People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1896 — THE BENEFITS OF SILVER [ARTICLE]

THE BENEFITS OF SILVER

How Free Coinage Would Affect th* Farmer Who I* Mortgaged. [From The Cincinnati Enquirer.] How woi4d> the free and unlimited coinage of silver affect the farmer who has a mortgage farm? 2. How would It affect the one holding the mortgage? OHIO FARMER. 1. The only way in which a far-met usually raises money to pay his mortgage or the Interest on It is by selling his products. If these are constantly falling in price it is the same as though his mortgage and the interest on it were getting greater. In other words, it takes a greater number of bushels of his products to procure the same number of dollars. Suppose, instead of borrowing SI,OOO and agreeing to pay S6O a year interest the farmer had borrowed 1,000 bushels of wheat when wheat was worth $1 a bushel, and had agreed to pay sixty bushels of wheat per year interest. There then would have been no doubt of the fairness of the transaction. If he had borrowed it for ten years he would have delivered sixty bushels'of wheat every year, and at the end of ten years would have returned 1,000 bushels of wheat, and everybody would have said that he was an honest man. The farmer who ten years ago, nowever, borrowed SI,OOO and agreed to pay S6O a year interest, has found that he has had to give more than sixty bushels per year to pay his interest, and that if his debt is now due, it will take more than 1,000 bushels of wheat to procure SI,OOO to discharge the debt. In other words, year by year, the dollar has imperceptibly Increased in value until, within twentythree years it has become twice as valuable when measured in all commodities in general. The farmer does not understand how this has been done. He knows that it is very distressing to him, but if he objects he is told that he is an anarchist and a repudiator, and the man who demands twice the value he loaned is considered honest. The free and unlimited coinage of gold and silver would stop the fall in prices of farm products. 2. The lender of money should receive, when the loan is due, money whose purchasing power is the same as that which he loaned. He is entitled to no more; he should receive no less. The trouble witfo the gold standard is that year by year it has been giving an unearned increment to money lenders and holders of securities calling for a fixed number of dollars. We maintain that by using all the gold and all the silver we could get as money we should have a dollar whose purchasing power would not be. Increasing year by year, and thereby robbing the debtor. At the same time it would return to the creditor the full amount to which, he is justly entitled.