People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1896 — LESSONS IN ECONOMICS. [ARTICLE]

LESSONS IN ECONOMICS.

Bryan’s Logic Sheds Light on Matten of Great Interest. Our opponents tell us the only trouble is lack of confidence; that if people will just have confidence all will be well. When a main is hungry, confidence does not go far toward filling his stomach. As against their doctrine of confidence, with nothing to rest confidence upon, we propose a solid foundation upon which confidence may stand. You say this is a matter which concerns the farmers only. You take away from the manufacturers their farmer customers and they will close their shops oftener than they do now. when they simply close them to intimidate voters. Take awayyour farmer customers and your shops will close because orders will cease. You cannot afford to drive down the price of the farmer’s products until he receives less than enough for his crop to pay the interest on his debt and his taxes. He cannot buy what you produce until he can sell what he produces himself. And you had better have 1,000 mouths to feed and!, 000 backs to clothe than to have a few men who have lots of money but very little appetite and only a few bodies to clothe. The gold standard makes it easier for a few to buy silver or difficult for the many to buy. The few who are benefited by a gold standard cannot supply your mills itfith customers, and the more you give them the larger the fortunes which you pile up in their hands by making their dollars grow fatter as they hoard them, the more apt they are to go abroad and spend the money instead of spending it here at home. We are told some of these financiers are afraid our country is not large enough to act for itself. If they knew more about our country and less about foreign countries, they would have more faith in our home institutions. You can find lots of people who have visited Europe time and again and Wave never crossed the Missouri river. If you leave this question to the sentiment of those people who know something about the United States, you will find that a vast majority of our people are willing to trust their all on this republic or fall with it You tell us we must have a financial policy that enables us to borrow money abroad. If we have the gold standard, we will always be borrowing money abroad and will soon reach a time when we cannot pay what we have borrowed. You tell me you want money to come here from abroad. I tell you you had better get the money out of your own mountains and have your own money instead of borrowing money you will have to send back and pay interest on all the time you have it. Twenty years of profound peace and abundant harvests cannot be the cause of universal distress. The decay of civilization follows the continuous increase of the purchasing power of money as certainly as night follows day.