 question of the
permanence of their position in the
industrial world or of the necessity
of developing the higher altruism
which shall prompt temporary work
ers to guard the interests of less for
tunate sisters, whose lives depend en
tirely on their conditions of work.
Notwithstanding these drawbacks to
organization on the part of the women,
their influence has not been entirely
wanting in the organizations of the
past. They were admitted on equal
terms with the men in the old English
crafts guilds, and seem to have re
ceived full recognition, both in the con
trol of the affairs of the guild and in
the consumption of ale.
Women's unions were not unknown
in the early annals of the English
trades unionism. We hear of them as
early as 183". To quote from history
by Sydney and Beatrice Webb:: "Nor
were the women neglected. The grand
lodge of Operative Bonnet Makers vies
in activity with the miscellaneous
grand lodge of the Women of Great
Britain and Ireland, and the Lodge of
Female Tailors asks indignantly
whether the Tailors' order is really go
ing to prohibit women from making
waistcoats. Whether the Grand Na
tional Consolidated Trades Union was
responsible for the lodges of Female
Gardeners and Ancient Virgins, who
afterward distinguished themselves in
the riotous demand for an eight-hour
day at Oldham, is not clear."
While women have been admitted
to membership in the older, more con
servative men's unions for over 20
years, their greatest advance in num
bers and influence has been during
the last ten years. To-day women not
only sit as members in the central
labor unions of the great cities, but
also exercise the full rights of dele
gates in the American Federation of
Labor. They have not received such
recognition in any other national or
ganization of men.
That this great central body has
complete faith in a wise use of what
ever power they may help put into
the hands of women is proven by tho
adoption' of the following resolution
in favor of woman suffrage, which
was introduced by Vice President
Duncan at the 1903 meeting:
"Resolved, That the best interests
of labor require the admission of
women to full citizenship as a matter
of justice to them and as a necessary
step toward insuring and raising the
scale of wages for all."
The labor organizations have dis
covered that the principles of union
ism are as applicable to consumption
as to production; they are trying to
influence the demand for the finished
product, as well as the condition un
der which it is made. They hope to
do this by means of the union label.
In the recently published prize essay
on the subject Macarthur says:"The
union label enlists and arms in labor's
cause those elements which determine
the issue of every cause in civilized
society, namely, the women and chil
dren.
In many places there are women's
union label leagues organized to pro
mote the demand for union-made
goods.
"The instincts of woman and the
interests of labor are conjoined in the
union label. Both stand for cleanli
ness, morality, the care of the young,
the sanctity of the home; both stand
against strife and force. The union
label makes woman the strongest, a3
she is the gentlest of God's creatures."
One has only to look over the rec
ords of the American Federation of
Labor to realize that the labor organi
zations are unqualified in their con
demnation of child labor. Over ten
years ago President Gompers declared
' the damnable system which permits
young and innocent children to have
their very lives worked out of them
in factories, mills, workshops and
stores is one of the very worst of labor
grievances, one which the trade unions
have protested against for years, and
in the reformation of which we shall
never cease our agitation until wo
have rescued them and placed them
where they should be, in the school
room and the playground." Since
then the president and delegates have
repeated and indorsed these senti
ments so often that, they are now
looked upon as axiomatic, the last
committee 011 the president's report
remarking, "that the child belongs in
the school ami on the playground in
stead of in the workshop and factory
is as well known and recognized by
those not blinded by personal inter
ests as is the multiplication table."
1 Balcom & Lloyd. |
H ; WE have the best stocked
tk general store in the county 81
and if you are looking for re
„' r liable goods at reasonable
fv prices, we are ready to serve *
you with the best to be found.
Our reputation for trust- Bj
B worthy goods and fair dealing
is too well known to sell any 9
U Our stock of Queensware and g|
® Chinaware is selected with 8j
great care and we have soma
M of the most handsome dishes ®
ever shown in this section,
both in imported and domestic
makes. We invite you to visit
us and look our goods over. J3
I i
jj 5
| Balcom & Lloyd, j
*mmtmrnm mmm mm m*± mm m mmmmmsikm mm A |J
|| LOOK ELSEWHERE BUT DON'T FORGET
II THESE PRICES AND FACTS AT |l
1 | LaBAR S||
N II M
M ' M
|i| We carry in stock ~ . ]
fcjj the largest line of Car- -,, |-|
mi pets, Linoleums and fi£_ [?Kg£<l5 fed
£3 Mattings of all kinds. j. 1- u
ever brought to this ' *jj
A very large line ot •FOR THE E~rsp |J
fl Lace Curtains that can- . A .*
| ™? P l™ y - COMFORTABLE LoD€fH€ 11
Art Squares and of fine books In a choice library
E2 Rugs of all sizes and select the Ideal pattern of Globe- P J
W kind, from the cheap- Wernicke "Elastic" Bookcase. sjß
Nest to the best. Furnished with bevel French
pj| plate or leaded glass doors.
»1 Dining Chairs, I roB •* Lt "* I
Rockers and GEO. J. LaBAR, J^|
fcjtf High Chairs. Bole Agent for Cameron County. kJ
112 i A large and elegant I——-—————————_J Pi
H line of Tufted and El
Drop-head Couches. Beauties and at bargain prices.
it!a |3O Bedroom Suits, COC |4O Sideboard, quar- C9fi It 4
P™ solid oak At 4>/0 tered cak 4>OU P*
»S2B Bedroom Suits, COI $32 Sideboard, quar- E3
solid oak at 4>Z! tered oak 47 Zj
- fflO M
Km solid oak at 4)ZU Cered oak, 4)10 $ 0
A large line of Dressers from Chiffoniers of all kinds and
H $8 up. all prices.
§1 J M
fci The finest line of Sewing Machines on the market, kg
the "DOMESTIC" and "ELDRIDGE.' All drop- gj
JJ heads and warranted.
A fine line of Dishes, common grade and China, in j
*2 se ts and by the piece.
Pi As I keep a full line of everything that goes top€
6 4 make up a good Furniture store, it is useless to enum- $4
crate them all. if
Please call and see for yourself that lam telling H
you the truth, and if you don t buy, there is no harm kg
done, as it is no trouble to show goods.
|i GEO. J .LaBAR. i|
TJISTDEFITAKLmO. #4
3