LABOR DAY IN CORTLAND

Cortland Evening Standard, Saturday, September 2, 1893.

Labor Day.

   The legal holiday, Labor day, will be observed in Cortland Monday, many of the business places closing their doors, and the postoffice being closed all day, excepting between the hours of 7 and 10 A. M., and 5 and 7 P. M. The last mail will close at 7 P. M. The STANDARD will give its employees a holiday as will also a number of the shops which are running.

   The City band has rented the Floral Trout park, where an excellent program of athletic contests and music will be given. Arrangements are now completed and if Monday is as pleasant as it is hoped it will be, the band expect one of the most successful entertainments it has ever held.

   The parade will be formed at 1 P. M. on the corner of Church and Court-sts., headed by the band, and followed by all the labor organizations in town. All others are invited to fall into line with them. The barbers, cigar makers, moulders, bricklayers and carpenters will be in line, and it is the duty of every member of a labor organization to turn out and assist in making the day a memorable one.

   The line of march will be down Church to Port Watson to Main to Clinton-ave., to Church, then to Port Watson and to the park. The program of athletic exercises will consist of a baseball game between members of the barbers' union and City band, a 120-yard foot race, bicycle race for boys under 16 years of age, tub races, and a potato race, open to all. Suitable prizes will be presented to the winners. At 4 o'clock the City band, under the direction of Mr. Charles Bates, will render the following selections:

   Columbian Potpourrl, Coates

   Overture—Village Life, Dalbey

   Cornet solo—Old Folks at Home, Bellsledt, P. Conway.

   Descriptive Fantasia—Dance of the Goblins, Lorraine

   Baritone solo—Vacant Chair, Rollinson, Chas. Maas.

   Medley—Salute to Erin, Coates

   Piccolo duet—Golden Robin Polka, Messrs. Graham and Ball.

   Virginia Skedaddle, Rosenfeld

   Dancing to the music of Daniel's full orchestra will commence at 8 o'clock and continue during the evening. Everybody is cordially and earnestly invited to take an active part in all the exercises and amusements of the day.

[We copy articles as they were printed, past rules of grammar and spelling included—CC editor.]

Seal of the Knights of Labor.

Labor Day.

[Exchange.]

   It is rather, a peculiar labor celebration in the United States this September. In New York city alone 100,000 workingmen are out of employment and a proportional number in the smaller cities. What a parade these men could make on Labor day! In city and village benevolence is taxed almost to its utmost to provide for the hungry. Farmers have been levied on for food and have responded generously. If Labor day celebration came in Great Britain at the same time with ours, the situation there would not be much better, for the opening of September sees the melancholy results of a strike which has kept 300,000 miners idle a month and many others longer than that. There was actual suffering for lack of coal and various industries were paralyzed for weeks.

   Thus somewhat grimly Labor day dawns. Nevertheless let it be celebrated with music and the display everywhere of our national flag from windows, doorposts and in processions. These hard times cannot last much longer. The thousands of unemployed workingmen who will parade the streets with noise and many banners of strange device will be an object lesson millionaires may well remember. It is not their fault directly that poor people are hungry, but it is their fault directly that they do not study economic science and that they care for nobody except themselves. It looks not well just now to see a many millioned man building a pleasure yacht whose gorgeousness exceeds that of Cleopatra on the Nile. Millionaires more than poor people need to remind themselves constantly of that brave motto adopted by the Knights of Labor, "An injury to one is the concern of all."

   In connection with Labor day parades it is interesting to know that among the marshals for the occasion in New York city are said to be three noblemen—a duke, a baron and a count who work for their living in a riding academy there in various capacities, from that of groom to instructor. They went on strike for higher wages some time since and won; therefore are they fitting martyrs and leaders for the labor cause, although ordinarily labor would scorn to associate with them.

   During labor week, too, the world's profit sharing congress holds its meeting in Chicago. Those who think they have thought out a plan for relieving poverty by enabling workingmen to share in the profits made for employers will lay the result of their study before the people. Among them is that fine, ever youthful enthusiast of 70, Dr. E. E. Hale of Boston. Eminent economists from France and from England will also speak. If they can furnish even a partial solution to the situation, they will be welcome. They are welcome anyhow, because they have tried to do so.

Sen. John Sherman.

Sen. William Peffer.

PAGE TWO—EDITORIALS.

Senator Sherman's Speech.

   The recent speech of Senator Sherman on the bill repealing the silver purchase clause has attracted wide and well deserved attention. The senator is a high authority on all matters relating to finance and is always listened to respectfully even by those who do not agree in all respects his conclusions. In his great speech of last Wednesday he directed attention to the fact that a year ago he introduced a bill worded almost the same as that now under discussion, but the Democrats who are now posing as the champions of the proposition refused to aid its enactment. The senator then favored the repeal, and had not since changed his mind. Yet he did not think that the financial depression was due wholly to the government purchases of silver. The troubles came in part from the fear that the government would open its mints to the free coinage of silver. That was the real issue and the only one which justified an extra session, for the purchasing of 18,000,000 ounces of silver during the months before the regular session did not involve a danger great enough to warrant the earlier convening of congress. What the country wanted was assurance that free coinage would not be authorized, and that both gold and silver would be continued as money.

   But the senator wished it understood that he did not favor repeal with any idea that it would, "in any considerable degree, relieve us from the industrial stagnation that has fallen on all kinds of industries, and that has thrown out of employment hundreds of thousands of men and women." The Democratic "tariff reform" proposition he considered responsible for most of the trouble, and he appealed to the majority to "avoid doing anything that may endanger the interests of the country, or stop any industry that is now profitably conducted." Prosperity, he affirmed, will not return so long as there is a menace of injurious tariff legislation.

   Not the least interesting portion of the senator's speech was that referring to the legislation of 1873 and the falsehoods that have been circulated concerning it. He declared that "there has never been any bill freer from immoral or wrong influence than the act of 1873," and he boldly stood by his share in it.

   The senator favored a measure authorizing the government to issue bonds in any emergency which would make such a course advisable. He was willing to trust the Democratic executive officers to that extent, and if the Democratic senators were not, he would consider it a strange attitude in political affairs. He would give the administration the power to protect the credit of the government at home and abroad, at all times and under all circumstances.

   The soundness of Senator Sherman's views, says the Troy Times, cannot be successfully questioned. He is right in saying that repeal of the silver-purchase law, concerning which there has been such a radical change of Democratic sentiment within a year, will not bring all the relief that the country needs. With it must come the assurance that there will be no radical legislation hostile to American industries. To assert this is not to indulge in calamity howling. It is the part of wisdom to state the facts as they appear, and one fact is that the industries of the country do not agree with the Democratic declaration that the industrial millennium would follow the adoption of a tariff for revenue only.

   The Cincinnati Times Star has been taking the dimensions of the senior United States senator from this state with great success and accuracy. Here they are: "The distance between the great Conkling, who was an imperial senator from the Empire state, and the little Hill, who is now playing the role of bow-wow to the Kansas Peffer, is as great as is that between eternity and time. From Marcy, Seward, Morgan and Conkling to Hill is a step from a company of lordly lions to a pismire."