People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 March 1897 — W. P. SMITH’S LETTER. [ARTICLE]

W. P. SMITH’S LETTER.

The following is an extract from a letter written to an editor in the south-west who had presented specific inquiries: * * “The bankers, by the invention of a banking clearance house, have, by their own admission, succeeded in adjusting their business to the volume of circulating medium, by meaiis of checks, drafts, bills of exchange and clearance house receipts.— They make SI.OO of money perform $25.00 of business. Now one dollar is twenty-five times easier to get than twenfcyfive dollars are; that is, it only takes l-25th of the time, skill and energy to get one dollar that it requires to get $25. This feat is actually accomplished by the banks. By a close analysis of the clearance house scheme we have learned to apply it to the productive industries, where experiments have positively proven its adaptability. Many instances could be cited in proof. Notably this: The Socit.y bought a car-load of coal directly from the mine at 85c per ton. Sold it to Archdeacon at $1.15 per ton; took vinegar at 8c per gal. Sold it to the coal mines at 12c per gal., took our pay in coal at 85c. Sold the coal to Adams at 1.15, took the pay in jelly at s|c per lb; sold the jelly to the coal miner at 64c, took our pay in coalgat 85c. Sold the coal to Van Camp at $1.15, took pay in canned tomatoes, corn, beans, peas, etc., at jobber’s rates; sold the canned goods to the coal miner at wholesale prices, taking our pay in coal at 85c or jobber’s prices. Sold this lot to the hominy mills at $1.15, took our pay in hominy at jobber’s rates; sold the hominy to the coal mines at wholesale rates took coal for pay. Sold coal to Arcade flouring mill, took flour for pay. This left us with an accumulation of profits represented by coal. This we sold to coal dealers at cost, took our pay in coal at retail prices, to be delivered from coal yards in all parts of the city to dry goods merchants, shoe merchants, clothiers, grocers, blacksmiths, shoemakers, tailors, hatters, tanners, gar-ment-makers, carpenters, painters and laborers. All of these transactions you see were had without money. Now how we were able to deal with the coal dealers without friction; how our trade was eagerly sought by all, is the problem we have solved and which is set out in the secret workings of the order. There is no school outside of the society itself where this can be learned or successfully conducted without the organized machinery behind it represented by the society. To learn this, you must join the order; to avail yourself of its munificence, you must interestyourself in its workings, which are fitted to the conditions of every man, woman and child, in whatever vocation of life necessary to harmonious existence.”

Elsewhere appears a dispatcli from Kokomo announcing another attempt by tne farmers of that region to organize and benefit themselves, without benefiting anyone else. If the dispatch states the case correctly, the project will soon takes its place with the granger and alliance stores. Kokomo has an organization that extends its benefits not to farmers alone, but to producers of whatever class. We will hear t from them after the single class effort succumbs to a natural death.