Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1898 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

HIGH OR LOW PRICES. The following question was asked of Mr. Owen, fusion candidate for Congress in Minneapolis: Supposing the present amount of money is doubled and that prices in consequence should increase in the same proportion, where would the benefit come in? For example: A now sells 1,000 bushels of wheat for $500; after the increase in money he gets SI,OOO for his wheat, but he can buy no more with his SI,OOO than he could with his $500? Mr. Owen’s answer was as follows: “If one is to spend his entire income as he goes along, gives no thought to accumulation, and is out of debt, it would make no difference, providing everything w’ent up ordown in exactly the same proportion. But no man is prosperous unless he sells more than he buys. The laborer must sell his labor for more than it costs him to live or he is ever a slave; the farmer must get more for his crops than it costs to produce them or he will be in the same fix; the merchant must sell more than he buys, including cost of doing business, or he will soon be a bankrupt. If a farmer sells 1,000 bushels of wheat for SSOO and expends in the operation S4OO he has SIOO left. If he gets double price for his w'heat and pays double expenses his balance is S2OO. If he is in debt, and that is the condition of most farmers, unfortunately, the difference to him is enormous, for he can pay twice as much debt with the same effort as under low prices. But it is not true that all products will advance exactly alike. Destroy trusts, for instance, and without that no monetary system will afford much relief, and many articles of necessity would not advance because they are already higher priced than they would be if competition obtained in their manufacture and sale. And again, processes of making many things the farmer has to buy are cheapening much faster than the methods of producing farm crops, and while more abundant money w’ould make the price of the first higher they would ever be relative to cost of production. Railroad transportation would not be higher, because it has not decreased locally with the decrease of price of commodities. Taxes would be no higher by reason of more money, for taxes have not decreased by reason of less money. And certain other fixed or arbitrary charges are in the same condition. But better than all figures and theories are the facts of history and experience, and they prove that prosperity Is always more general and trade and industry flourishing, the people more contented and happier in periods of high prices. At the close of 18G5 Hugh McCulloch, Secretary of the Treasury, reported officially “that the people are now substantially out of debt,” and that was after a period of excessively high prices and high taxes. There is no better test of the real prosperity of a people than their freedom from debt. In periods of high prices people can and do buy more, homes are better and-better furnished, and their inmates better clothed, deprivations and want are minimized, labor is better employed, merchants are busier, railroads have more to do, factories are crowded with work, and farmers are in their best estate. The world’s ages have been dark or light as money has been scarce or abundant, or prices high or low. No theories of those who now want to enslave the world’s producers by the bond method can dissipate these facts of history.”

Coinage Ratio. Why should the coinage ratio between silver and gold be fixed at 16 to 1? Because that is the proportion, as near as can be ascertained, in which the metals exist in the earth. It is, therefore, the true ratio. Although for several years the production of one metal at that ratio exceeds the other, yet in a long series of .years the total amount produced is very near sixteen times as much silver as gold, or at coinage value, about equal. The table of the production of silver and gold from 1741 to the present time shows that there was produced in that period 360,459,124 ounces of gold and 5,727,841,723 ounces dfc silver. Divide the silver by the gold and you will obtain as the result 15 8-9. That demonstrates that for the period of more than 150 years there was almost exactly 16 times as many ounces of silver produced as of gold, and that the coinage value of the same was about equal. Our gold friends tell us that the mint is open to the free coinage of silver in Mexico and ask why does not that establish the parity of the metals. They talk of Mexico as if it were a gigantic power. Do you know that the commerce of Mexico is not equal to that of the State of Illinois, and would you expect the State of Illinois, unaided by the rest of the States in the Union, to establish the parity of the metals? The reason Mexico does not establish the parity of the metals is because it is not sufficiently powerful In commerce to do so, but when you compare Mexico with the United States you compare apigmytoagiant. You must remember that this great nation is composed of forty-five great States, and that an act of Congress is simply an international agreement in itself among those forty-five great States. In determining what a powerful effect such a nation as the United States would have in establishing the parity of the metals, you must take into consideration the pivotal position that it occupies as to the monetary systems of the world. The silver standard nations, which make their demands upon silver alone for currency, constitute one-fourth of the nations of the world in commercial importance. Gold—Silver—Prosperity. A City of Mexico special to the Boston Herald says: “The general rise in real estate value is noteworthy. Many large industrial concerns are being established here, and large tracts of land near the railway have, in six months, quadrupled in price, while suburban lots -show a continual upward tendency. The city is growing as never before in its history, and electric traction street car lines are now being definitely assured, and all material bought. People are beginning to buy lands outside of city limits. The suburbs are all showing a healthy growth, and In the heart of the-city the tearing down of old buildings and replacing them with modern ones goes on without cessation. And this seems to be an example of conditions throughout the republic.” How Is it possible that a gold standard paper, in gold standard New England, can give publicity and credence to such reports about a silver standard country, a country of 50-ceat dollars?

How about that other country, composed largely of the same kind of people that inhabit Mexico, that gold standard country, Spain? A written answer is not necessary, everybody knows it. Only a little over a year ago the foregoing description would have applied to Japan as well as Mexico. Japan was a silver, or bimetallic, country, and was developing and prospering in a marvelous manner. She was buncoed into adopting the gold standard, and is now in the market as a heavy borrower of gold to relieve the severe business depression she is experiencing! Wat may distract attention from it for a time, scarcity of products may for a few months seem to disprove it, but the passing years proclaim with doleful emphasis that the gold standard Is a blight that withers wherever it strikes. Silver Remonetization. Republicans who are extremely anxious to convince the people that silver sentiment is dead are saying that “events have changed the conditions since 1890.” In what direction have the conditions been pression of the people because of the gold standard relaxed in any degree? Are the prices of real estate advanced? Has the farmer experienced any benefits not brought about by foreign causes, such as the famine in India and the short crop of wheat abroad? As a matter of fact, the necessity of bringing about the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 10 to \ is more apparent today than ever. And as another matter of fact, there are more people to-day in the United States who favor such a change than there were in 1890. In the south the silver question is very much alive, but not more so than in the west and northwest. So far as labor is concerned, the conditions are such as to demand the remonetization of silver. In this connection the Atlanta Constitution says: “In certain classes of labor—the cotton operatives of New England—wages I are in some instances below the pauper •

labor of Europe. A gold standard advocate will either not admit this or he will say that it is not a serious matter; but it is a very serious matter, indeed. By cutting off a part of our money supply we have suffocated demand in our home markets. To remedy this we have reduced wages to the European pauper level in order that we may compete with the products of this pauper labor in its own natural markets. Can that which gives the whip hand to misery, poverty, distress and degradation in this country be called a great victory for American trade?” No, indeed; silver sentiment is not dead, nor have events changed the conditions since 1896. The monetary question is the great issue of to-day and will continue to be the great issue until it is settled and settled right. ! ixteen to One or Bust, In response to a letter of inquiry written to Secretary Gage, the treasurer of the department at Washington states the total cost of the Spanish war from the beginning until August 31st after the close at $105,000,000. This is than half the amouut of the gold the McKinley administration is now hoarding in the treasury, yet it has had the hardihood to force an issue of $200,000,000 in bonds to draw interest from the scanty earnings of American labor! This money waß not borrowed for war purposes, but to prevent the circulation Of other money—of the $200,000,000 In Mr. McKinley’s Wall street “war chest.” The Wall street plutocracy compels the producers of the country to pay interest on one bond issue after another in order “to maintain the gold reserve”—that Is, to keep over $200,000,000 in gold locked up out of circulation in order to Increase the demand for and interest on national bank notes. A national bank note represents the extreme of inflation. It is 100 cents less than nothing. To demonetize silver and lock up gold in order to force the inflated and valueless paper of private corporations into circulation on the public credit is not only to invite but to compel panic after panic. For the business of the country—not less than for the Democratic party—it is 16 to lor bust! —St. Louis Journal of Agriculture. Japan Was Buncoed. There was no country in the world more prosperous than Japan, until she was induced to adopt the gold standard. When the usurers got their clutch on her throat, strangulation speedily ensued. “War indemnity” is not the trouble. Germany was prosperous until she fell under the gold standard. She conquered Austria and France and created the German Empire under the silver standard. Her troubles began when the usurers induced Bismarck to accept the gold standard. That great man bitterly repented what he called a great mistake, claiming that he had been misled by the “financiers.”— Cleveland Recorder. To V- hitewash A leer. It is quite just to call the committee appointed to investigate the conduct of the war “McKinley’s committee.” McKinley appointed the members of this committee to investigate the proceedings of Alger, who was also appointed by McKinley, and it looks as though the whole thing would be strictly a family affair. The whitewashing Job

baa begun. The Chicago Democrat feels justified to calling it a whitewashing job from the faet that a large working majority of the members of this committee is made np of strong administration partisans, and from the conduct of the committee since it arrived in Washington. It is alleged that all of the members of the committee seem to be “very friendly to the administration.” This is significant of the kind of verdict that will be rendered. Should the committee continue to work in secret it wHI demonstrate its inability to understand the temper of the people, and its findings will have little or no weight when they are made public. Too Bad Abont th; Incentive. Under a system in which all could have plenty they tell me there would be no incentive to work, says J. A. Wayland. A tenant who gets all the crop could have no incentive—he must give some rent lord half he raises for an Incentive! Or a man working for a dollar a day would have no incentive if he got $10.50. People who live in shanties would have no incentive to live if they were furnished good houses with all conveniences of science! There would be no incentive to board a train at one-fonrth to one-half cent a mile, instead of paying the railroad kinga 3 cents more. It is too bad about the incentive business. Reform Needed in Army AfFolra. The only way in which we can avoid a repetition of the misconduct of our armies in ease we again become involved In war is a reorganization of our military system on the latest and most approved lines of the science of warfare, and to absolutely eschew polities In its administration. We do not require a large standing army, but we do need a thoroughly modernized, unified system capable of standing any strain that may be put upon it.—Detroit Free Press. Just So. McKinley was elected President be cause he was powerless to do aught bu! the will of his masters. Of a quiet dis position, orderly and well disposed, he takes cave of his family, goes to church, and leaves Lombard and Wall streets to take care of the state. An Incredible Report. Washington dispatches state that Mr. McKinley is “considering an order changing the civil service rules so as to permit a large number of appointments without competitive examinations to

offices now uridei the civil service rule.” We shall not believe it unless we are compelled to. Such a change would be in direct violation to the party platform and of his own still more explicit voluntary public pledges.—New York Times.