People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1896 — Prices Before the War. [ARTICLE]

Prices Before the War.

I saw in The Record of Aug. 24 a letter from a Mr. Jonn Smith of Bloomington, 111., in which he said in 1860, when all the money in use was as good as gold, a workingman earned 81.50 a day. He failed to say, except wildcat money. Not only that but he failed to say that that workingman was a mechanic, and that at that time common farm labor got only 30 to 40 certs a day. In 1853 my father came from the state of New York to Dekalb county, Illinois, and worked by the day that season. The next three years he rented a farm and gave onethird of the crop each year; the landlord furnished team and seed. In 1856 he paid his har vest hands the customary price, 50 cents a day, to bind after a cradle. He sold corn for 7 cents a bushel. Pork was worth only 1.25 a hundred dressed. At the same time unbleached muslin was worth 134 to 15 cents a yard and a pair of little red-top boots for me cost $2.25. I was eight years eld. yet I carried 81 worth of sugar one and one quarter miles from Sycamore home many a time. In four years father saved enough to buy two yoke of oxen, two cows and a second-hand wagon, and had 828

in money. The money was good —it always is when it is so hard to get. In 1860 common labor got, as I say, 30 cents a day. Carpenters got 81.50. Prices of all kinds of produce and merchandise were about the same as in 1856. Corn was 7to 10 cents a bushel. Pork, dressed, was $2.25 per 100. Yet the money was gobd if it wasn’t wildcat. In 1861 the first two calls for troops were filled principally by men who thought 813 a month was a big price, but in 1865 the mechanic who got in 1860 81.59 in 1865 got from $3 to 85 a day. Common farm labor was from $1 to 81.50, and harvest labor—the same that father paid 50 cents a day in 1856—was in 1865 $2 to $2.25 a day. In 1866 with that same bad money earned at the same rates of wages as in 1865 I bought as good a suit of clothes for 820 as I got last winter for 817 with money just as good as gold,

Besides in 1865 I had all the work I could do, and ready cash for it, whereas iu 1895 I could get but little to do and had to take wood, coal and store orders for most of that. Yet the money was good—it always is when you have to do so much for a little of it. With that bad money of 1865 to 1873 my father bought and paid for a good 100-acre farm besides making a good living. According to Mr. Smith mon e y is bad when a workingman can get good work, good wages and the cash for it, but very good when there is neither work, wages nor money to pay for labor, W. L. Smith. London Mills, Aug. 29.

The fixed price of gold—ln a recent number of The Record I read some remarks by Mr. Hanna. Among other things he says: “I am of the opinion that natural laws will take care of the parity between gold and silver. The increased production of gold will decrease its value, and the disparity between it and silver in the next five or ten years will not be as great as it is now.” I have heard other men say that the rapidly increasing production of gold will soon settle the parity question. There are a good many men who are anxiously looking to that source for relief from this vexatious question. But is it not a false hope? Is not Mr. Hanna mistaken? As I understand it, free coinage of gold, as it is now exists in the United States means that any miner or any one else who has gold may take it to a United States mint and have it coined into United States dollars at the rate of 820 (in round numbers) for every ounce of gold. Therefore the United States government practically has not a standing, open offer to any one who has gold to sell to bring it to her mints and get S2O an ounce for it. Now as long as the United States government has a standing offer to any one to bring any amount of gold to her mints and receive pay at a fixed price, is the value of gold going to fall below that price? Will it make any difference in the price of gold or in the disparity between it and silver whether 8200,000,000 or 8400, 000,000 are finned this year, or the next, or the next? If the leading nations should cease to

coin gold, or if they should cease to coin it for the gold-owners, and should simply buy their gold of them at its commodity value and the governments baye the seigniorage, then, of course, increased production would bring decreased price, but while the present arrangement continues is there any chance for the price of gold to decrease, however much the production may increase? Of course an increase in the amount of money in circulation. be it silver or gold will decrease the purchasing power of that money and thus enhance the prices of all commodities, wheat, iron, silver or anything else, and in that way the value of silver may slowly rise, but how long will it take to overcome half of the present disparity between gold and silver if we fix gold at 820 an ounce and wait to bring silver up to it by thus enhancing its commodity value? Will the disparity be affected to any appreciable extent by that cause in -five or ten years. H. G. Colman. Kalamazoo, Mich., Aug. 26.