Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1878 — New York Bulldozing. [ARTICLE]

New York Bulldozing.

The New York bankers have held several meetings recently, having for their purpose the agreement upon a plan of action with which the Southern and Western States are to be threatened unless they withdraw their support of the remonetization of silver. The plan includes : 1. No more sale of goods except on condition of payment in gold; 2. No credit or discounts to any Western or Southern banks, merchants, corp rations, or municipal governments, except on contracts payable in gold; 3. The refusal of all dealings with persons who will not make contract i to pay past and future debts in gold. This threat is to be sent all over the country as the determination of the men who claim to represent the “ center of capital.” Do these gentlemen think that the “center of capital ” is immovable ? Within tlie memory of even young men and merchants, New York was the “center of trade” in the United States, and every man who dealt in dry goods or groceries all over the land had to go to New York or send to New York to purchase his stocks. Times have changed. New York was once the center of the provision trade, and every pound of packed beef, pork, lard, bacon, and cut meats had to be sent to New York to be sold—both to the foreign and domestic markets ; but the center of the provision trade has moved a thousand miles westward. The day has long since gone by when the West and South depended on New York city. That city might be buried, and the business of the West and South would goon just the same. If the banka and merchants of New York shall insist that the capital gathered there shall not be employed in trade with the West or South, it is possible that that'capital will quietly find its way to the productive centers, and be invested directly among those who produce to sell and who buy to consume. There is no law that can compel capital to remain in New York one hour after the trade of that city with the producing sections of the country shall cease or be suspended, and if the city of New York proposes to suspend or refuse further commercial or financial dealings with the. exporters of $650,000,000 surplus products of their labor, the latter will probably find some other route to market, some other route to the open sea, some other point from which to obtain what they need, and some other part of the world in which to obtain the capital that they may need to handle what they produce. Now, if the New York banks and merchants want to get out their “black list,” let them do it. If they will not sell us dry gooffs, there are other places where we can buy them ; if they will not buy our bread and meat, let them go hungry. The people who produce more than they consume of human food have an open market the world over, and can find elsewhere all they need in exchange. Let New York get out its “blacklist;” it need not beat trouble to select the names; let it put down the people of the West by acres, townships, counties, Congressional districts, and States; let’ them put the people of twenty-six States under a commercial and financial interdict; let them advertise to the remotest parts of the earth that New York holds no commercial intercourse with the South or West; that the people of these sections refuse to pay any more debt or interest than is called for by the letter and terms of their contracts, and, when the railroads to New York shall become bankrupt, and the Erie canal become stagnant from disuse, aqffjhe banking buildings in Wall street will have inscribed in chalky whiteness Ater their dfeors the legend “To let,” then perhaps Mr. George W. Coe and his associates will discover that any attempt to bulldoze or intimidate a free and intelligent people must prove a failure.— Chiddfio Tribune.