The repeal of the McKinley law in 1893 closed down factories and
manufactories by the hundred and deprived tens of thousands of American
workmen of employment.
UNDER THE OPERATIONS OF THE MCKINLEY LAW THE WAGE EARNERS OF THE UNITED
STATES WERE RECEIVING EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT A LITTLE OVER $41,000,000.
UNDER THE OPERATION OF THE WILSON LAW THEY ARE RECEIVING A LITTLE LESS
THAN $19,000,000 AS A SATURDAY NIGHT PAY ROLL, A FALLING OFF OF OVER
$22,000,000 PER WEEK TO THE WAGE EARNERS OF THIS COUNTRY.
If you ask me what has been the most unfortunate and appalling result
of this wonderfully shrunken pay roll, I will answer by saying that
American workingmen by the thousands have lost the roof that covered
their heads for themselves and families, have been turned into the
highways and are beggars to-day in the most unfortunate sense of
the word. The questions of free trade and protection however, have
practically been relegated into the background this year, and the
sixteen-headed monster of free silver pushed to the front.
FELLOW CITIZENS, FREE TRADE AND FREE SILVER ARE TWIN SISTERS OF INFAMY,
THE ASSERTIONS OF MR. HARVEY TO THE CONTRARY NOTWITHSTANDING.
It was the province of the Republican party four years ago to send forth
its protests and warnings against free trade, and to-day with equal
vehemence it is sending forth its warnings against destroying the high
standard of our nation's finance, and reducing this country to a second
class basis of silver monometallism.