Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1895 — Not a Measure of Values. [ARTICLE]

Not a Measure of Values.

Lafayette Courier: The silver issue will solve itself if the politicians will only give it half a chance. The craze is already subsiding, and by the time the national conventions are called next year a change of sentiment will be found to have taken place in the meantime that will leave the populist propaganda quite as lonely and impotent as it was before the vigorous agitation was begun. R. M. Isherwood, editor of the Delphi Times, has resigned the postmastership at Delphi, and J. W. Weidner, the man who was elected at the democratic primary about a year ago, has been ap* pointed in his place. Mr. Isherwood’s reasons, as assigned to the postoffice department, were that his paper required his undivided attention. Mr. Weidner, the appointee, lives two from Delphi, and already holds the office of Township Trustee, and his appointment now, made without people generally having any knowledge of what was going on, is likely to cause a beautiful row in the Democratic camp at Delphi.

Our esteemed neighbor of the Pilot was “talking through his hat,”at a great rate, last week;and we scarcely know by what theory to account for the great and sudden increase in the output of his imagination, unless it be that his removal to the near proximity of the sulphur water of the court house well has had the effect of unduly stimulating his imaginative faculties. He gives it out straight, for instance, that the Pilot is the best paper in Indiana, and he don’t care who knows it, and, the unkindest cut of all, no exception is made even in favor of that great light of Populism, the Nonconformist, of Indianapolis. In another place the readers are given a great “stiff” about the Pilot being all “home print” now, when the facts are that nearly the wholejaaper is made up from stereotype plates received every week by express, and in no essential respects better than nor different in nature from, the ordinary ready prints or “patent insides,” which the Pilot has used heretofore. Bight along with this great “breeze” about the Pilot's “all home print” (on “all-imported” stereotype plates) are several cracks about the Pilot's circulation, which are of a piece in imaginative magnitude with the “best paper in Indiana” and the “all home print” rackets.

One of the most mischievous of current fallacies is the contention that a large increase of currency, either in the form of free silver or some other kind of inflation, is necessary to the proper transaction of the business of the country. We are constantly being told by a certain order of agitators that a scarcity of money is the principal cause of hard times, and that general prosperity would at once succeed a doubling of the amount of circulation. Many honest and more or less intelligent peopla accept this sophistry without stopping to think that an increase of currency does not imply that it is to be distributed as a popular gift, without anything being given in return for it No matter how abundant the supply of money might be made it would still be obtainable only in exchange for products or services. There would have to be something to sell, or the money would never reach the people; and the man who now has something to sell can get the money for it at any mom. en*. J here is no lack of currency so • legitimate (purposes. As a

matter of fact, there is a big surplus of it, for which there is no use, and the banks are offering to loan it at a remarkably low rate of interest All intelligent citizens ought to know that in reality the business of the country is carried on with a comparatively small amount of actual money. All large commercial operations are mainly conducted by means of checks and drafts, the proportion of currency employed being only from 5 to 10 per cent; and a recent investigation shows that the same is true in a striking degree of the smaller forms of trade which represent the daily buying and selling of the necessaries of life. The Comptroller of the Currency caused inquiry to be made of the national banks as to the character of the deposits made on the nearest settling day by retail grocers, butchers, clothers, fuel and furniture dealers, and replies were received from 2465 different points all over the country. From these reports, a careful estimate has been prepared which demonstrates that payments by check range from 54 per cent of the total settlements in retail trade in the North Central States to 65 per cent in the South Central. Thus it will be seen that even in this relation, where the most actual money is handled, the instruments of credit play a larger part than the currency; and the use of these credit instruments is constantly growing on account of their manifest convenience. That is to say, the tendency is toward a smaller rather than a greater employment of money in business affairs; and this is one of the best answers to the talk about the necessity for an increase of the currency.

Prof. Laughlin of the chair of Political Economy, University of Chicago, is dealing some most effective blows against the false and unfair statements and methods of the author of “Coin’s Financial School” and his deluded and deluding followers. In his speech before the Wailbansee club on Baturday night, the professor among other things pointed out the fallacy now so commonly believed that the American farmer’s products can today be exchanged only for the same amount of silver that they could in 1873, which, if true would show that silver and not gold is the true standard of measurement of values. He calls attention to the faat that more silver is in circulation today than in 1873, and that there is more gold in circulation by hundreds of millions of dollars, While it is true that cotton and wheat have fallen in price, they are articles whose price is fixed by international competition and obey the law of a world’s supply and demand. Products not affected by foreign competition such as corn, oats and mess pork have not fallen in price with silver and are actually higher relatively to gold than they were in 1873. Comparing the prices of these articles and silver it is found that taking 100 as the basis of the price in 1873, in 1894 the prices were as follows: Corn, 110.1; oats 100.3; mess pork, 99.9; silver 49.1. That is the farmer in 1894 could have exchanged his corn, oats or pork for more than twice as much silver bullion as he could have got for it in 1873, while these articles would bring on an average more gold than they would have brought in that year. Prof. Laughlin also shows by the tables computed by German authorities that the price of silver and the prices of goods have not moved together as falsely stated by “Coin:” By these tables it is shown that today prices of goods as compared with gold are 8 per cent, lower than in 1860, while silver is 50 per cent lower as compared with the same standard. Prof. Laughlin says: “You may reason and theorize and lecture until the crack of doom and you can’t change that fact. If so what becomes of the claim that to pay in silver is the only just means of

settling debts? It is on the contrary unjust in the proportion of 50 to 92.” As the weeks go on the common people are studying this great question more and more and the deceptions of and sophistry of the audacious author of .‘Coin’s Financial school” will soon be met with a wave of truth and reason from the minds of honest and loyal men, who think before they act, that will sweep away forever their power of harm.