Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1899 — THE PEOPLE'S MONEY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE PEOPLE'S MONEY

England’* Conquest of (Jo. I see som* one says that England about owns this country and la now furnishing us a policy of conquest You ran arrive at it by examining oar exports. Since 1873 our excess of exports over Imports of all kinds has been $3,516,100,295, which means that wo should have received that much In money, gold and silver, in return. When you examine the tables of gold and silver for the same period you find that the net result Is not an Importation of gold and silver to ns in payment of our merchandise, but that we have also exported for the same period $392,000,000 of gold and silver In excess of that Imported. What does all this mean? It means that practically four billion dollars’ worth of our cereals, gold, silver, etc., has gone mainly to England, to pay interrat on bonds and dividends on their American stock. We have In twenty-five years given them four billion dollars’ worth of our exports, for which we have received nothing. The wretched financial policy England gave us has lowered the exchangeable value of our breadstuff! with their money till we can never hope to pay the principal on the debt we owe their money-changers. Talk about conquest! They have cunningly exploited us! We are becoming English slaves! Moses said: “If yon want to destroy a people loan them money.” And Rothschild & Co. are acting on his advice. To one who can sea clearly the current of events, England’s peaceful conquest of the United States Is what we should be discussing. The poor Filipino Is to be pitied, but so is the proud, vanity-bitten nation, tumbling to its fall unless broad-minded statesmanship shall come to the front. —John B. McDowell, in Chicago Journal.

Depressing Fffect*. The depressing effect of the gold standard on the industries of the land is such that only an extraordinary conjunction of most favorable circumstances, such as crop failures abroad and unprecedented home crops for two years, has been able to stay for the moment tbe downward course of prices and torn a scanty flow of gold to our shores. But for these strange and conclusive facts prices would be lower than ever, and bond issues to maintain gold redemption the order of the day. It seems as though Providence, seeing we were madly determined on self-de-struction, interfered wonderfully to prevent it. An unparalleled excess of exports over imports of over one billion dollars in two years is due mainly to our vast agricultural exports, nearly nine hundred millions of dollars’ worth of which was sent out the last fiscal year. This, under a wise money system, would have sent a most wonderful flood-tide of prosperity throughout our land, blit, as it is, it has simply arrested the fall of prices for the moment by adding slightly to our gold currency. The bulk of the vast sum due us was kept back to be paid on our foreign indebtedness that has been doubled under the gold standard. What would have been our financial condition if, instead of big crops to fill a Mg foreign demand, we had had poor crops and no foreign demand? It can be better imagined than told.