great bulk of the boasted advance in Gould securities consists of
wind pumped in by the "pulls"; but just the same the American
people will be bled to pay dividends on this speculative
boodle--both patrons and employees will suffer that interest
may be collected on "invested capital" which never had an
existence. But even were the dispatches true, what must be said
of a "business revival" that reduces wages, that adds enormously
to the wealth of the plutocrats while making economic conditions
harder for the great mass of the American people? The general
trend of wages is downward, while the cost of living is enhanced
by the Dingley tariff and the advance in flour caused by foreign
crop failures. Why? Because, despite the pumping of the
Republican press about the "return of prosperity," the country is
full of idle men, and the inevitable tendency of the gold
standard and high tariff is to increase their number and further
lower wages by the pressure of these people for employment.
Railway securities have advanced a little despite the repressive
effect of Republican policy, have beaten up somewhat against the
adverse winds, impelled by speculators whose vis vitalis was the
crops of the country--the great bulk of which were produced by
men who voted for Bryan. The necessary sequence of an
appreciating standard of value is depreciation in the selling
price of property, whether such property be Gould securities or
Irish potatoes; while a high tariff inevitably reduces tonnage
below what it would otherwise be--chisels a yawning hiatus into
the revenues of every American railroad. This fact is so
self-evident that it may seem unnecessary to say more on the
subject--that arguing the matter were like wasting time proving
that water is wet; but as a number of Republican papers are
having a serious of violent epeliptoid convulsions because I