People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1896 — Page 2

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OUR FARMING LAND.

WOEFUL DEPRECIATION IN PRICES THEREFOR. Mark Hanna and His Crowd of Labor Crushers Imagine That Declining Values Keep the Agriculturists—A Tell Tale Senate Report. According to the Senate report on “Agricultural Depression,” in Illinois improved lands fell from $20.81 in 1873 to sll.lß in 1892; wheat fell in the same time from sl.lO to 69 cents a bushel; cattle dropped nearly 60 per cent; horses and mules went below that; hogs fell 50 per cent, and sheep 33 per cent. In Nebraska improved lands have fallen more than 20 per cent since 1885 and live stock about 40 per cent. In Kansas the tenant farmers increased 30,563. In the Pacific and mountain states and the territories, the number of tenant farmers increased 20,350. In the Middle states the number of owning farmers decreased 42,304, and the tenants increased 24,075. In fifteen Southern states there was an increase’of 390,275 tenant farmers. The Middle West, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois gives evidence of the same change, and the group lost 31,259 owning farmers and gained 48,864 tenant farmers. In Illinois the tenants increased to 36.72 per cent of the whole. In eight states of the Northwest the number of tenant farmers increased 108,507. In Pennsylvania farm lands have fallen 25 to 30 per cent in less than twenty years. In the New England states, farm lands have fallen 30 per cent since 1875, In forty-seven states and territories the number of tenant farmers increased 699,337. In 1880, 25.62 per cent of the farms were cultivated by tenants, in 1890. 34.12 per cent of the farm families were ten ante. According to the report of the secretary of agriculture for 1893 the value o* ax average acre of wheat that year in the United States was $6.16, and the cost of raising it was $11.48 —a net loss to the wheat-growers of this country of $5.32 for every acre cultivated that year. The report also says the average annual value of an acre of wheat for the fourteen years from 1880 to 1893, inclusive. was only $9.73, while it cost to raise it per acre $11.48 —a net annual lose to the farmers of the United States of $1.75 for every acre of wheat produced since 1879. The same report shows that the cost of raising an acre of corn in 1893 was sll-71, and that the value of an acre of corn that year was $8.21.

How to Destroy Public Credit.

If the government .has been paying gold interest, it had that right by the original agreement, and it may hereafter pay silver interest by the same right. The option is in the government, and it has never been surrendered and never will be. How often must this be repeated before the goldites will consent to accept the fact? We have had enough Shylock talk about “public credit,” “good faith,” “honor,” "understandings,” “expectations,” and “suppositions.” The surest way to kill “public credit, good faith and honor” is to smash down the price of property, paralyze business, pauperize labor, bankrupt enterprise, and drive the people into poverty and despair; and that Is precisely the role the gold-yelpers are playing.—Chicago Tribune, January 16, 1878.

The Ancient Unchangeable Dollar.

A correspondent asks us why we give so marked a preference to the silver dollar of 371% grains of pure silver, and reject the proposed “Christiancy dollar,” or the “Blaine dollar,” or the trade dollar? We shall not undertake now to repeat or restate all of them. But the first reason is that the dollar of 371% grains pure silver has been the monetary standard or unit es value in this country from 1792 until 1873, a period of eighty-one years. It is the ancient, unchangeable dollar of this country.—Chicago Tribune, February 11, 1878.

The Silver Dollar the Unit.

The silver dollar was not changed. In 1792 congress enacted that 371% grains of silver should constitute the American dollar; that this dollar should be the unit of value of American money, and be a legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private. During the eighty years that followed, though the size and quantity of pure metal in the gold coins were changed more than once, the silver dollar, the American unit of value, remained unchanged.—Chicago Tribune, Feb. 23, 1878.

The Double Standard,

In the controversies with goldites it improper to point out and keep constantly in view the fact, which they are so anxious to blink, that this country always had the double metallic standard from 1792 till 1873, when silver was clandestinely dropped.—Chicago Tribune. Feb. 11, 1878.

The Tribune and Workingmen.

A laboring man would infinitely prefer to be set at work earning silver dollars than to starve waiting for employ' ment on a gold basis.—Chicago Tribune, January 9, 1878. • ' '"■"v—?-■ This campaign Is not so much a contest of political parties as it is a protest of a large majority of 70,000,000 of liberty-loving people against financial slavery.

GENERAL GRANT'S SON FOR BRYAN.

"If jdv father could vote today he would vote for Bryan for President of the United States." • The above words are from the lips of Jesse Grant, favorite son of Gen. U. S- Grant l lie son has left the Republican party just as bis father before him left the Democratic party when it made a compromise with the slave power. Iq his farewell to the Republican party Jesse Grant writes: * “I believe honestly in the great advantage to this country of the free coinage of silver. It does not mean repudiation of otrr debts at home or abroad, these debts will have to be paid in products, and anything, that will raise the value of them will, 1 believe, benefit all classes. “If we can double the price of a silver rupee we have doubled the price of the wheat that comes into competition with our wheat, and therefore double our wheat as to its debt paying capacity. The same argument holds good of the silver peso .of the Latin-American countries and the price (Of our meats and live stock. It holds good, too, in the silver ruble and the price of oil It holds good in many ways too numerous to •mention. “Instead ot foreigners purchasing the product of our silver mines at tffe rate of 70 cents per ounce, and with this silver buying produce, some of which comes in direct competition with our productions, from South America and the orient, they would have to pay at the rate of $1.29 per ounce.

The Only Honest Dollar.

The fight is to restore to its old place the wrongfully-ejected silver unit, viz.: the 371%-grain dollar. The (Chicago) Evening Journal pretends that it is in favor of silver remonetization. But how ? Why, it would bite off from a silver bar ’chunks each worth a dollar — in what? Why, gold! and each dhunk it would call a dollar until gold fluctuated and went higher, and then it would call in all the outstanding pieces, and bite off larger chunks of silver. But this would not be the American dollar at all, and that is just the point in the case. The old Spanish milled dollar of 371% grains was a standard dollar and unit of value in parts of this country from 169 D to 1773, when the Continental congress adopted it as the standard dollar, on which to Borrow money to carry on the revolutionary war. That war debt was incurred in dollars of that exact weight. The revolutionary debt was paid in silver dollars of exactly that weight. The debt of thte second war with Great Britain was incurred and afterwards paid in silver dollars of that exact standard. If anybody had called the money “a 91-cent dollar,” he would probably have been rotten-egged for his slanderous malice. —Chicago Tribune, Feb. 11, 1878.

Gold Standard Means Bankruptcy.

To undertake to do the business of the world on a single gold basis of measurement and equivalents means loss, bankruptcy, poverty, suffering and despair. Debts will grow larger, and taxes become more onerous. The farmer will receive small prices for his crops; labor will be forced down, down, down, and there will be a long series of strikes, lock-outs, and a suspension of production. Those who own proerty, but owe for it in part, vjill see their mortgage increasing in proportion as gold acquires new purchasing power, while the property itself will be shrinking in value. There will be no relief, it must be kept in mind — for gold will be the only recognized equivalent, of values, the stock of gold with its power will be constantly growing; and the circle of wealth will be uniformly contracting.—Chicago Tribune, Jan. 16, 1878

The Silver Dollar Ably Defended.

What is a whole dollar? Who says that a part of a dollar shall be a whole dollar or wants it to be? Four hundred and twelve and a half grains of silver is a whole dollar, and was so fixed by law in 1792. It never was anything else, never can be anything else under the law. Whether at present that weight of unlegal tender silver is worth as much as a gold dollar of 25 8-10 grains in London, no one cares. Four hundred and twelve and a half grains of silver coined and made legal tender is just as much a dollar as the gold dollar. —Chicago Tribune, Jan. 19, 1878.

It Is Now (1896) as Blind as a Bat Daylight.

The folly of advocating the single gold standard of moqey must be obvious to every one not blind as a bat in the daylight.—Chicago Tribune Jan. 5. 1878. The Indianapolis convention has been described as the “finest array of bankers, railroad men and attorneys for corporations and trusts ever got to-‘ gether.”

THE PEOPLE’S PILOT, RENSSELAER, IND., THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1896.

HILL FOR SILVER.

WRITES A LETTER TO THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION. He Advocated Independent Action for This Country—Prophea led Victory for the Adherent! of Free Coinage in 1806. “I am in favor of bimetallism as the issue of the future. We should seek to keep that issue to,the front. We should not strive for temporary success or compromise. We should be for free coinage under an international agreement, if it be possible to procure one, and, if not possible, then for independent bimetallism. This is the great goal for which we should strive. It cannot be done at once. Our friends must not be impatient. The people must be educated. The unexpected action of India and the general sentiment of the monied classes conspire against us at this time. Ido not believe in the Bland bill or any other measure which guarantees anything less than the unrestricted coinage for gold and silver alike, as pledged in the democratic national platform. Let us prepare not for the present victory, but for victory upon that issue in 1896. The repeal of the Sherman law will not give the relief which is anticipated. It will aid business temporarily, but in a year times will be hard, and the demand for permanent financial relief will be irresistible. We should continue to hold out free coinage as the goal which the country must ultimately reach. The triumph of the monometallists will be but temporary.”— Written on July 13, 1893, to the Atlanta Constitution, and published at Senator Hill’s request.

“As to repudiation, why, we have practb tally repudiated already if bankruptcy means failure to pay debts. Did you ever think of what an awful debt America owes today? Nineteen thousand millions of mortgaged indebtedness. All the gold and silver in the world would not pay one-third of this single item of mortgage indebtedness, and under our present arrangement of things the awful disparagement between the ability to produce and the power of money to accumulate interest makes the breach between this country and solvency grow wider every year. Prices go down, money going up. Interest eating, eating all the time, How can it ever be paid? The free coinage of silver 1 do not believe tq he a panacea for all our evils, but 1 do believe

Act Done Secretly and Stealthily.

In 1873-4, as it was two years and more later discovered, the coinage of this silver dollar was forbidden, and silver dollars were demonetized by law. This act, which was done secretly and stealthily, to the profound ignorance of those who voted'for it, and of the president who approved it, had, without the knowledge of the country, removed one of the landmarks of the government; had, under cover of darkness, abolished the constitutional dollar, and had arbitrarily, and to the immense injury of the people, added heavily to every form of indebtedness, public and private.—Chicago Tribune, Feb. 23, 1878.

Dollar Defined.

A dollar’s worth of silver is 412% grains Standard (with alloy), or 371% of pure silver. This standard weight was adopted by Congress in 1792, and has never been changed; 371% grains of pure silver constitutes exactly a dollar’s worth of silver. —Chicago Tribune, January 17,1878.

Silver Has Not Depreciated-

Silver, even as bullion, has not depreciated since it was demonetized, as compared with property or labor.—Chicago Tribune, February 6, 1878. Some people think It awful for this government to coin free the product of American silver ifilnes, but all right to coin free the product of the South African gold mines.

it a step in the rigHf “direction and for the best interest of the American people.” Signed, JESSE GRANT P. S. —Of course Mark Hanna asd his multi-millionaire campaign committee are calling Jesse Grant an anarchist, a repudiator, a thief and a scoundrel. Let the people vote Hanna and his crowd out of existence November 3d. If they don’t "they will never get another chance.

They Are Organized.

On Saturday, April 27, 1895, there was a banquet of bankers in this city (Chicago) at which Mr. William C. Cornwell, president of the h York State Bankers’ association >red the principal address. Ai er things he said: “If, in 1875, 1876, 1877 and 1 78, the bankers and sound money men had been organized as they are organized now, and had spoken out as they are speaking out now, had started on a campaign of education as they are starting out now; the greenback would long ago have been wiped out; the silver lunacy, before it had wrought incalcuable damage, would have been confined to the asylums, where it belongs.” “It is time to tear off disguise. International bimetallism is a traitor in the camp. It is a false fraud. It can never be accomplished. It is a ‘will o’ the wisp’ dancing above the deadly marsh. It is as illusive as a dream of magic, as idle as the pursuit of perpetual motion, as dangerous as the delirium of fiat money.”

The Cause of Present Distress.

Does not this New Jersey governor (McClellan) know, as we have already stated in these columns, that an ounce of silver to-day can be exchanged for more of any given commodity than it could five years ago when it was at a premium with gold? As far as stability is concerned, the value of silver has remained comparatively stationary as compared with other property. As a measure of value it has fluctuated less than gold. It is the enormous and alarming enhancement of the value of gold that has squeezed out the values of property, paralyzed the trade of the country and produced the present distress. If there is to be a choice between the two metals, the people prefer that metal lost nearly retains its equilibri iation with other commoditk .-,o Tribune, Jan. 19, 1878.

It Was Astonishing Information.

When Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson devised- the system of American coinage, they adopted the metallic plan for the express and direct purpose of securing to the American people, as a protection against all fluctuations in the relative value of gold and silver, the option to pay debts in coin of either metal. We continued the system in this country until 1876; the people were astounded with the information that in 1873-4 we had abolished the coinage of the silver dollar, and declared it no longer a legal tender. —Chicago Tribune, January 25, 1878.

Must Never Be Surrendered.

Hamilton and Jefferson concurred in the wisdom and necessity of having a double’ standard, the purpose being to confer the option on the debtor to pay in either metal at his pleasure. Those great statesmen clearly foresaw the trouble and disaster that- a single standard would bring upon the- country. The retention of the option by the debtor to pay in either silver or gold is vitally important to the welfare of the whole American people, and’ must never be surrendered.: —Chicago Tribune, Jan. 14, 1878. The moneyed classes first array themselves against the masses, but the masses musn’t squeal about it and array themselves against the classes. That’s high treason. Senator Allison writes a friend .’n Washington that he fears Bryan will carry lowa. And well he may.

LIKE A THUNDERBOLT

- » UNION PRINTERS FIRE THEIR OPINIONS AT MARK HANNA. Poll of Five Hanna-McKinley Organs of Chicago Shows That Union Workingmen Are Solid for Bryan and Altgeld. From the Chicago Dispatch: Just to see if a fair and honest expression of opinion could not be obtained from the ■workingmen, the Typographical union has caused a poll to be taken of the mechanical department of the five morning newspapers in Chicago. It is needless to emphasize that the newspairs in question are, without exception, advocates of the single standard gold dollar: The poll resulted as follows: Bryan. McKinley. Tribune 63 12 Record 82 ' 5 Chronicle 60 10 Inter Ocean 57 13 Times-Herald .7 55 4 Total ~..317 44 The vote for governor of Illinois stood as follows: Altgeld. Tanner. Tribune 71 4 Record 86 1 Chronicle ..67 3 Inter Ocean 61 8 Times-Herald 59 Total 354 14 The result as above has been certified to by some of the officials of yie and is now on file at democratic national headquarters. It is given out not to demonstrate the law of power these publications have over the convictions of their employes but to show exactft what the intelligent workingman thinkc of the conditions now confronting him. Of course, it also shows that the newspapers in question cannot be convincing in their arguments, but this is not the point sought to be made, as the democratic managers have long since lost all faith in the local press with the single exception of The Dispatch. HOW THE MANAGERS REGARD IT. At any rate, the poll of the “typos” caused the issuance of the following statement this morning from headquarters: “The five big morning newspapers of Chicago are engaged in an attempt to show that organized labor is opposed to Bryan and free silver. It may be interesting to the goldbug publishers of these newspapers to know that of 361 men employed in their composing and press rooms 317 will vote for Bryan while but 44 will vote for McKinley. These men belong to the finest labor organization in the world, and cannot be bulldozed or coerced Into stifling their convictions. “It will be seen from the above ballots that the estimate made by labor leaders in Chicago that nine-tenths of the organized labor vote of Chicago will be cast for Bryan and free silver is a correct one, and that despite coercion and intimidation it will be found in the 'ballot boxes Nov. 3. WORKINGMEN ARE WITH BRYAN. “Wherever employes have a chance to express their views similar results have been attained. In one of the Armour shops at the. Union Stock yards, where an Australian ballot was taken, the vote stood 675 for Bryan and 125 for McKinley. In another shop the vote stood 287 for Bryan and 17 for McKinley. It Is known that the Chicago Tribune, through its correspondents and agents, made a canvass of employes in all the large manufacturing towns of Illionis. The result was such an amazing majority for Bryan that the returns were destroyed, They indicated a majority of 50,000 for Bryan and even larger for Altgeld. The only consolation left for the McKinley managers is to take factory ballots tn the presence of officials and loudly proclaim the result as a victory for gold, despite the fact that all such ballots are criminally fraudulent on their face. “McKipJey organs and McKinley orators are wildly denouncing the plauk in the democratic platform which protests against federal interference in local affairs. They appear to forget that the republican national committee which met in Chicago in 1860 and nominated Abraham Lincoln adopted a platform which contained a plank objecting to federal interference.”

Senator Allison for Sliver.

The affairs of this world cannot be conducted upon the single basis of gold; and the war and the contest of to-day is between those who seek to destroy and outlaw silver and those who seek to place it upon an equality with gold. That is the contest; and I am for the full and complete restoration of silver as one of the coin metals of the world, and therefore I propose to do whatever I can to promote that most desirable object.

John Sherman a Gold Bull.

The sfecretary of the treasury (John Sherman) is the greatest bull in the gold market, and every means at his official disposal is employed to force an exclusive gold currency on the country, and to depreciate all property —the accumulations of the industry and thrift of the people.—Chicago Tribune, Jan. 21, 1878. The Chicago newspapers state that a poll of the Elgin Watch company showed the following result: McKinley, 801; Bryan, 8. The poll was taken by the superintendent and foreman. An actual vote taken with great care by fellow workmen in whom the men had confidence, gave the following result: Bryan, 486; McKinley, 244; undecided. 79.

A COLD BUG OUTFIT.

A Private Car Loaded with to Storm the West. General Alger, General Howard, General Sickles, General Stewart and General Sigel are touring the country in General Alger’s private car. They will travel through Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, lowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Indiana Kentucky and Ohio. They have a mission to perform and propose to enjoy themselves while at it It is the object of these gentlemanly generals to expound the gold standard theory of money in all its purity. They know all about its benefits, and who so able to explain them to others as those who have personal knowledge of. their general utility? In a general way these doughty warriors know, of course, that there are some people, usually of the common classes, however, who do not approve of the gold standard. They have also heard indistinct rumors cf suffering and hardship among the ordinary people who are so lacking in foresight and common sense as to toil for a living, but as for anything definite in that way penetrating their private car why, it wasn’t built that way. Private cars are usually built with an eye to the purpose of excluding the disagreeable characteristics of life, and suffering, destitution and starvation aie generally included in that category. In order to make them effective in accomplishing their purpose they are also built in such a way as to exclude the common people because It is only among the common people that the stupid habit of suffering for want of something to eat ever prevails to any extent It is well known that it is the duty of a general to command, and equally the duty of the private to obey, and when five generals buncb themselves together and start out to give commands it may be taken for granted that the privates will line thfcm selves up, right about face, double quick, charge, just as they are ordered to. Thus it would seem that our touring generals have an enormous advarrtage on their side from the start, and it only needs that those conditions which are the acknowledged proper ones, between generals and privates should ob« tain to make them preeminently successful in fulfilling their mission. However, there is some difference between a political campaign and a war campaign. One difference of considerable importance, too, is that political generals have no means of compelling obedlencee to their commands and therefore have to rely entirely on their persuasive powers to accomplish their end. This fact may not set well with the quintuplet who are riding in General Alger’s car and whose exclusive surroundings naturally will appear incomplete unless accompanied with all the attributes of unlimited power over their fellowmen which they seem to imply, but'’they will have to put up with it It does seem a little hard that a silken-clad general from the environments of a palatial private car should be reduced to the level of a Sockless Simpson or “Stump” Ashby in his dealings with the private voters of the country, but this is one of the Inconveniences of popular government which the Alger crowd will have to endure. But this is not all nor perhaps the greatest obstacle they will find in their pathway. . Some of the “demagogues and s.gitators'” with whom they will likely come in contact have traveled so far along the road that leads to anarchy as to question seriously .the right of any man or set of men to avail themselves of exclusive privileges at the hands of monopolistic railways whose very roadbed was acquired through nublic condemnation of private property on the pretense that such condemnation was necessary for the benefit of the public. These “anarchists” are actually demanding that the government shall take possession of all the railroads in the country and thus deprive the few God-favored ones of the free rides which they now enjoy at the expense of the people. Alger, Sigel & Co. will have to put up the best fight they can and even at the best, it is likely that they will not find their pathway among the ten-cent corn raiserA of the west spread with roses.

Give Us More Solid Money.

The prime object in remonetizing silver is to add to the solid substantial intrinsic money stock of the country. There can’t be too much hard money—real money—in circulation. Such an Inflation is stimulating and invigorating. It is at once a sign and prop of national and commercial prosperity. The simple remonetization of the silver dollar, with proper provisions for its coinage, will contribute a steady stream to the money resources of the United States.—Chicago Tribune, Jan. 23. 1878.

I BELIEVE THAT THE STRUGGLE NOW GOING ON IN THIS COUNTRY AND OTHER COUNTRIES FOR A SINGLE GOLD STANDARD, WOULD, IF SUCCESSFUL, PRODUCE WIDESPREAD DISASTER IN THE END THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. THE DESTRUCTION OF SILVER AS MONEY AND ESTABLISHING GOLD AS THE SOLE UNIT OF VALUE MUST HAVE A RUINOUS EFFECT ON ALL FORMS OF PROPERTY EXCEPT THOSE INVESTMENTS WHICH YIELD A FIXED RETURN IN MONEY—JAMES G. BLAINE. (CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, PAGES 820 TO 822, 1878.) The November election will prove that Carl Schurz, who has acted in turn with the republicans, democrats, and mugwumps, does not carry the German-American vote in his pocket