While
the manufacturers do not deny that the cigarette is wrecking the
physical, mental, and moral character of the American youth, they
contend that it will prove detrimental to their business interests, and
thereby cause a loss of many thousand dollars if the Anti-Cigarette Law
is put into effect. Reliable statistics for the past three years show
that one hundred thousand children are ruined annually by smoking
cigarettes."
"Pittsburg, Pa.: The Steel Trust has made a general reduction in the
salaries of all its employees throughout the United States, which will
decrease the wages of the worker from ten to twenty per cent, and
affecting in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand men. It is
estimated that this sweeping reduction will save the Steel Trust
approximately twenty millions of dollars per year. Owing to the
manipulations of the Wall Street schemers, this saving becomes necessary
to keep the Trust in existence, as in the great merger of the several
different steel companies, the actual valuation of the plants was
increased one hundred times over in watered stock, so that it not only
becomes necessary for those who do the labor to pay dividends on bona
fide investments of the capitalists, but to pay dividends on watered
stock criminally increased one hundred fold besides. This decrease in
wages will cause great suffering among the laboring classes, for, owing
to the increased cost of living caused by the raising of prices by the
various food trusts, it is almost impossible for the ordinary man to
make both ends meet.
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