00 m o >- IvlBRA^RY OF THK University of California. Glf^T OK Received c/^. Accession No .yd'6-y^ f Class No. Cfli/.l'i Xli.2, i 't X ;3 :3 m% XJ4E5P' • •••••• ^".feri« Wbere Are W<^ at? • BY. 1^ I B B ED^\^^Iir> IRVING, Attthor of "In the Far West," Etc. DEDICATED TO THE TOII^ERS OP THE WORI,D, |^ BY A FEI/LOW SLAVE. o #• ••• •• • " T/iere is trouble ahead; Revolution. I pray God it may be peaceful Revolution, atid at the ballot-box'' — Rev. T. De Witt Talma ge in his ''Pathway of Life!' In Pamper Covcrj, 25 C^nts. Boupcl in Cloth? 75 C^nts. |:^ STOCKTON. CAL. : THE T. W. HOMMEL CO. PRINT. 1894. Copyrighted 1894, by Edward Irving. All rights reserved. ImiiUMlUiUinUiiH^^^^^ 7 6'6'y ^ c RAISON D'ETRE, **"We have borrowed money upon our lands and vine< yards for the king's tribute. I " Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our; 'children as their children, and lo, we bring into bondage .our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of ouii ;daughters are brought into bondage already; neither is it[ Jin our power to help it; for other men have our fields tm^^ ^ur vineyards/ '—Nehemiall V, 4-5« PREFACE. Those wlio wisli to sow that strangers may reap, wll^ /have no use for this little book. Those whose highest ambition is to toil in slavery^anflS idle in a ditch had better let it alone. Those who wish to reap what others have sown shoaldl try to prevent others from reading it. It is written for those who desire to better their condir^ tion and assist their fellows to do the same. :bdwari) IRVING^ :^ Farmington, California, May, i894# CONTENTS OHAPTEE I. Progress and Poverty, INTRODUCTION.—" WHERE ARE WE AT? "—A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.— OBJECTS 0» IHE FOUNDERS. — SLAVERY OP THE BLACKS. — FIFTY YEARS AGO. — CONTRAST WITHl EUROPE. CAUSE OP CONTRAST. THE REBELLION. — ABOLITION OP SLAVERY.— AFTEE^ FIFTY YEARS. — WEALTH RELATIVELY GREATER. — ONE SIDE OF THE -SHIELD. — ^WHAT IS.' PBOSPiiRli Y ? — THE OTHER SIDE OP THE SHIELD. CHAPTER II. The Cause of the Trouble, Class Legislation, A GAME OF CHANCE. — A LOSING GAME. — WHAT IS THE CAUSE? — LOADED DICE.—' **BEVEN FINANCIAL CONSPIRACIES." — SUMMARY OP THE BOOK.— THE CIVIL WAR. — I I I. THE EXCEPTION CLAUSE. — U, NATIONAL BANKS. — III. CONTRACTION, — IV. CBEDM I8TRENGTHENING ACT. — V. REFUNDING ACT, — VI. DEMONETIZATION Off 6ILYEB.— Til. BJfiBUMPTION ACT. — THE BLAKD ACT. — THE SHERMAN ACT, CHAPTER III. The Eighth Financial Conspiracy. EEPUBLICAN PLATFORM. — DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM. — ^DEMOCRATIC VICTWRY. — THE^ PANIC. — A CORNER ON GOLD. — CLEVELAND'S MESSAGE. — REPEAL ASKED. — THE FIGHTl IN CONGRESS. — SHERMAN A FALSE PROPHET. — SHERMAN ACT REPEALED. — FALL OB^' jpBICEH. — SHERMAN A TRUE PBOPHST. — CARLISLE'S CONDEMNATION, CHAPTER IV. Some More Conspiracigs. A BBOKEN PROMISE. — THE TARIFF FIGHT. — FALSE PROPHETS. — THE TRUE CAUSBJ ,— PRICES CANNOT RECOVER — A MONEY FAMINE. — CAUSE AND EFFECT. — R. G. DUN^flj ^BEPOBT. — " WANT OF CONFIDENCE." — GREENBACKS VS. BONDS. — THE NINTH FINANCIAL' CONSPIRACY. — THE SEIGNIORAGE BILL VETOED. — COXEY's ARMY. — JOHN BROWN'S BODY.! ■WANT OF MONEY. — PAPER MONEY. — WOODEN MONEY. — THE DAY COMETH. — XBJ^^ INETY AND NINE, — ^A FABLE. — THE INTERPRETATION THEREOF. ICO CHAPTER V. Political Corruption, MONOPOLIES. — BOTH PARTIES CORRUPT. — MAMMON IS GOD. — GULMNQ THE ^KOPLE.— REPUBLICAN DESPOTS. — THE BAILROAD MONOPOLY. — THE TRUSTS. — ^FOMBBiG|§ ^WWEBSHLP OF LANi>, — •* AitM MOBTGAQES. — ^A HAPPY ( I ) COUNTRY. — XHiiS CHUBCS* CHAPTER VI. The People's Party, * ITS ORIGIN.— LYING NEWS.— " THE POPULIST DECLINE.*— LAST NOVEMBER'^ iBAESrS.— TROUBLE AHEAD.— DEMO-BEP»BLICAN PLATFORMS.— THE POPULIST PLATFOBa« t-r^QUMATlVE AND BEFBRENDUM.— IMPJSBAIWB JIANDATE.— FOOB BSSBKTIAI^Sp^^ CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. Populist Platform Discussed, I FINANCE. — FIRST PLANK, NATIONAL CURREN(3Y. — SECOND PLANK, PKEl rNAGK — SII.VKR AND WHEAT. — THIRD PLANK, $50 PER CAPITA. — FOURTH PLANK, JKArn'ATKD rmOME TAX. — ONE INCOME, $960 AN HOUR. — ANOTHER INCOME, FOUB ■KNIJS AiN auUK. — i'll-TU PLANK, ECONOMY. — SIXTH PLANK, POSTAL 8AVINGS BANKS, CHAPTER VIII. populist Platform (Continued), — rr. TnANapoRTATioN. — in. land. CHAPTER IX. A World in Di-ttress, TTTF PAME CAUSE. — "LOOKING BACKWARD." — DEMONETTJ^ATION OF GOLD. — , \ Il/A'll' N OF hILVEK — THE RESULT. — GOLD STANDARD COUNTRIES — BI8TKES8, - >VM1!<>M!S.— DIVi SI. CONDITIONS AFFECTED. — SILVER COUNTRIES. — PRANCB,— ' NO. V. LliiiNA. — JAlAN. — SPANISH AMERICA. — RAISINU PRICE OF SILVER, CHAPTER X. "ZTm Beyond 8ea.^* rvr,T,AND AND AMERICA. — FREE TRADE VS. HIGH TARIFFS. — ERNEST SETD'A CHAPTER XI. Covdusion. An Appeal and a Warning, Pf^nrous CHARGES. — APPROACIirNG DISASTER. — A MANIAC AT TTTT? TTFT-M — A l,\> 1 i.icAA XiaCKS,- TAKE YOUR CHOICE —A LAST WARNING. APPENDIX. (a) TIIR HAZZARD CIRCULAR. (g) TAT5LES OF PT?TCES. ETO , CORW, ( lU THE HUKLL CIRCULAR. COTTON WHEAT AND SILVER.— (C) TlIK PANIC BULLETIN. AVERAGE WHEAT CROP. — PRICB ' I») TMR EXTRA SESSION CIRCULAR. OP WHEAT. (k) TllK DEMONETIZATION FRAUD OF I H78 (n) REPUBLICANS AND SILVER, (F) THE ERNEST SEYD CASE.— THE (jj SOME FOREIGN LAND OWNERS. LUCKENBACH ' nAFFIDAVIT. — HOOPER ON ERNEST SEYD.— (j) THE UNEMPLOYED PROBLEM. DAWES ON ERNEST SEYD-WELLS /^x p^R^LLEL HISTORY. ON ERNEST SEYD.- SUMMARY OF TUB SEYD CASE. (l) KEW ZEALAND'S BZPEBIMSNT, ! \ The cry was taken up, the riyhta of man were vindicated, and a mighty /nation of free men was the result. Today sixty millions of people in this country atid a thousand millions in other lands bear witness once more that ** These are the times that try wen's souls.** The producing classes have produced all the wealth of the world. The idle, non-producing ciaf^ses now own the greater part of this wealth. The producers of the world are today being driven, by oppreseion and |trickery, to battle for their lives and liberties. The fight is getting to be very near. The noise of its strife may already 1t)e heard in the land. It is to be a battle of giants, f^uch as the earth has never seen before, and "will never see again. The Rebellion of the Southern States was but a fight of pigmies compared "with the coming strife. For the Rebellion was only a local fight. The coming conflict will be wide as the world itself. If the producers can win the fight by peaceable means they will do so, hut if it comes to a question of bloodshed or slavery, they will not permanently submit to slavery unless they are compelled to do so. You will be amongst the fighters of this great battle, whether you wish to fight oV not, Do you want to be f. und on the ri :ht side or the wrong? Do you want to fight for liberty, prosperity and justice, or for plavery, starvation and fraud? If you are honest men and women ycu can only give one answer to these questions. If you must fight, you would tight for the right, for liberty, prosperity aid justice to all. Then listen for a short time and I will try to show the cause of the trouble and the issues of the comine conflict. Ever since the close of the Rebellion in the United States there has been a continual fight for supremacy between the Republican and Democratic Iparties. Amongst other subjects of dispute, financial matters have been the cause ^of fierce conflicts. Each party has charged the other with leading the ship of state into 5dangerou3 waters. The Republicans have managed, for the most part, to keep in office and 6 BREAKERS AHEAD. / power, and have attributed the growing wealtlr of the country to their good management. The Democrats, on the other hand, have attributed every unfavorable change in the condition of the people to Republican mismanagement, and have tried their utmost to get into power so that they might undo the mischief their opponents were doing. In '85 they git into oflice, but owing, as they allege, to the fact that they had not the control of both houses of Congress, no change for the better occurred. The Republicans, therefore, went into power again in '89. At the last electioa the Democrats, by strenuously insisting that the safety and prosperity of the country depended on their return to office, were elected by an enormous majority to take charge of the helm. This time they got control of both houses, so that those who believed in the principles of the Democratic platform told us that all would now be fair sailing. All abuses would be rectified, and an era of prosperity would ensue. Once in office, however, the Democrats evinced no great eagerness to put the ship about. The trade of the country, which had long been in a very unsatisfactory state, became much worse, till a regular panic set in. An enormous number of commercial enterprises went to the wall, throwing millions of men out of work. It was than said that it wouM be unwise to alter the course of the ship til] the financial storm had blown over. It was explained that the platform of principles by which they had got into power did not mean exactly what people had supposed it to mean. Many of those who had helped to put the Detuocrats into power were diB-» gusted to find that the ship was not only being steered still further iUvO diffi- culty and danger, but that more sail was being crowded on. It had long been apparent to many, that if the course was not changed, it was only a question of time before the good ship REPUBLIC would be on the rocks of financial bankruptcy. In this beUef, some of them who had lost faith in both parties gathered under a new standard and set up the terrible cry of " BREAKERS AHEAD 1" In spite of the fact that they were sneered at by bor^h parties as calamity- howJers, the new party has rdade enormous gains, and in the opinion of many thouj,htiul observers, will, by the next presidential election be able to change the coarse of the vessel towards a less dangerous haven. The country has now been, for some time, in the throes of a great com- nercial panic, which if not speedily reliev*»d, may lead to grave trouble. Those who were dubbed calamity-howlers for foretelling its approach, never have that epithet thrown at them now, for it has cost the country more, financially, than four years of civil war. Millions of people, who have hitherto been content to side with the Demo- crats or Republicans, without really trying to get to the bottom facts of the ques- tions at issue, are now being driven by stress of circumstances to try and find oat the true cause and cure of the present disastrous state of affairs. They are asking one another the question "WHERE ARE WE AT?" For their benefit I propose to explain, as well as I can, the present pastern Sfeat&s, although they had their troubles, were, ou the whole, -in m ponderfuUy prosperous and satisfactory condition, especially when comparecfi )with the Old World. 'The Western States of course were not then in existance. If 'the founders of the Republic had returned to the scenes of their formei^ labors they would have been delighted at what they saw. The land v> as occupied by prosperous farmers, who paid neither rent noif mortgage interest. They worked hard, and reaped the benefit in a rude abund4 iance. As Alfred R. Wallace says : "Almost all the necessaries and many of the comforts of life were obtained by the farmer from bis own land. He had an abundance of bread, m^atancK poultry, with occasional game. Of butter, cheese, fruit and vegerablea rherd /was mo lack. He made his own sugar from his maple treee, and soap frona, refcwe fat aud wood-aauea ; while ^lia c ohhes were the produce of his owaflaciisi spun, and often dyad, woven and made at home. His land contai ned timber not only for iirine, but for fencing and house-building ma erials, as well as for, making many of his farm implemeubS , and he easily soUl in the nearest townf taun^Ui Kji Hid turpiaj proiiUjts to provide the few foreign luxuries that the* family required."— [^rena March, 1893.] The same writer says : "Not only the pauperism of Europe, but even ordinary poverty or want was quite unknown. Th?* absence of beggars was a noticeabia fac(, and excepf m cases of illness, accident cr old uge, occasions for the exercise of charity ^ould hardly arise." There wag then work for all at remunative prices. Anyone who was notf jsatisfied to work for wages went to where the land was still unoccupied, and 1;here made for hims?ilf a home. From the crowded cointriea of the old world multitudes of toilers came over the sea to make homes for themselves on our brodd praries. And as thej^ came they merrily sang: " To the west, to the west I to the land of the free, Where mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea. Where a man is a man, if he's willing to toil, And the humblest may gather the fruits of the soil. And they did not come in vain. They got the benefit of their labor andl ferospered accordingly. Millionaires, tramps and paupers— those blasters of civilization— were theii ^nlmown. Crime was comparatively rare. CONTRAST WITH EUROPE. ^ What a wonderful difference there is between this picture and that presenter feJEarope. One would almost think that in America it was not true that **jniii9 isrmade.to mourn." CAUSE OF CONTRAST. As ttoithe cause of the contrast there was some difference of opinion. ^" BREAKERS AHEAD. 9^ <' • i Some said it was becan-^'^ the land was not crowded like Europe. .' Others said that a Eepubdo founded on liberty, equality and fraternity could? not help being happier and more prosperous than monarchies weighted down' ,by big armies and navies, bad law? royal paupers, licentious courts, aristocratic parasites, and greedy state churches. ^ THE REBELLION. ^^ A few years after the period we have been considering came the revolt of She Southern States, brought about by that slavery which the founders of th© (Eepnblic had failed to abolish. ^ ;i^ The North then determined to abolish slavery entirely. ABOLITION OP SLAVERY. At a fearful cost the rebellion was put down, and every slave was set free. -' The country once more settled down to the arts of peace. The ever menac"' |lng danger had beea at la^t overcoiae, and slavery had been abolished forever. The objects of the foundera were accomplished. At lait there was liberty^ 1egualiiyBJi.dJraternilytor&\i, — — AFTER FIFTY YEARS, , It is now nearly thirty years since the close of the war. The country has been advancing in wealth and pooula Hon ever since. Let, tlfl see how the condition of the people now compares with that of the period w© jhave been conslderiug. WE.VLTH RELATIVELY GREATER. , The iceatth of the country is now ten times what it was fifty years ago. Tiie population of the conntry is n->w /our 'times what it was filty years ago. Consequent y every individual is, or should be, two and a half times as well off a9 he voas then. And as there was no poverty in the country then, the wildest imagination can hardly imagine anythiu;? so absurd as to supnosa that there is any poverty in the jcountry novo. Or if there is, surely it is confined eutirely to thoie of whom it is 'said " he that will not work neither shall he eat." Unless the country has been ruled by vicious or incompetent law-makers, ^every one who has beea thrifty and industrious must uow be in the pos^e!3ion not only of every necessary, but also of every reasonable comff r and luxury. Ev^ry family of five persons has novv, or should have, $5000, that baing its proportion of the wealth of the country. If we are to judge bv the glowing accounts of progress given by the paperSj,. magazines and books, this is not very far from being the case. ONE SIDE OP THE SHIELD. The war naturally upset things considerably, but since it closed there has been 'almost uninterrupted progress. Wealth and population have increased en- Wmously. Commerce has advanced by leaps and bounds. Bailroads have been ' 'built ever} wheie, even to the distant ^^^ est. Cities and towns have sprung up^ like magic. Factories, workf hops, and mines have multiplied beyond belief. Pleasant and even stately homes have arisen in many ten thousands all over' the land. In the cities, schools, colleges, libraries, gymnasiums, clubs, museums, churches and theatres have gone up like magic. State Capitols and Palaces of \ •Justice have been built which rival the grandest structures of the old world. In the country, farmi have spread over the plains like the ripples sweep oversi' 10 BREAKERS AHEAD. Sake when the breeze strikes it. Even the desert wastes are fast being reclaimed ^b/ irrigation ditches and artesian wells. THE GREAT LAKES AND BIVEES swarm with floating palaces, splendid beyond the dreams of -a Csesar — with freight steamers heavy laden with the necessaries and luxuries of life. There were practically no railroads in the States fifty years ago. Now there are 170,000 miles of them, besides thousands of miles of street railways of all kinds in the cities. . Thousands of freight cars are ever on the move, transporting»grain, fruit,' minerals, and manufactures sufficient to glut the mightiest empire ia^^e wotid; As R. E. Edmunds says in the Engineering Magazine for April, 1898: ** The Unitbd States is now the leading countby in the would. We h^v^ far outstripped all other nations in the magnitude of our industrial operations,.: * * * No other country in the world ever advanced in p(^iiLation. and wealth as the Uoited States is doing." Aa to tb« Qovemment, it is still a Republic. Tberft^ practically no standing army to be supported by the bread-winners." And not much of a navy. We havo a free press and free speech. All have votes, and the people make the lawsand-electiiie jadge84Hi9 officials. Homesteads can still be had free for the asking. So far it would appear that if the founders of the Republic were to return ttiey would be amazed and delighted at the progress made by their beloved country. Is it possible then that there are actually pec^le in the United States Wtio lare not satisfied with things as they are— who allege that there has been incoHBe- potency and mismanagement? How hard to please such people must be. SurePf; oar great statesman, " Honest John Sherman," was right when he toid*one of these grumblers that he was a liar and ought to be hanged. Fet, after ail, the^e is another side to the picture. Would to God that there was not. WHAT IS PROSPERITY? In the Arena for January, 1893, is an article by the editor, B. 0. Flower, eoS iitled, **^re We a Prosperous People V The writer points out toat for a country to be prosperous it must not only b©( 'wealthy, but the wealth must be fairly well distributed amongst the peoyle. He tells? us that: " If all the wealth of the United States was controlled by five men,>while over sixty million people were practically vassals or slaves, it could not be ^aid that ours was a prosperous people in the true sense of the term. And it is equally true that if conditions are such tbar, each succteding year drives miUioiu* 'of our countrymen nearer the dark sea of want and despair,- even though^a fewi hundreds or thousands of individuals become vastly wealthier, we are not:m'« (prosperous condition." This is reasonable enough. Mv ideal of a prosperous country is one wherej (there are no kioh and no poor. Every industrious person should be4he population of London in comfort for one year. One-fifth of all the people that die in New York city to-day die in- the w>rk- iiouses, insane asylums and hospitals. And more than half of th^se are buried in the Potter's Field. All the great cities of America tell the same tale. From one and aU fbe «ame bitter cry of want and distress goes up to heaven, and goes up in vain. And in every city from 50 to 100 millionaires loll in luxury and ease, or t>usy themselves in cornering the fo^d of the people for their own profit. So much for the cities, now for the country. As B. 0. Flower says in the same article : ** The farmers are among our most sober and law-abiding citizens. Thejd are alpo the most incesrant workers, toiling from early dawn till the blanket ol night has completely enveloped the land. If any people in the Republic deserve to be prosperous, it is our farmers." Taking Nebraska for a sample, because its returns are most complete, we! •find from the official papers that, in one year, farm,. city, and chattel mortgages were filed to the amount of $03,000,000. In the same year the released mortgages amounted to $42,000,000, so that in one year tha mortgages increased $18,000,000. Besides this, more than 2000 mortirage^ were foreclosed. In five of the Central States there were nearly twelve hundred thousincE real estate mortgages in force in 1800. These represented nearly twelve hundred million dollars. And the int«rest on the-e is often as hii?h as 12 per cent. Nine million farm and lot morti? i^.e i are now on file at Wa hington. Tbeie are a little over twelve million families in the Republic. As the mortgages are increasing rapidly, and maay-fcen-tJioasands are bain^ foreclosed every year, it is veasy to see that unless th'^re is a change very soon everything will fall in to the money men, and they will own — a desert. The people no mora sing with glee: " To the west ! to the west I to the home of the free, Wnere mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea." For their old homes are bting swept away, and as they wander out into the liarkness they cheer one another by a mournful air: *• Weep no more my lady I /' _ O ! weep no more to-day I We will sing one song For the old Kentucky home— For t^e old Kentucky home, far away." 12 BREAKERS AHEAJDi. One of the main causes of all these accumulating- mortgages « i8 uofct falK jit is the same as thoai^h they were being raised all the time; The fall in v^lue of live stock in the last twenty years r other nail in the coffin of the Republic. IAb the Rev. Joseph Cook eays: ** If present causes which produce>ati traction of wealth continue, the Republic will soon be owued by lees than thousand persons." BREAKERS AHEAD. is Fast as the wealtk of the country is increasing, poverty is increasing stUl faster. Inside of ten years, if something doesn't drop, a handful of Wall Street l>rokerB will own sixty millions of slaves. But something will drop, and don't; you forget it. A cure must speedily be found, or the Republic will go under. My next chapter will deal with some causes of the impending ruin* CHAPTER II. THE CAUSE OF THE TBOUBLB — CLASS LEGISLATIOIT. It seems, then, that the condition of the people of the United States is very i&T from being so satisfactory as many of our writers have beea making out. This being settled, the next thing is to find cut the cause of the perilous cban ^es which have taken p!ace during the last generation. Then we shall, per- haps, be able to remove the cause and bring back prosperity before it is too late; to eave the Republic. The three great problems of commerce are the production, distribution and( consumption of wealth. The problem of the production of wealth has been solved in our own days by| the introcuction of machinery. This enables us to assist the puny muscles of I man by the giant forces of nature. The coneumpiion of wealth does not require solviDg, it will take care of itself. The fault evidently lies in the distribution of wealth. There is a constant ttndency for it to gather in lumps like flints gather in a bed of chalk. Fifty 3 ears ago many pecple attributed the prosperity of the country to the fact that it was a Republic, unburdened by Court, Aristocracy, State church, feudal relics, etc. But the country is still a Republic, and the Government is still supposed to be of the people, by the people, and /or the people. Others COL teiided that America's advantage lay in the fact that it was not crowded like Europe. But the population is still less than twenty to the mile, whilst Great' Britain has over three hundred. And the thinly settled parts suffer as much as the lest of the country, even where good crops are raised. Europe is now groaning under the heavy burden of immense armies and, navies, from which America is still comparatively iree. Yet if thirgs do not change soon we shall, before long, have to emigrate to Europe or elsewhere to keep from starving. That is, unless we upset the govern- ment, hang the millionaires, and start afresh. The truth is that wherever wealth accumulates rapidly in the hands of pri- vate capitahsts, poverty increases, whatever be the form of government or tariff policy. A GAME OF CHANCE. Any one who is engaged in business for himself, either in the production or 14 BREAKERS AHEAD. distribution of wealth, is really playing a game of chance. He calculates as to what hi« crops or goods will cost him, and estimates the probable demand for hie goods and the price they will fetch. There is always some uncertainty as to the future, so he has to judge the future by the past and present. If his calculations are carefully made, the result should, in the majority of cases, justify him in running the risk. DEFEAT ALMOST CERTAIN. But as things are now, in the majority of cases the result does not turn out satisfactory. The crops may be as good as expected, but there is an unforseen drop in the demand and price of his products. The result is that the time comes when he cannot meet all his expenses as they become due. Hoping that things will be better next year, he mortgages his property to pay his debts. But the next year another mysterious fall takes place, and he has to cripple himself to pay even the interest on the mortgage. The next year, or the year after, things are worse, and so it goes on. It is only a question of time. In spite of the fact that he labors and economize s to the very uttermost, he at last loses everything and has to go and scramble with the wage-earners to get a share of their work and pay. ! INDUSTRY IS USELESS. Now, what was it caused the fall of prices which ruined this man ? He was careful, industrious, honest, saving and sober. He had no expensive habits, but denied himself and his family to try and keep afloat, yet he went under not^ withstanding it all. WHAT IS THE CAUSE? Was it a mysterious dispeneation of a merciful Providence, bent on chastis- ing him for his manifold shortcomings? No, it was not that. Seed time and harvest have not failed. The trouble was with the prices of what he raised. It must have been due to overproduction, some one will say. Is there too much wheat, cotton and corn in the world? No. it is not that, for millions of people are crying in vain for food and clothing. They are toiling night and day without being able to get all they need to keep them in health. LOADED DICE. The real reason for the man's failure was that the opponents of his little game of chance were millionaires who could control the volume of money and thereby (fix the prices to suit themselves. ; The fact is that the moneybrokers are fighting the producers with LOADED DICE. THREE SUCCESSFUL CLASSES. The result is that (outside of the millionaires) there are only three classes of people who can make headwa^, or even hold their own. They are the exceptionally fortunate, the exceptionally cunning, and the exceptionally unscrupulous. All others are in the position of the man who tries to fill a tank with water whilst the bung is out. The more he sweats at his pump-handle the more runs out of the bung-hole. Hard work, perserverance and economy do not count. The one who is toil- ing up the hill slips back faster than he can climb. BREAKERS AHEAD, 15 This is a fine etate of thinga indeed, for a country which professes to give a fair show to every one who is willing to work. There have been people all the time who understood the cause of the mal- distribution of wealth. In fact some of them deliberately worked and plotted for it, year after year. It is they who have loaded the dice. It is they who have pulled out the bung. As a result, they are wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. Their posses- Bions are so vast that they are borne down by the care of them. Others saw the peril, and, with tears in their eyes, warned the country o! the danger before it. Nearly thirty years ago President Lincoln wrote as follows: "Yes. we may all congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its close * * * but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war corporations have been enthroned, and an era of cor- mp^ion in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will en- devor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war." "SEVEN FINANCIAL CONSPIRACIES." Five years ago a little book was published in Kansas, entitled " Seven Financial Conspiracies which have Enslaved the American People." It was written by a lady, Mrs. S, E, V, Emery , and was " Dedicated to the Enslaved People of a Dying Republic." It came on a startled people like a voice crying in the wilderness, and at once attracted a great deal of attention and excitement. It opened the eyes of thousands of people to the fact that this country is at present only a sham Re- public, and that the real law-makers are the millionaires of London and New York. So great a stir did the little book make that the politicians were alarmed, and did their utmost to down it. As the Junction City (Kansas) Tribune says : " It was made the special object of attack by tJie ablest speakers of the great monopoly ysrcty of the State, by organized central committees, and by the most powerJul and widely-circulated journals of the great Wall-street party. Yet in all this fiery furnace of rage, vituperation, slander, and abuse, not a break or fracture was found in the harness of this glorious little book. Not a statement was disproved or a position overthrown. Republican speakers on the rostrum were seen to exhibit it to their audiences, to misread its pages, to use the most withering invectives in their denunciations, and then, in their rage, to spic upon it, and to stamp it with their feet." It was in vain. Three hundred thousand copies of the work have now been published. Its influence is growing day by day. A new party was formed in the summer of '92 to drive the money-power from office. At the elections in November of the same year it polled more than a million votes. Today it would poll at least three times as many, and if things go > on as they are going now, at the next presidential election the golden calf will be ground to powder, and the people will— for the first time since the war— rule for themselves. But the Wall street men will make a terrible fight. Millions of dollars will go in bribes. The heavy hand of the creditor will be over all the land, and every poesible trick and misrepresentation will be tried to set the people off on a false Bcent. le BREAKERS AHEAD. But the nation will win eventually. For only ignorance and diyisions can permanently keep 60,000,000 of people in slavery. As President Lincoln said: "Some men can always be fooled, all men can sometimes be fooled, bat all xnen cannot always be fooled." The Bev. T, Be Witt Talmage {-ells us: **There is trouble ahead. Eevolution. I pray God it may be peaceful revolution and at the ballot box." — ^^ Pathway of Life.*' If the victory cannot be won by ballots, it will have to be won by bullets. If once the people be firmly persuaded that the ballot-box is unequal to the task of freeing them from their masters, they will adopt other means. "When that time comes, millionaires will be strung up to lanap-posts like ►carrion; their palaces will be burnt to the ground, their wealth Sfized and iscattered to the winds, whilst a carnival of blood reigns supreme." — J,L. btay, in \N&w Nation. Some of our Millionaires know this. One of them, when asked why he did not build a palatial mansion, replied: ■ "J don't want a house thai will be so easily found when the hungry fellows break I loose." SUMMARY OP THE BOOK. liCt US briefly examine the little work and see what it is all about. The first I chapter discusses THE CIVIL WAR. When the war broke out the Wall street brokers went wild with joy. i As is always the case in times of war, gold was hoarded and disappeared [from circulation. [ The Government could not carry on the war without money, bo it went to I Wall street for a loan. [ The patriotic brokers at once offered money— af /row 24 to 36 per cent interest. Lincoln refused it, and Congress passed an act authorizing the issue of sixty imillion dollars' worth of treasury notes, which became known as greenbacks, ;These did not bear interest to anybody, and were. full legal tender for all debts. The brokers were foiled. There was no demand for their hoarded gold. ' I, THE EXCEPTION CLAUSE. ' The brokers immediately held a convention at Washington, and urged the (Senate to alter the act so as to make duties on imports and interest on the public j debt payable in coin. So much pressure was brought to bear that the Senate mutilated the act. Congress finally accepted it. So the money power won its first victory over Hhe people. This change, of course, put a big premium on gold, and gave the bankers a icinch on the Government. It also depreciated the greenbacks, for, when the Government that issued them refused to take them back in payment for debts, (other people were not likely to do so if they could help it. Notwithstanding the fact that the greenbacks came into existence mutilated, they relieved the strain, and the war was carried on with them. The country ^prospered in spite of the war. Owing to this exception clauee, enormous prices had to be paid for imported i,tea, sugar, coffee, etc. People paid tnese big prices without being able to fdiscover the reason for them. In July, 1864, an importer who had $100 to pay in duty, had to pay the Wall street brokers $285 for the necessary gold. It is estimated that in 1864 alone, this exclusion clause put into the hands of BREAKERS AHEAD. 17 rihe Wall street brokers nearly $400,000,000. That is to say, every lamiiy in the >land was robbed of $87 in one year. U. THE NATIONAL BANKS. Meanwhile the authorities were induced by the importunity of the greedy capitalists to borrow money from them instead of making it themselves. [See Appendix A and B.] So instead of issuing more greenbacks, which cost nothing and answered every purpose, they issued the interest-bearing bonds which are today crushing America to the earth. In 1863 Congress started to farm out its money-making powers to the banks. The National Bank Act enabled the banker to get back 90 per cent of his ibond investment in the form of National Bank notes. So be could sell his gold to the importer at a huge profit, invest the greenbacks in Government bonds at face value f draw interest in gold in adixince, get nearly all his money back in notes at 1 per cent, and lend them out to the people at 10 or 12 per cent. In this way he drew interest from the Grovernment and from individuals on the same investment. Verily, we Americans can lick creation when it conies to roguerv. In 1887 the National Banks held nearly $60,000,000 in notes at 1 per cent interest. They loaned it out to the people at from 10 to 12 per cent, or used it to comer the necessaries of life. So the money power won its second victory oxxr iJie people. After the act had been in force for some time, Salmon P. Chase, who helped the bankers pass it, found out his error. He wrote: "My agency in procuring the pasHage of the National B^nk Act was the greatest mistake of my life. It has built up a monopoly that affects every interest in the country. It should be repealed But before this can be accomplished, the people will be arrayed on on<:) side and the ban&s on the other in a contest such as we have never seen in this country." III. CONTRACTION. In 1866 an act was passed enabling the holders of greenbacks to exchange them for uu taxed interest-bearing bonds. The greenbacks were then destroyed by tne Government. Every transaction of thia kind made so much less currency for business, and so much more to pay interest on. The holder of greenbacks had to employ his money in trade or manufacture. But by turning it into bonds he escaped paying taxes or insurance, and got his interest without work or worry. Destroying the currency lowered the prices of everything and ruined thousands. The business failures in '66 were 520. They have ^one up almost every year frince then and now amount to j early 20,000. The debt-paying power has been r dujfd more than the debt itself. In '87, althoui^h interest to doable the amount had been paid, it would have required more bushels of wheat, etc., t j pay it off than at fir.t. Tlie same with 'he interest on the debt. So the money power won its th'rd victory over the people IV. CREDIT-STRENGTHENING ACT. In 1869 forty capitalists of New York city got the Republicans to nominate j and elect General Grant as President. Ht at once paid for his election by passing 18 BREAKERS AHEAD. what was known as the Credit-Strengthening Act. It made the 5-20 bonds payable in COIN. This act added $125,000,000 to the burdens of the people. The year before, John Sherman had called the bond-holders repudiators and extortioners to demand payment in gold. Yet when appointed to the Treasury .he helped them to pass the act. And in '79 (having by some unknown meansf become a millionaire ) he said that: "To refuse to pay the bonds in gold woula be repudiation and extortion, and would be scoffing at the blessings of Almighty God." As an English writer says : *'It is a trick of capital in all countries to persuade the people that their honor is at stake in tho payment of war debts at the highest valuation the avarice of the holders may set on them." — Fawcet. It is interesting to notice that when the bill passed there were 189 bankers in Congress, and as many bond-holders. They were there in spite of the fact that a banker cannot legally be a member of the House. As Thaddev,s Stevens said : "We had to yield. The Senate was stubborn. We did not yield until we- found that the country must be lost or the banks gratified, and we have sought to save the country in spite of the cupidity of its wealthier citizens." V. REFUNDING ACT. Passed in 3870. PrevcBts the Government from paying the public debt before a certain time, even when it has the money. So, with millions in the Treasury, and millions loaned out to banks free of interest, the debt cannot be paid off. About $750,000,000 of it cannot be paid off till 1907. It puts the country in the position of "Sinbad the Sailor," with the "Old Man of the Woods" on bis shoulders. The party which passed this act has ever since been doing its utmost to- spend the surplus in other ways, so that the Government may never be able to payoff its debts. This parity explains the freedom with which money has been spent in various more or less unprofitable ways. The "Old Man of the Woods" has come to stay, even if we do have a "billion-dollar Congress." One word of the bill was altered after it passed Congress, making the 4 per cent bonds payable after thirty years instead of before. So the money power won itBffth victory over the people. VI. DEMONETIZATION OP SILVER. And now we come to the crime of critMs, The crime above all the other crimes which American finance has committed. In 1873 a harmless-looking bill was introduced from the Mint Committee^ It was supposed to contain merely regulations for expediting the working of the Mint. Hooper, the Chairman of the Committee, in spite of some opposition, got the bill passed without being read in Congress. "Honest John Sherman'' saw it safely through the Senate. [See Appendix E.] This bill stopped the coinage of silver and destroyed its money value. B> so doing, it further contracted the currency, prevented the payment of bond? and increased their value. It was passed at the request of Ernest Seyd^ an agen* sent here from England by the foreign bond-holders. To enforce his arguments he brought with him $500,000. An attempt has been made to throw doubt on Ernest Seyd's visit to thi.^ country. But there is positive official proof that the above statement is correct, rSee Annendix F.l BREAKERS AHEAD. 19 Bonds ^re now not only payable in coin^ but in gold only. Gold, of course, went up in value, whilst silver, now a mere commodity, deprived of its money value, went down, carrying aloifg with it every other commodity. From 1833 to '73 silver was almost stationary in value, but ever since its demonetization by the United States it has been going down steadily, except when ti) e 3 emed to be a prospect of free coinage being adopted. Then it went up in price along with corn, cotton, wheat and other commodities, only to fall again when it became evident that free coinage could not be secured. [See Appendix G.] With the exception of specialists, who were either naturally or artificially friendly to demonetization, no one knew for a time what had been done. Even President Grant professed to be unaware of any change, and expressed his surprise that silver was not offered for coinage. Blaine and Thurman both denied that they knew the object of the bill at the time. But when specie payments were resumed, it was found that gold was the only metal authorized to be coined. But although the country did not perceive the cause, it felt the effect. As Mrs. Emery says : "The injury to the people of this country through the demonetization of silver can never perhaps be justly estimated. The panic of 1873 which ensued was one of the most disastrous that ever befel any people. Language fails in a 1 description of the blighting misery that desolated the country; the ravages of; war are scarcely comparable with it. From ihe demonetization of silver in 1873 to its remonetization in 1878 may well be called the dark days of the Republic, Bankruptcies and financial disaster brought in train their legitimate offspring; and the statistics of those and following years are voluminous with the most startling and loathsome crimes. Murder, insanity, divorce, drunkenness, and all forms of immorality and crime have increased from that day to this. * * The contraction of the currency, commencing with the destruction of the green- backs in 1860, and the stringency increased by the demonetization of silver in 1873, has been productive of more misery and crime to the people of this country than all the wars, pestilence and famine with which they have ever been afflicted." So the money-power won its sixth victory over the people. Vn. BESUMPTION ACT. In '75 an act was passed authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to destroy the fractional currency (that is, the small change paper money), and to issue silver money to take its place. The paper money had been no burden to the country, but, to buy the silver which took its place, interest-bearing bonds were issued. And that interest is paid by the people. Besides this, the fractional currency could be sent through the mail. Now even small remittances have to be made by draft or money order. So the money power won its severUh victory over the people. I have nos^ given a bare outline of the Seven Financial Conspiracies described by Mrs. Emery. It will be seen that the objects of the conspiring brokers were to get the gold into their hands and then to raise its value by depreciating and destroying the silver and paper money of the people. The result of the conspiracies is as follows : At the close of the war the amount of money of final redemption in circula- tion was two billion dollars (Secretary McOullough). The population being 35,000,000, this was equal to $57 per head. 20 BREAKERS AHEAD. The Treasury atatietice today ehov a sum of $1,600 000,000 (supposed to be) in circulation. The population being now about 65,000,000, this would be |26. But there is now aa immense amount of it locked up in bank te erves and hoards, besides what has been lost and destroyed by fires, shipwrecks, etc. It is the opinion of some even of the New York bankers that the amount in circu- lation now does not amount to more thao $6. And at the close of the war there wa^ $57 in circulation. Political economists and business men tell us that a great proportion of the business of the world can be done by personal cheques, tiiat is by money of conditional payment. But as cheques do not balance one anoth* r, at least 5 per cent of the money of final payment is necessary. If there is lees, the result is bankruptcy and ruin. When we see that the population and business of the country have been growing ever since the i^ar, and that there is now only ove tenth of the money left in actual circulafio'^, we are no lon,/er surprised that the business failures have increased from 520 to 20,0)0 per annum. In 1878 the distress o ting to the money stringency led to the repeal of the act ^hich was gradually destroying the greenbacks; $345,000,000 of them were saved from the flames. It is hardly necessary to state that the repeal was not carried by the bankers, but in spite of them. The result was a relief to the people. THE BLAND ACT. In the same year the people gav^ the money power another check, though it was more of a compromise than a victory. Si ver was rem >netized by what is known as the B>and-A.lli on Act. Silver and all co limodi^es had then fallen 10 per cent in value. Or, to be more acuraie. gold had g'^ne np 10 per cent. The bill, as sent to the Senate, authorizeil/ree coinage of ssilver, and rt-stored its legal te der character. If this had been carried, silver and every commodiiy v^ould have risen to the old scale, and prosperity would have come back to the people. The S-^nate muUl a ted the bill, limiting coinage to $4 000,000 a monfh. By pretending that the mints Acre un»bie to com so mucli, liie HUiiioriues never coined more than half that amount. The eraaeculafed bill wag accepted by Bland under irotest and passed. As free coinage had not been obiain^d, the int-ineic value of silver cuniinued to go down, carrying with it everything except the brok» rs' loM. The reault of the amendments is that the con it -y ha« lot one W lion dollars n paving off bonds; for without them tbe Bland Act would h .verecoverei that amount of the eiolen money. Instead of g"ttin» back to the bimetallic or op ional ptmdard th^t exiet d before '73, the reeulc was humphacke I mr>rttniiet'Ulisin that pleased no one an was bat little better than the goid stan'iard itself. Daring th*^ debates the gold pt ty 'alked a good deal about the "disbonest dollar." This referred to the fact that the ininneic or bdl'on value of silver was Ht th t time less tl»an its money v lue. This was all a blind, for v* hen t*[\ver is coincl its intrinsic value ia lo3t or s^vamped bv^ ihe money valu-^ give to it by the "fiat" of the Government. I d*^-'*" "O'. ma er a hill of beaus how eopty of value the si ver may be. Ori<;e toined, the money v lue poa.s inu> a and ma ies it "as go d as ^ evident After it was accomplished ihey rtaohed a lower level than they had ever reached before, and the business of the country became, if possible, worse than evei, SHERMAN A TRUE PROPHET. This reminds one of the more successful propuesy of Senator Sherman before he made himself a milUonaire by going over to the side of the gold party, Hn 1869 he said : 24 BREAKERS AHEAD. "The contraction of the currency is a far more distreesing operation than Senators suppose. It is not possible to take the voyage without the eorest reenlts. To every person, except the capitalist ont of debt, a salaried official, or am annnitant, it is a period of loss, danger, lassitude of trade, fall of wages, suspend ■ion of enterprise, bankruptcy and disaster. It means ruin to all dealers whose debts are twice their business capital, though one* third less than their actual property." CAELISLE'S C017DEMNATI0N. It also recalls what the Hon. J. G. Carlisle said before he had renounced^ his position as "a sender of messages" to become ''a bearer of them." On February 20, 1878, he said in Congress: "According to my view of the subject, the conspiracy which seems to have been parsed here and Europe to destroy, by legislation and otherwise, from three- sevenths to one* half of the metallic money of the world is the mosti GIGANTIC CRIME OF THIS OB ANY OTHER AGE. The cousumation of such a schen^ej would ultimately entail more misery upon the human race than all the wars,! pestilences and famines that ever occurred in the history of the world." At present this same J. G. Carlisle shares with John Sherman, thei Bepublican, and Grover Cleveland, the Democrat, the honor ( ?) of havingi consumatcd what he himself called "THE MOST GIGANTIC CRIME or thi& OB ANY OTHER AGE." ' CHAPTER IV. SOME MORE CONSPIRACIES.--A BROKEN PROMISE. The act ha vie g been repealed, the next thing to be done was t ) replace it by the promised legislation which was to put silver again on an equality with gold. Bof, no! That was not the intention of the money power at all. The- promise had been made for the purpose of enabling it to get the repeal. That having been obtained, an excitement was got up about some little islands in the Pacific Ocean, to divert attention from the subject, and Congress was requested to proceed with the tariff question. THE TARIFF FIGHT. Before long, another big fight was got up between the advocates of the- Wilson tariff and the McKinley tariff. Both of these were high tariff:!, and the difference between them was not much more than the difference between "twe^-dledum and tweedlfdee." Bat as nearly every low tariff advocate in the country wanted a high tariff for bis own. productions, the questior} served its usual purpose of distracting the attention of Congress from the financial question. Senator Ingalls was not far wrong when he declared in the Chicago Tribune- that: "The tariff is not of as much weight as the fly on the cart whe^^l. The tariff is only a feint, a falf^ pretense. Ic is only an instrument for juggling and tomfoolery."— June 18, 1888. false prophets. Those who had prophesied an immediate return of prosperity on the repeal of tho Sherman Act, finding that the result was the onnoait^e from what they fiad BREAKERS AHEAD. I foretold, now said that the uncertainty on the tariff question was the cause of the continued fall of prices and prostration of trade. When that excuse is removed ■ they will invent another one. THE TRUE CAUSE. Any excuse will do if it only diverts attention from the ONE GREAT CAUSE which,\^ove all other causes, is enabling the Wall street brokers and their English accomplices to get possession, without labor, of the wealth created by all the producers of the United States. That cause is the shrinkage of values due to the demonetization of silver, which was obtained by fraud and has been continued and completed by whole- ' sale bribery and corruption. PRICES CANNOT RECOVER. The result of the eight financial conspiracifs which have now been su'^cessfuUy carried out in this country, is that silver is lower today, compar-^d with gold, than it has been since the century began. And so are wheat, cotton and corn. And they will remain douon until gold is hurled from its unrighteoud pre-eminence.. I read in one of the papers, the other day, that — "Sheep, cattle, hogs, hordes — all the products of the farm — are quoted lower in the market thin maybe m. tal, parcnment or paper. The value is in ths stamp ^ and not in the metal or material,** WOODEN MONET. When the Hudson's Bay Company found money necessary in trading with the Indians, they did not waste their time by digging for gold or silver, but made all the money they needed by simply branding pieces of wood with a hot iron. They paid the Indians for their pelts with this wooden money and agre«^d to fell their guns, blankets, etc., for so many pieces of it. It was a fiat money pure and simple, and as long as the Indians could not imitate it, it proved to be "tie good as gold." If it were not that wooden money is inconvenient to handle and easy to counterfeit, it would be far superior to either gold or silver for money. Paper monev is not open to these objections. All the labor spent in mining gold and silver from the mountains for money is utterly thrown away. The only reason why we advocate the coinage of silver and gold, as well s paper, is because the mass of the people are not yet sufficiently educated to re y on paper money by itself. Not, redeemable in gold, but backed by the credit of the greatest Rppublic n earth, g vernmont paper is better than gold. It does not run the nation in debt, and it belongs to the nation itself, not to the money brokers. It must not he issued bv banks, but by the Government itself. Its amount, (f course, must be limited by public requirements, and it must be legal t^^nd^r for all debts, public and private. In case of war it is the only money ^hich will not shirk its duty. Surely the be t friend in trouble is also the best friend in prosperity. Bus as a matter of course, the money power will strive to the very urtermost of its terrific power to prevent the substitution of paper for specie. -Sinbad the Sailor" never was birne down so heavily by the ' O d Man of the W ods," as the producers of today are borne down by the money power of the world. THE day cometit. Nearly a hundred years a-a, when Alexander Hamilton was trving to 80 BREAKERS AHEAD. bring the people of America under the yoke of a new-born aristocracy and wealth, Thomas Jefferson encouraged the people by Baying: "A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolved, and the people recovering their true sight, restoring the Government to its true principles." The people followed Jt^fferson, and he overthrew the threatening money power and gave the prosperity of fifty years ago. He told the people fchey must emancipate the slaves gradually, or worse would follow. They refused to listen to him, and the result was the Rebellion, with all the eyil that haa grown out of it. I'oday the outlook is darker than ever before, and we are tempted to relax our efforts and acknowledge that civilization is a failure— for the million. Yet, in spite of all we hope for the best and say to ourselves : * 'A little patience, and the witches of the night shall pass away, and the people will turn once more to the true principles of Government." When that time comes America will once more be a land "Where a man is a man, if he's willing to toil, , And the humblest may gather the fruits of the soil." Then the settler can aga'n sit in peace and plenty, beneath his own vine and fig tree. He can sing once more, by the glimmer of the moon, on the bench by the old cabin door. And as he remembers the nightmare through which he has passed, he will sing : "The song, the sigh of the weary — Hard times, hard times, come again no morel Many davs you have lingered around my cabin door— Oh ! Hard time-», come again no more !" THE NINETY AND NINE. There are ninety and nine that live and di» In want, and hunger, and cold, That ove mav revel in luxury And be wrapped in its silken fold ; The ninety and nine in their hovels bare, The one in a palace with riches rare. They toil in the flfelds, the ninety and nine, For the fruits of our mother earth ; They dig and delve in the dusky mine, And bring its rich treasures forth; But the wealth released bv their sturdy blows To the hands of ihe one for ever flows. By the sweat of their brows the desert blooms, And the forest before them falls ; ' Their labor has builded humble homes, And cities with lofty halls ; But the one owns city, and homes and lands. And the ninety and nine have empty hands. But the night, so dreary, so dark, so long. At last shall the morning bring. And over the land the victor's song Of the ninety and nine shall ring. And echo afar, from zone to zone, 'Rejoice ! for labor shall have i'S own.'— ifrs. S. M. SunAXh, BREAKERS AHEAD. 31 A FABLE. I will conclude this chapter with a fable which illustrates the wisdom and honesty of some of our rulers. There was once a man who had a fat goose which was growing fatter every day. At last it became so heavy that it could hardly sustain itself upon its hind legs. The owner paw that the goose was getting too heavy for its "nether limbs." He determined to r lieve it so that it might stand up better. He accordingly cat off one of its hind legs, thinking that it would stand more securely on the other foot, without having its strength divided. When he had finished, he was surprised to find that the goose found more difficulty in standing on one foot than it had on two. But he concluded that all would be well as soon as the goose transferred its confidence from the lost leg to the one it had left. He, therefore, sat down to wait for the goose to transfer its confidence. He is waiting yet. THE INTERPKETATION, The fat goose is the commerce of the country. One of its legs represents the gold, and the other the silver money on which it rests. The commerce has grown faster than gold or silver can be mined, so that there is not enough money to support the commerce. It accordingly gets very shaky whenever the wind blows. The Government cuts off the silver money, tmder the pretense of enabling the commerce to stand up more securely on the gold basis. When the process began there were 520 business failures in a year. When the process was com- pleted, there were about the same number in a week, But the Government still protests that its pohcy has been wise and states manlike. It glories in the deed, and there are millions of smart Americans who still think it folly to let the commercial goose have two feet to stand on. '2^ a mad world J my masters! CHAPTER V. POLITICAL CORRUPTION.— MONOPOLIES. I have shown how class legislation has put enormous sums of money in the hands of a few. The great Daniel Webster who, being dead yet speaketh, tells us that— "A free Government cannot long endure where the tendency of laws is to concentrate the wealth of the country in the hands of the few." By the use of this ill-gotten wealth, crushing monopolies and trusts have been organized, which rob the people ui every shape and form. The Rev. T. De Witt Talmagk says : "The overshadowing curse of America today is monopoly. He puts his hands upon every bushel of wheat, every sack of salt, every sack of flom:, every tonofcoal. andnotaman, woman or child in America but feels the touch of this moneyed despotism. His sceptre is made out of the iron track of the railroading and the wire of telegraphy. He proposes to have e^/^y^^/J^f ^Jf, 3 wftv. for his own advantage and the people's robbery. He stands in the railroad 32 BREAKERS AHEAD. idepot, and puts into his pocket each year two billion dollars beyond the reasoo- JAble charge for his services. He controls nominations and elections, city j elections, Ptate elections. He has the Democratic party in one pocket and ti« Brfublican party in the other." Ab a result of this there is probably no country in the world where politics are bo corrupt as they are here in the United States today. To an intelligent foreigner, one of the most astonishing customs in this country is that of changing all the sub-officials when a new party comes into power. It takes several years for an inexperienced man to become proficient in his duties. In the United States, when a man has been in office about long enough to know the ropes, he is turned out and another greenhorn put in his place. Such a system would wreck the most prosperous business in the world inside of ten years. The idea seems to be that we ought to give everybody a chance — to steal. For one result of this idiotic system is that comparatively few hone«t men care to run for pmlic office?. Many of thoee who obtain positions, knowing that they will soon be removed, however well thev perform their duties, begin to * 'feather their nests" in every possible way. "To the victors the spoils'* is the cry. The result is that the Government expenses of the country, which in Jefferson's time amounted to sixty cents per head, now reach seven dollabs per head. [Be iton's Thirty Years* View,] The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher once said : "Onr legislatures have been bought and sold till we think no more of it than the buying and selling of bo many cattle." liOTH parties corrupt. David Davis tells us : ••The Repuolican and Democratic parties are both controlled by monopolists, and neither dare assert the will or policy of its constituents.*' When the vo'ers g^t disgusted with one party, they go over to the other, to ^find it worse. As the Rev. T. Dk Witt Talmage says in his Pathway of Lfe: **There they I'e today, the Drtmocratic party and the Republican party, side by side, g'-eat loith^ome carcasses of iniquity, each one worse than the other." The sanre preacher savs: **I nev«r so much believed in a Republican form of government as I do todav, for the single reason that anv otl er s'y'e of g »vernment would have been <'onpum'^d I'^ne aeo. There have been swindles enacted in this nation within THE LAST thirty YEARS ENOUGH TOSA^AMP THREE MONARCHIES." The o her r^ay it was openly charged that a number of Senators bad taken ad van^ag^ of their official knowUd^'^ of the new tariff to feather their own n«»Pts. An en |uiry was asked for, and the S nae deliberately voted it down. More than half of the members were afraid of an investigaiion. Why ? Because they were scared ]pb'' their orim'-s should be br>ujrat to light, *-The children of darkness ha^e the I'ght becaupe their deeds are evil.*' Th« puMic clerkships at Washington are Bwarming with the mispresses of C^nare^-men and Senators. The immorality of Colonel Breckenridge is not the *^xception, but the rul^. The highest position in the land is occupied by the fa»hpr of Maria Hal pin's child. T^e Saa Franci>'CO Exnminer Paid, sometime ago: *,PArtie8 chang^^, but lea:ifilature^ remain al vavs the same. The late rnvlif rnia) Iipgifllature was Democratic and disreputable. The present one is K pub ieraoQfi engaged in the Government service shall be placed under a civil service gulat.ion oi the most rigid character, so as to prevent the increa:-e of the power themselves. This would make our government an Elective Monarchy. But as the money kings control the President, it is virtually an Oligarchy of the basest kind. We might as well pretend that a green cheese is the Queen of Heaven, as to say that our present sham Republic is a true Democracy. England is a Limited Monarchy, handicapped by a tribe of Royal Paupers, an. ; upper house of Hereditary Fools, and other relics of feudal barbarism. Yet ehsr 'ia undoubtedly a better Republic today than this country is. I lived there for many yeais and know whereof I speak. BREAKERS AHEAD. 41 CHAPTER VII. POPULIST PLATFORM DISCUSSED. Those who wish to study lihe aims of the Populists should get a little pamphlet by D. A. Reynolds, of Lansing, Michigan, entitled **Demands of the People's Party." I can here only say a few words about the different plants of the platform. It is m three main sections, entitled Finance, Transportation and Land. FINANCE.— FIRST PLANK. '•We demand a national currency, safe, sound and flexible, issued by the general Government only, a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, and that without the use of banking corporations, a just, equitable and efficient means of distribution direct to the people at a low tax not to exceed 2 per cent per annum to be provided as set forth in the sub-treasury plan of the Farmers' Alliance or a better system ; also by payments in discharge of its obligations for public improvements." The currency should be "national," like coin and greenbacks are now. It should all be "full legal tender for all debts, public and private." It will then be "safe, sound end flexible." It should be "issued by the general Government only, without the use of banking corporations." At present the National Banks can buy 6 per cent bonds from the Govern- ment, and then get nine-tenths of their money back in National Bank notes at 1 percent, to lend to the people at 10 or 12 per cent. In this way they escapb TAXATION and get two interests from the same investment, amounting to 15 or 1& per cent. The above plan would prevent this thievish arrangement, as well as the far more dangerous power the banks at present have of controlling the money market to suit their speculations. Thomas Jefferson said : "I believe that the banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. * * * l"he issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the Government and the people to whom it properly belongs. Let banks exist, but let them bank upon coin or treasury notes." Andrew Jackson, in speaking of the right to issue money, said : "If Congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to be used by themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations." John C. Calhoun said : "Place the money in the hands of a single individual or combination, and tbey, bv expanding or contracting the currency, may raise or sink prices at PLEASURE, and by purchasing at the greatest depress ion and selling at the greatest elevation, may command the whole property and industry of the com- munity and control its fiscal operations. Never was an engine better calculated to place the destiny of the many in the hands of the few." James A. Garfield, speaking to this point, said : "The power that controls the issue and volume of currency is absolute dictator of the business and finances of the country." And Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln, lived to say: "My agency in procuring the passage of the National Bank Act was th© greatest financial mistake of my life. It has built up a monopoly that affect© ©very interest in the country. It should be repealed. But before this can be done the people will be arrayed on one side, and the banks on the other, in a contest such ^s we have never before seen in this country." 42 BREAKERS AHEAD. The proposition to lend money direct to the people at 2 per cent is infinitely "better than the present criminal plan of lending it to the banks at 1 per cent, and allowing them to get 12 or more per cent for it from the people. It is not a new plan, for in France the Government builds storehouses and allows the iarmers, etc., to store their wheat or other products at a nominal charge. It gives them warehouse receipts which have the value of money. The final proposition to distribute the currency not to the rich bankers as CHARITY, but to the people themselves in discharge of its obligations for public improvements, will commend itself to every honest citizen. SECOND PLANK. We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1. That is, we demand that gold and silver be put on an equal footing again as they were before the demonetization trickery of '73. This would at once put commerce on two feet again, and raise the price of every commodity to some- thing like its old figure, without raising the amount of interest to be paid on mortgages or bonds. The President's fixed salary of $50,000 would then be equal to the same number of bushels of wheat that it was equal to before the demonetization of silver. At present it is worth more than twice as many bushels as when the amonnt was fixed by Congress. The same is true of all fixed salaries. SILVER AND WHEAT. Some people dispute the statement that the low price of wheat, etc., is due to the low price of Bilver. Let ua examine the question for a moment. Since 1872 an ounce of silver has, in comparison with gold, been forced down from $1 32 to 60 cents by its demonetization in the United States. But, viN comparison with other products it has still the SAME VALUE. It wiU buy the same quantity of wheat, corn, cotton, etc. The consequence is that where there is no gold money to compare it with it is still worth $1.32. So it will still buy a bushel of wheat in India, the same as it would in '72. And if 60 cents' worth of silver will buy a bushel of wheat in India, it will buy the same quantity here. Therefore the American farmer is going to get fooled if he expects to get living prices for his wheat, cotton or corn, whilst silver is being held down at 60 ■cents an ounce. There is one cure for this state of things, and that is as simple as rolling off a log. It is for the United States Congress to pass a bill restoring the free coinage of silver at the old ratio of 16 to 1. Pass that bill today — **And in ten days from this time the skies will brighten, business will resume its ordinary course, and 'the clouds that lower upon our house will be in the deep bosom of the ocean buried.' " Aye, and not only that, but the Liverpool merchants, not being able to get any cheap silver to bay wheat with in India, will once more have to pay our farmers something like $1.32 a bushel, which the India farmers have been practically getting right along. Then our farmers will be able to pay off" their mortgages and be once more free men, with homes of their own. But don't be deceived. Nothing but ABSOLUTELY FREE COINAGE AT 16 TO 1 will do this. THIRD PLANK. "We demand that the amount of circulating medium be speedily increased to not less than $50 per capita." BREAKERS AHEAD. 43 Even then it would not be equal to what we had at the close of the war. As there is not sufficient gold and silver mined to make this amount, part of it would be in Teeasury notes or greenbacks, with no exception clause to defile them. What the producers want is plenty of money, good prices and low interest. Of all the absurd ideas the old parties have ever tried to foist on a credulous people, the most absurd is that they require "a doll.vr with a high purchasing TOWEB." The producer has to buy this dollar with his labor, and if it has a high porcbaeing power he will have to work so much longer to get hold of it. Is not ^his plain enough 7 FOURTH PLANK. "We demand a graduated income tax." *'0h no, we don't," say the millionaires and their hangers on. **We would very much prefer that the revenues of the country should be raised by a high tariff, because the poor man pays almost all of that. Furthermore," say these millionaires, "if we have to pay an income tax, we shall give false returns 4X>nceming the amount of our incoihes, and we have already enough to answer lor before the throne of the Almighty without being compelled to still further perjure our souls." Several old world nations derive a part of their revenues from an income tax. England now collects $77,000,000 a year from this source. For the nine years ending in 1871 an income tax was in force in this country. During that time nearly $350,000,000 were collected. The monied men of course never liked it, and at last they succeeded in getting it repealed. INCOME, NINE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DOLLARS AN HOUR. It is estimated tnat William Waldorf Asteb has an income of nearly nine million dollars per annum. This is at the rate of $23,000 per day, or $16 per minute, night and day, summer and winter alike. With a high tariff and no income tax, this man has practically no taxes to pay to the Government which keeps the hungry mob from tearing him to pieces and taking from him the wealth which they, and not he, produced. INCOME, FOUR CENTS AN HOUR. At the same time, the laboring man, who has produced his share of tnis wealth, toils from early dawn to dark, and the dollar which he earns in a day has more than a quarter of its purchasing power destroyed by the high tariff. He has to pay more for almost everything he eata, drinka and wears. I have lived in boih free trade and protectionist countries and know what I am talking about. The rich man receives greater services from the Government than the poor man, and he is better able to pay for that service. Therefore, tbe larger the income the heavier should he be taxed. On the largest incomes even if the tax be made high, the owners thereof will still have several millions of dollars a year to buy their groceries with. The millionaires can onlv get three things with their money— food, clothing and shelter. And when they die they will not need to take their wealth with them to buy clothing and shelter with. The smallest incomes should be free, and the tax might be half of 1 per cent on $1,000, 1 per cent on $5,000, 2 per cent on $10,000, and so on. As to wealthy men giving false returns of their incomes, we have laws for the punishment of perjury, and we have penitentiaries all over the land built expressly for those who break our laws. 4* BREAKERS AHEAD. There are some who think that a graduated income tax would not be just to the extremely wealthy. But it must be remembered that every cent of the wealth owned by these "giants of the mountains'* was created by the "pigmies of the valley." The people have toiled on the plains and in the mines. They have sown the seed and reaped the crop, only to find the harvest snatched from their hand^ by thope who professed to be distributing it for them. When the Hudson Bay Company sold a gun to the Indians, its agents set the gun up on end, and packed the Indian's beaver skins on each side of it till they reached the muzzle. They then took the skins and let the Indian take the gun. The cupidity of the company led it to make the gun a little longer every year, so that it might get more skins for it. In the same way the speculators who have been distributing our products have been quietly getting the Government to lengthen the golden yardstick so that it now measures out to them twice the amount of wheat, corn, cotton, etc.,. we had agreed to sell them for a dollar. It should also be remembered that millionaires ere undesirable citizens, Horace Mann says of them : "The millionaire of today is as dangerous to society as was the baronial lord of the middle ages." Some people seem to think that we ought to be thankful that w6 have millionaires to give employment to labor. This is all a mistake. "It is labor that gives life and value to capital. It is labor that creates the products, the exchange ot which gives employment to money." It is labor that consumes these same products, and it is labor that pays not only the workmen's wages, but also the interest, rent and profit of the capitalist. As Abraham Lincoln says : •'Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruits oi labor, and could not have existed had not labor first existed." The millionaire produces no wealth, but is like the dog in the manger, unable to eat the food it contains, yet keeping the toiling masses from getting the just reward of their labor. If a citizen of a well regulated world were to visit our globe he would be horrified, sickened and disgusted by what he saw here. The probability is that his sense of justice would prompt him to try to drag the dog out of the manger and hang the brute on the nearest telegraph pole. If the millionaires did not like to pay their just taxes, they would have the privilege of going to some land where the people prefer slavery to liberty. We could get along very well without them, for they could not take the real wealth of the country with them, and we should not then see so many Benedict Arnolds amongst our leaders. FIFTH PLANK. "We believe that the money of the country should be kept as much as- possible in the hands of the people, and nence we demand that all state and national revenues shall be limited to the necessary expenses of the Government economically and honestly administered." Both of the old parties have professed to favor economy and retrenchment, , but the Republican billion-dollar Congress which so disgusted their opponents, j .has been followed by a Democratic one still more wasteful and extravagant. j In contrast with this I would like to call attention to the change which^haa/ BREAKERS AHEAD. 45 taken place in Kansas since the Populists got into power there. The state expenses have been cut down to one-half, and the railroads have, for the first time, been compelled to pay their proper proportion of the taxes. .« SIXTH PLANK. "We demand that postal savmgs banks be established by the Govern- ment for the safe deposit of the earnings of the people and to facilitate exchange."' I lived for many years in a country where postal savings banks are nowj ancient institutions, and I assert without fear of contradiction that they have saved millions from poverty and want. They are the best possible schools for^ teaching the habit of saving. In Great Britain, where they have been established for 32 years, the depositors, number one quarter of the population, and the deposits amount to over a. hundred million dollars. The school children there save up $300,000 a year in this way. Even in the midst of the most disastrous panics, these Government, banks are unafiected. '•In the whole history of Postal Savings Banks, there ha? not been the loss of a single dollar, and the system has come to be looked upon as the safest yet devised." [D. A. Reynolds.] The nation which has not yet introduced Postal Savings Banks is in this respect unenlightened and non-progressive. Even Russia has them. CHAPTER VIII. POPULIST PLATFORM.— CONTINUED TKANSPOBTATION, The first plank of the transportation section is as follows : •'Transportation being a means of exchange and public necessity, the Glovernment should own and operate the railroads in the interest of the people." It is a sound maxim of political economy that "all natural monopolies should be owned and operated in the interest of the people." Chief Justice Black, in one of his decisions, declared that — "A railroad is a public highway for the public benefit." His decision has never been questioned, and all railroad legislation takes this for granted. But for the government to own and operate the railroads is another thing. There are people who say that railroads cannot be profitably and satis- factority carried on by the Government. In anss^er to this it is sufficient to say tliat they are already carried on satisfactorily, economically and profitably by the government in difl'erent parts of the world. And that in this country they i are not carried on by the private companies either satisfactorily, economically or profitably, especially so far as the people are concerned. In GERIilANY almost all the railroads were acquired by the Government in 1881. Wages have been almost doubled, and the fare is one cent for four miles. • The following item appeared the other day in the Golden State: "Professor Sering, of Berlin, who was sent here by the German Govern- ment to study and report upon our agricultural and industrial conditions, states v46 BREAKERS AHEAD. that the entire German people are now convinced of the wisdom of the change, and while there is more or less diecussion in the legislative body regarding railroad administration, no voice is ever raised in favor of a return to the old system. Rates have been largely reduced, interest on bonds paid, sinking funds provided for, a large portion of school tax paid out of the earnings, and there is now a surplus of $25,000,000 on hand. 'But tlie best part of the system, '^ say« Professor Serine, 'is the complete abolition of discrimination; all men are treated exactly alike, no one phipper has an advantage over another. Were there no other advantage, even if in other respects the present system was not so desirable as the old, this one, with its even handed justice to all, would instantly silence any demand that might be made for a return to private ownersbip.' " D. A. Reynolds in his "Demands" says : "AUSTRALIA, which has the most extensive railroad system in proportion to inhabitants of any country on the face of the globe, has paid for her railways from the earnings of the roads in ten years, and for the last three years has appropriated their net earnings to the support of the Government, reducing national taxation nearly one-half. This has been done with a reduction of freight rates to one-half of the former rates, and the reduction of passenger rales to one-half cent per mile, or one guinea for a thousand mile ticket." Fellow citizens, how would you like to be able to ride 1,000 miles for $5? And to know that the biggest part of that is profit, going to reduce the taxes. It can, and will be done if you will put the People's Party in power. In HUNGARY, state ownership raised the number of passengers in one year from 5,000,000 to 13,000,000, with higher wages and a relative decrease of expenses. The fare is one cent for six miles. In BELGIUM the Government owns the railroads and charges about one cent a mile. The wages have been doubled. In INDIA a splendid railroad system has been constructed by the Govern- ment, with ra,tes in some cases only one- sixth what we are charged. In fact, no country has ever tried public ownership of railroads without finding it an enormous adv^antage over private railroad companies. In comparison with all this, read the disgusting and abominable history of many of the railroads of this country. One of the best pamphlets on the subject is that by the Hon. Thomas V. Gator, entitled "The Necessity and Advantages of National Ownership of Railroads," published by the Citizens' Alliance, San Francisco. The following appeared in the Times the other day: ' "Seventy-one railroads in the United States went into the hands of receivers in 189^3, be ng 03 per cent of the entire railway mileage of this country. Up to dat'^ nearly 40 per cent of American railway interests have been overtaken by oankrup'cy, and it is noticeable that the bankrupt roads established the fortunes of" the Huntingtons, the Stanfords, the Vanderbilts, and a host of other railway millionaires. And still people argue that in private ownership and manage- ment of railways justice and economy are conserved!" ? There are in ttiia country 1,700 separate railroad corporations, each with scores of highly paid.oflicials. Once in a while ihey get to fighting one another, but, with the exception of these rare intervals, they are all the time conspiring wi^h'ieachvothejn to, .cheat the public still more. If some railroad should be too ii»tepeiDdte*«t to suit them, and lower its ratw, they either crush it by diverting tbe traffic, or bribe ibtto raise its prices again. To defraud the public they have --~i('A''hoat}i'«ifi Gontrivanoes, such, as pools, rebates, drawbacks, special rates, psi^«^,*tei I ?rh«y 'dictate^ ^arty nominations and fill courts and legislative bodies with their attorneys.' BREAKERS AHEAD. 47 The railroad millionaires have acquired their great wealth by wrecking one road after another to enrich themselves. The Government has taken charge of the roads they have wrecked, restored them to prosperity and handed them hack to the wreckers to be wrecked once more. Sach folly 'twere trouble to find. As one of our papers said the o*her day : '•There is but one solution to the railroad question — Government ownership. The people must own the railroads, or the railroad? will own the people. Already all the great companips have a mutual understanding. They have formed one gigantic combiDe. They can fix their own rates and rob the people at their own sweet will. Competition is eliminatea. This immense trusr, reaches to every corner of the land. Its hand is on every man's pocket book. Ic levies a tar more certainly than anv moudrch in the world. It owns legislatures, courts and Congress itself. It is all powerful ana is actuated by no feelings but selfishness and greed. ''The people must strike at the nead of this monopoly. They cannot over- come V by struggling with the Dranches. They may gain an apparent victory at one point bub they will be worsted at anotner. Government ownership is the only solution of the transportation question.' ' [Alliance Independent.] If the country had built the western railroads itself, and operated them at cost, like it does the postoffice, tne west would today be more powerful than the east. As it is, the roads have cost the country more money thaa they are worth, besides an area of good land equal to England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and France. And after all, the nation has no control of them. The companies rob the interior settlers of all they produce, and in many parts the country is becoming almost a wilderness. The railroads of the United States could be built today for less than three hUlions of dollars, and that is aoout what they cost the companies. But the corporations have watered their stock to the tune of seven billions of dollars, so as to be able to charge higher freignts. They claim that their property has cost them ten billion dollars, and that they are entitled to charge sufficient to return them 5 per cent on this outlay. The result is that the extortionate "demands of the railroads alone absorb all the profits of our entire wheat and cotton crops in the United States." With Government ownership this would be done away with. "It has been estimated that the raiiroad system of the United States, placed under one management or departmpnt like the postoffice system, could reduce frtight rates to one-half pre^^ent rates, place mileage at one cent per nule, and pay the cost of construction in ten years from the sinking fund created by their net earnings, without one doUar's outlay on the part of the Government. [Demands.] The second plank is : "The telegraph and telephone, , e tne postoffice system, being a necessity for the transmission of news, should De owned and operated by the Government in the interest of the people." , , xu This is as desirable as the Government ownership of railroads, and for the same reasons. , l 4.u - Great Britain and many otner European countries own and operate their telegraph systems, with advantage to all. ' W H Price chief electrician of the Government telegraphs and telephones reply in an nour. 48 BREAKERS AHEAD. we go .to every town and every village, irrespective of the fact that they pay or do not pay, while in the stages the places that pav appear to me to be the only ones that receive the attention of the telegraph companies." In SWEDEN the Government owns the telephones and charges $30 a year. In NEW YORK the corporations own them and charge $240 a year. LAND. "The land, including all the natural resources of wealth, is the heritage of the people and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and alien, ownership of land should be prohibited. All land now held by railways and o^-her corporations in excess of their actual needs, and all lands now owned by^ aliens, should be reclaimed by the Government and held for actual settlers only,"' More than forty years ago, Herbert Spencer, in the ninth chapter of his "'Social Statics," showed that private ownership of land could not be justified by sound economic reasons. No one has ever been able to overthrow hie arguments, and no one ever will be able to do so. But the most pressing evil in connection with land is the fact that railroads and private corporations in the United States have, hy bribed legislation^ stolen from the people land sufficient for a mighty empire. As D. A. Reynolds says: In thirty land grants to railroads— many of which have been forfeited by not building the roads and other causes — the Government gave away over: 189,551,000 acres, or enough to make homes for 4,738,000 families. In addition to this, the records show page after page of titles to European nobility, who own! large tracts ranging from three million (over eight counties) to tracts of a few* townships. Little idea can be formed of the extent of this evil without com- parison, and then one is lost in the computation. The railroad grants show' alone an area four times as large as England, Ireland, ScoHand and Wales, which, added to the vast holdings of aliens, swells the amount to an area eleven times as large as the state of Ohio, thirteen such states as Indiana, thirty-seven such states as Maryland, or three hundred and fifty such states as Rhode Island." ["Demands," page 27.] This land monopoly is one great cause of falling wages, for the increasing population is prevented from settling on this land, where it might get a living independent of capitalists. At present it is compelled to beg for work from capitalists as the sole alternative to starvation. The result is that there is always surplus labor, which enables capitalists to dictate what wages they shall give their employees. Almost all the land now remaining in the hands of the Government is incapable of raising a crop. Whenever a reservation has been thrown open for public settlement, the result has been like throwing a bone amongst a crowd of hungry dogs. And at the same time monopoly broods over fertile land sufficient for an empire — unable to utilize it, yet determined to hold it from its rightful owners, the people. [See Appendix I.] It is not necessary that the land should be taken from the aliens who now hold it whilst living in another country. They might have two, three or five years* notice to come and occupy it or sell out to others who would do so. Or it might be heavily taxed as in New Zealand. [See Appendix L.] The land regained might be divided into small farms and either home- . steaded or rented out to the people at low and equitably graded rents. Small ; farms, securely held, return much larger crops than large half-cultivated ranches. At present most of the land round our cities is kept by speculators in a BREAKERS AIIEAD. 49 non-productive state. If it could be divided into five-acre tracts, the mechanics and laborers could live on them and work them when not otherwise employed. When out of work they could make a good living oy selling their surplua produce in the city. Surplus labor would then be done away with, and American pauper labor would be unknown. The Nationalists and some others go much further than the Populists in the way of reducing the power and wealth of the money classes who bear down the jpeople. But the Populist platform is a very broad one, and if their reforms are safely accomplished, the ground will have been broken for more improvements. For permanent prosperity will never come till Capitalism and Monopoly are overthrown and Co-operation rules supreme. The people will have to get possession of all the monopolies, natural or otherwise, and use them for the public good. (See Appendix LJ At present every conquest oyer the forces of nature enriches the wealthy and impoverishes the toilers. Under our present system every labor saying machine, instead of shortening the hours of labor and impro/ing the condition of the toilers, makes more surplus labor and lowers wages. The census reports show, by the relation of the growth of wealth to the number of workers, that the ayerage worker creates more than $10 worth of wealth every day. Yet the average wages, the year through, are less than one dollar a day, and are decreasing all the time. More than nine-tenths of the wealth flows into the hands of those of whom it is said : ''He that will not work neither shall he eat." Some people say that the Populist platform is a very good one, but that the leaders, once in office, will go the way of the old party leaders, and will, like them, become the willing tools of the Wall street gamblers. If this is so, then let us give it up and admit that we are slaves, and deserve to be slaves. But some of our leaders are tried men, who have for many years resisted all attempts to bribe them. And if once the Initiative and Referendum be introduced that danger will be almost entirely done away with. Even the old party papers are compelled to acknowledge the ability, earnesmess and honesty of our leaders. Listen to what the New York Sun has to say of the Populist members of Congress : "So much for the Populist members. There is not an idle man among them. They are always in their seats and their names are found recorded upon nearly every roll call. They are not obstructionists or cranks, but men who seem to have become convinced that the welfare of the nation requires the service of a new political party to meet ihe emergency. Tnat it has found many hearers was shown by their wonderful convention in Omaha in i892, in their casting over a million votes and getting over twenty electoral votes in tneir first campaign, a new step in a national election. No one in the Popuhst party need be ashamed, but instead can be proud of their representatives in Congress." There are attempts being made by men (some of whom are in the pay of the gold gamblers) to side track the People's Party on some comparatively unim- portant issue. PopuUstc, don't be deceived by them. Stick to your platform, keep in the middle of the road, march right forward, and Satan himself shall not .prevail against you. TouHl git then. 60 BREAKERS AHEAD. CHAPTER IX. A WORLD IN DISTRESS.— THE SAME CAUSE. In discussing the cause and cure of the troubles which are bankrupting our people, I have kept mainly to the United States. But our country is not by any means the only one which has been "progressing backwards" the last thirty years. The same cause has been operating in many lands to produce the same effect. Grover Cleveland only showed gross ignorance when he declared that the purchasing clause of the Sherman Act was the cause of the trouble. But no sane- person would ever claim that that clause was the cause of the distress in England Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, Australia, etc. There has been ONE GREAT CAUSE at work nearly all over the world, and that cause is the one whose workings I have pointed out in the United' States. ''looking backward." In order to get a correct idea of the facts I will go back a good many years^ Between 1789 and 1809, gold fell in value 46 per cent. [F. A. Walker in: **Money."] The result, as far as it can be made out by the study of those turbulent times, was prosperity. Between 1809 and 1849, gold rose in value 49.& percent. [F.A.Walker.] In 1816, the monied men of England got the Government to adopt the gold standard and reduce silver to a subsidiary coinage. As a result, the great English historian, Sir Archibald Allison tells us that — . "Within ten years * * three-fourths of the people had lost their homes.*' At one time the country was within twenty-four hours of a revolution on account of the distress. Between 1849 and 1869, gold fell 20 per cent in value. [F. A. Walker.] This was owing to the enormous production of gold in Siberia, California and Australia. The results were that the world's stock of money swelled, property appreciated in value, and the condition of the masses improved in every way DEMONETIZATION OF GOLD. But the money lenders, finding that they were losing their power over the people, demanded that one of the metals be discarded as money. As it was the gold which was at that time depreciating, the money lenders urged that it be thrown overboard. In 1859 this was done to some extent. Gold was demonetized in Germany, Scandinavia and the Netherlands. England, France, etc., refused to follow suit. England and some other countries were using gold exclusively. Germany and some other countries were using silver exclusively. The United States and some other countries had free coinage of both gold and silver. DEMONETIRATION OF SILVER. Meanwhile the production of gold declined, and the silver mines of Nevada were discovered. Ttieir capacity was exaggerated, and it began to be feared that the world would be flooded with silver. Commissions were sent from Congress and Europe to report. They confirmed the exaggerations, and the fund holders became alarmed. The fight, therefore, turned against silver. As the open fight against gold had not been very successful, the fight against silver was carried on more quietly. An agitation was got up for an international BREAKERS AHEAD. 51 ■ystem of weights, measnres and coins. The delegates met, and as a beginning, SLgreed to— recommend the use of gold only for money. They then — adjourned and never tmI again. Great Britain and all her colonies, except India, were already on a gold basis. Germany, Scandinavia and the Netherlands remonetized gold and! demonetized sUver. By trickery the United States Government also demonetized sttver without the people knowing it. [See Appendix E ] France, India, Japan and the Spanish-American states refused to do it. Since then, the gold standard countries have used silver, but only as a token of credit, payable in gold. The two metals together never have been mined in sufficient quantities to supply the demand for money. Bat now, in the single standard countries, gold has to bear the whole burden of commerce. THE RESULT. Several nations undertook to sell their silver coin for gold. Gold, of course, went up in value in relation to silver. Or, in other words, silver went down in relation to gold. And it carried down with it the prices of all other commodities. GOLD STANDARD COUNTRIES.— DISTRESS. The result has been that all those countries which discarded silver have ever since been subject to panics of ever mcreasing severity. The symptoms of distress have been uniform, although the countries have otherwise been under very diflferent conditions. SYMPTOMS. There has been an insufficiency of money for business. Prices have fallen, not only in reference to those articles which have been cheapened by the introduction of machinery, but in everything else as well. There has been a lack of confidence in financial ci'-cles. There have been frequent disturbances of the money market. There has been an indisposition on the part of capital to embark in new undertakings. Many industrial entefrprises have been given up from a lack of profit. There has been an enormous increase of bankruptcy. Strikes to resist reduction of wages have become more and more frequent and severe. Poverty and crime have increased. The middle classes have become more or lees obliterated. And, on the other hand, millionaires have bred like maggots on a dead carcass. DIVERSE CONDITIONS AFFECTED. These maladies have prevailed regardless of form of government, develop- ment of resources, or density of population. Free trade England has suffered tremendously, and many of her people attribute the trouble to free trade ( !) Europe, with moderate tariff-*, suffers as severely. The United States, with high tariffs, suffers even more severely, considering its advantages. Many people here attribute the trouble to high tariffs ( !) Republic, limited monarchy, and despotic empire suffer alike. New, thinly settled and comparatively undeveloped countries are as much affected as old, thickly settled and highly developed countries. The condition of Europe is complicated by the existence of enormous armies and navies, with the resulting heavy taxes. But those countries which demonetized silver are by far the most seriously effected. SILVER COUNTRIES. France.— Notwithstanding the plots of anarchiet?, the most prosperous BEEAKERS AHEID. KJOtintry in the world today is France. She has now three and a quarter million land owners, whilst Great Britain has only a hundred and eighty thousand ! The people of France are today, notwithstanding her bonded debt and the heavy war indemnity to Germany — **Better off with respect to the means of subsistance, shelter and clothing, than those of any other nation on the continent." France's per capita of circulating money is $24.50, whilst Germany has only ,$18.50, and Great Britain $15.50. The United States has nominally $24 per capita, but, according to Senator Plumb, only $8 of that is now permitted to circulate, the remainder being kept in treasury and bank reserves, or private hoards. INDIA. India, which is still a silver couatry, is, for that very reason, advancing in her industries at the expense of the gold standard countries. Since silver was demonetized by other nations early in the seventies, her cotton mills have increased in number from 18 to 96. She now exports to )€hina and Japan alone nearly as muck cotton as the Lancashire mills of England export to all the world. Owing to her ch^ap wheat, cheapened by the fall of silver here, tfihe has almost succeeded in ruining American and English farmers. And owing to her cheap cotton, also cheapened by the fall of silver here, she has succeeded in making cotton raismg unprofitable in the United States. CHINA. China, the most crowded and unprogressive of all countries, has been free from the distress which has overtaken the countries which went back on silver. JAPAN. Japan, which has been imitating Europe in everything- else, has kept to silver, and has prospered accordingly. SPANISH AMERICA. The Spanish- American states, which have retained silver, are more contented and industrious than before, and their people have not suffered like those of the gold standard countries, in spite of their folly with regard to European bonds' RAISING SILVER. If India, and Mexico, and the other free coinage na<;ions had had everything to sell that the human family wanted to buy, their free coinage of silver would have kept silver uo at its old price. But India has no manufactured goods to 6ell--only wheat, cotton and corn. And the other free coinage countries are even less prepared to hold up silver by themselves. Still the fall of silver when the India mints were closed to free coinage last year, show that these countries have done something towards keeping silver fronp reaching bedrock prices. On the other hand the United States is the greatest and richest of all the countries in the world. She has for sale products of all kinds, suitable for every race of people. Consequently she could, by adopting absolute free coinage at 16 to 1, raise silver to its old price, and defy the nations of the world to bring it low again, if they were fools enough to try. She did it once, for 57 years, in spite of England, and she can do it again. If, in doing so, she should become the ''dumping ground" of the world's silver, every fresh "dump" would be like an influx of neie arterial hlood to a wasted body. It would increase the volume of the circulating medium on which the commerce of the country depends. And by doing so it would raise prices BREAKERS AHEAD. 53 id wages alike. This being so, cion't be bamboozled into depending on any International Congress to settle the siiver question. Such a congress would be composed of wolves as well as lambs, and the wolves will get their way every time. And Do^^T you forget it, [For some of the particulars in this chapter I am indebted to an article by George C. Douglas in the Arena for September, 1S93.} CHAPTER X. "KIN BEYOND SEA."— ENGLAND. Ii«t VLB now consider more closely the effect on England of her gold standard* When the French war broke out in 1697, both gold and silver 'v^ere legal tender. Both together being unequal to the occasion, paper money was issued. The result was that in spite of the war, there wag tremendous prosperity such as had never been known before. The ruling classes lauded the' papeir money to the skies. They could not say enough in its favor. But as soon is the danger was over, they began to talk it down, because they could not control it and ge- enough of the wealth into their own hands. ' The war closed in 1815. The very next year the wealthy classes contrived to get a law passed limiting the use of silver. Henceforth it could only pay debt& under $10. This practically demonetized silver and threw the whole burden of commerce upon gold, which naturally rose in value. The prosperity of the country began at one 3 to decline, as it always will when the currency is con- tracted. The wealthy classes, however, became more wealthy and at the same time more greedy. They fooled the people into believing that the paper money was the cause of the trouble. In 1819 they managed to pass a Refsumption act, which restored specie payment. The paper money, which had carried the country through the war, was gradually gathered in by the bankers at seventy cents on the dollar, and sold to the government at face value for interest bearing consols Or boncls. As fast as the Government got hold of the paper money it burnt it up. The result was disas- trous beyond conception. As the elder Peel told his son Robert when he had got the bill passed : **Mv eon, you have doubled the value of my property, bu^ you have ruined' your country." Robert Mushat wrote that — "The prosperity of thp country seemed to vanish with the first measures of the Bank of England to effect resumption." Sir Archibald Alison says : "The effects of this extraordinary piece of legislation were soon apparent. The industry of the nation congealed as a flowing stream is by the severity of f^' arctic winter." Wages and values fell tremendously, factories, were cloBed, and the land^ went out of cultivation. - » . , . . Alexander BARisa said that the suffering extended to all classes, and tha 5^, BREAKERS AHEAD. the condition of Great Britain in the sixth year of the peace was tmparalleled in the history of any nation or time. LoBD Brougham afterwards saw his mistake, and bitterly repented that he had helped to pass the bill. Sir James Graham said : "The bitter fruits of the act were tasted by all classes, save that in the midst of the ruin inflicted upon the farmers and manufacturers, and the insur- rection of a populace without bread and without employment, the fund holders and tax eaters profited. They profited," he said, "by what the producers lost." The bulk of the land owners were driven to the wall, as the American farmers are being driven to the wall today. As the Hon. George C. Brodick says in the "Cobden Club Essays." "By the reign of William IV, who succeeded to the throne in 1830, the descendents of freeholders who once sat as judges and legislators in the courts of their own county, hundred and township, had sunk into day laborers, but one atep removed from serfdom." So great was the distress that the starving people almost broke into insurrec- tion. Six acts of Parliment were passed to crush them into subjection. The idiots who wrote political economy attributed all the distress produced by the money famine to overproduction. Just as another set of "financiers" is trying to persuade people the same thing today, when millions are starving for want of food, clothing anci shelter. The demonetization of silver and the specie resumption act threw the bulk of the wealth into the hands of a few, and these few had more than the crippled state of a highly protected commerce could find employment for at home. Much of the money, therefore, went abroad in the form of loans. New and undeveloped countries borrowed it to help in developing their resources. It was often borrowed recklessly and squandered anyhow. The result is that England is now a creditor nation, and the United States and many other countries are debtor nations, over head and ears in debt, and practically bankrupt in spite of their natural wealth. Meanwhile the people themselves endeavored to relieve commerce from the crushing load of "protection." In 1849 they organized a "Coxey's Army" and marched against the seat of government. They demanded the repeal of the dam Laws, which kept food up at famine prices. The Government gave in, and the repeal proved a great relief to the people. The shipping of England had long been "protected" from growing by ^ifavigation Laws, like those with which America has driven her own flag off the high seas since the rebellion. These were repealed in the same year as the Corn Laws. The result was that in twenty years the shipping increased 50 per cent. Between 1849 and '61, the high tarifl'a were gradually taken off in spite of the opposition of "protected" interests. With free trade, England's position in the highway of commerce enabled her producers to recover .from their poverty, notwithstanding that they had been driven off their farms into the cities. The gre^t gold discoveries about 1849 brought back prosperity to the world t)y increasing the amount of money, Preo trade and an increase of money had their natural a ad inevitable result. The Englieh export trade more than doubled in ten years, and is now six times greater than it was fifty years ago. Wages advanced and the population has increased 40 per cent. Before long England became the greatest manufacturing country in the world. BREAKERS AHEAD. 55 It will be seen that history is now repeating itself. Oar history, since the Rebellion, is an almost exact parallel to Eaglish history after the French war. ^See Appendix K.] The greedy money brokers of England and the continent now became diBsatisfied with the growing wealth of the people. There was so much money thai they could not control it. Tiiey therefore tried to demonetize gold. When that scheme failed, on account of England's opposition, they turned upon silver and drove it off the field by fraud. The demonetization of silver by other countries was a great thing for the money lenders in England. Hitherto the existence of free coinage of silver here had prevented that metal from depreciating even in England, wnere it had been practic^ly demonet- ized for 57 years. Its demonetization here, however, removed the last great market for silver, and it has been falling in price ever since. So the interest the English money 'lenders receive has been virtually doubled. They and their Wall street accom- plices have been enabled to get possession of nearly all the wealth produced not only in this country, but in many other parts of tbe world. Tbey have their octopus arms firmly clasped round every industry in the United States, and suck cttore blood out of the producers here than they could if they owned the people body and soul, and stood over them with knotted lashes. What they lend to us is not really wealth, but credit. They have not sent money or its equivalent here, although they own our railroads, lands and factories. That this is true will be seen when it is remembered that for 30 years we have sent out far more gold, silver and merchandise than we have received. Yet they have got hold of eighteen billions of our securities. This borrowing of credit or fictitious capital was not at all necessary in any tshape or form. We produce everything we need for food, clothing and shelter, and have gold, paper and silver to make money out of. To borrow money from England is as senseless as it would be to drink no water except that drawn from English wells. If we had only had the sense to do as New Zealand is domg today, we might snap our fingers at the children of Abraham. All that is necessary is fcr the governmett , either national, state or municipal, to pay their expenses by Treasury notes, or state and city script, and agree to receive these back as full iegal tender for all debts. The example of St. Joseph, Missouri, shows what vcan be done in this way, though the money power will move heaven, earth and hell to prevent it. Because England is a creditor nation, many English people suppose that :a gold standard is better suited for England, even if a double or optional standard is better for a debtor nation. W. E. Gladstone is of this opinion, but it appears to me that he has made a terrible mistake. He is so surrounded by monied men that he has got to look oDon them as the people of England. He talks about the money we have got Abroad, and asks if we are going to perform a supreme act of self-sacrifice by remonetizing silver. He says: . u * "IFe have nothing to pay to them; toe are no debtors at all; toe shou d get ^o comfort, no consolltion out of the substitution of an inferior jnateria , of a ^ueaplr money. * * We should get no consolation, but the consolation 56 BREAKERS AHEAD. throughout the world would be great." [From the Times, London, March 1^ 1893.] » » * If W. E. Gladstone lives ten, or even five years longer, I think he will see that his action on the money question has been the greatest mistake of his life. Owing to his commanding influence over the people, the evil that his position on this question ie doing to the world is outweighing all the good deeds of his long and useful life. The fact is, that a single gold standard is good for the money power and for DO one else. It enables a few drones to get the greater part of the honey produced by the million workers. Allison, the historian, tells us that within ten years after monometalism was adopted in England, three quarters of her people lost their homes. Benjamin Disraeli hit the nail on the head when he said in November, 1873 : "Our gold standard is not the cause of our commercial prosperity, but the consequence of our commercial prosperity.'' As John P. Young said last year in the San Francisco Chronicle : "Since the period mentioned, the world has seen how utterly useless the jjfold standard of England has been to promote the prosperity of that country* The calling of royal commissions to enquire into the cause of existing depression, the shrinking of the external and internal trade, the d^structioa of the agricul- tural industry, the prostration of manufactures, the prevalence of strikes,, collossal in character, and the growth of Socialism in Great Britain, justify the keen observation of Disraeli and force the conclusion that an expe'lient resorted to in the days of prosperity will have to be abandoned now tnat the «lays of adversity have come." The producers of England, like the pro lucers of this country, have been going backward in prosperity ever since gold began to appreciate in value through the general demonetization of silver. Millionaires and tramps have increased together. The capitalist, by buying cheap silver, and getting it coined in India,^ could sell it for India wheat and land that in England at a price which ruined English and American farmers who had to compete with it. English farming, therefore, became unprofitable, and the farms have gone down in value. As Richard Everett, M. P., said last summer: "The supreme aim of the monied classes and the London press is to restrict the supply of money so as to enrich the owners of it at t tie expense of the raisers of produce and the owners of land and other real property." The money power of England is making slaves of the English producers precisely in the same way that it is doing here, with the help of its Wall street conspirators. And it m.akes use of both parties to further its ends. FREE TRADE VS. HIGH TARIFFS. Free trade, fair trade and protection serve to keep the people from inquiring too closely into the great money question on which depends the prosperity oir destruction of the nation. Other conditions being satisfactory, a country will be fairly prosperous under either free trade or protection. But let class legislation upset the money equilibrium, and free trada nations and protected nations go to ruin alike. I have lived in both free trade and high tariff countries, and have always been an opponent of high tariffs. Only those who are blind to the lessons of history can be anything else. If it were not for the evils of the gold standard in England, all the world: would be compelled to acknowledge the wisdom of fre^ trade. As it is, all the- ill effects of monometalism are falsely attributed to frew tr* in BREAKERS AHEAD. 57 ' To the people of England I would say : Give up the single gold standard, increase the amount of fall legal tender paper money, but beware how you abandon free trade. Your own history proves that this is the only chance you have to hold your own against the weld. The greatest objection, perhaps, to a high tariff is that it is one of the two great causes ol the trusts, rings and combines which are preying on the people of America. With lov tariffs (or no tariffs) and a sufficiency of money in circulation, these villanies would become more absent here than they are in England. Capitalists like high tariffs because they not only enable them to gather in the shekels, but throw the Government expenses on the poor, who are least able to bear the burden. Senator David B. Hill showed the cloven hoof when he said in his speecti against the income tax : "The fact that nine-tenths of our copulation pay nothing directly towards our state, county and local taxation, adds lorce to the argument that they should. continue to be reached iudirectly through tariff taxation." To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken even the rags that sheltsr him from the wintry blasts. A tariff is the most wasteful way it is possible to invent for producing a. revenue. Every dollar which goes to the Government costs the producer many dollars. When a duty is put on any article, the manufacturer raises the price as high as the duty will allow him, and he still pays his employes the lowest wages at which he can get them to work for him. The whole of the extra price which the people have to pay on almost everything, goes to the employer. The Government collects its daties at an enormous expense, and the workman gets no benefit whatever. Not only do s the workman get nothing, but he has to pay higher prices for everything he eats, drinks and wears. In Europe the highest wages are those in free trade England. In Europe the Jowest wages are in Germany and other high tariff countries. A mechanic getting $1.50 a day in England is better off than one who earns $3 in America. And this is notwithstanding the fact that meat and some other articles of food are necessarily cheaper here than in England. Still, although (for the above and other reasons) I am yet decidedly of the opinion that free trade is the beat for this or any other country, I have come to the conclusion that in America the question is of but secondary importance so long as we have free trade from the Dalles of the Columbia to the Everglades of Florida, from the great lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The chief value of the tariff question to the money power of America is to k*.ep the people occupied so as to put them off the scent of the money contrac- tion which is enabling them to rake in the shekels all the time. Manufacturers are handicapped by high gold, because it does not pay silver countries to send their silver to where it is worth so little. Hence the Chmese and Japanese buv their cotton goods in India, where their silver sells for more varn than it would buy in England. ^ . . .^u " If England adopts the recommendations of the Herschell Commission with- r^card to Indian silver, she will drawdown ruin and starvation on India without lettering the people of England. Already the stoppage of silver coinage in l,..Ua baa made gold dearer siill, and silver lower than ever. With low silver, h««t in California and Australia has dropped below the cost of production, and uc Kn-'lish farmer has had another nail knocked into his coffin. 58 BREAKERS AHEAD. The English money power did its best to prevent an international agreement as to gold and silver at Brussels. And now it is trying to ruin India and the English producers at the same time. The producers of England should demand true bimetallism with free coinagi at 15K or 16 to 1. Then the silver using countries will once more be her customers, and one great cause of hard times will be removed. As to the money lenders, let them beware how they kill the goose that lays their golden eggs. Guatemala has led the way to a general repudiatian of debte, and if they will insist on having their pound of flesh weighed in a fraudulent balance, they must not be surprised if they share the fate of Shakespeare's Shylock. They appear to have forgotten that to double the interest on a loan is to halve the capacity of the debtor to pay off his debt. By by doing so it halves the value of his securities. It also doubles the chances of his repudiating the debt, in the case of a nation, or of allowing the mortgage on his depreciaT;ed property to be foreclosed, in the case of an individual. The money brokers of Europe and Wall street will have ample opportunities of studying this phase of the question in the next twelve months. ERNEST SEYD's WARNING. Soon after silver was demonetized in the United States, Ernest Seyd, who, in spite of his free silver proclivities, had been hired by the English bankers to strike down silver here, wrote : "It is a great mistake to suppose that the adoption of the gold valuation by other states besides England will be beneficial. It will only lead to the destruc- tion of the monetary equilibrium hitherto existing, and cause a fall in the value of silver, from which England's trade and the Indian silver valuation will suffer more than all other interests, grievous as the general decline of prosperity all over the world will be. The strong doctrinarianism existing in England as regards the gold valuation is so blind that when the time of deprfssion sets in, there will be this special feature : The commercial anthoritiea of the country will refuse'to listen to the cause here foreshadowed; every possible attempt will be made to prove that the decline of commerce is due to all sorts of causes and irreconciLible matters; the workman and his striken will be the first convenient target; then speculating and over trading will have their turn. * * * Many other allegations will be made totally irrelevant to the real issue, but satisfac- tory to the moralizing tendency of financial writers. The Q:reat danger of the time will then be that, among all this confusion and strife, England's supremacy in commerce and manufactures may go backward to an extent which cannot be redressed when the real cause becomes recognized, and the natural remedy is applied." I venture to assert that -there is not a prophecy in the 'vhole of the Bible which has been so fearfully and wonderfully fuUfilled as thig prophecy of Ernert Seyd. As the London Financial News said on February 24 : "The world's commerce is reeling to a crisis, yet th^ miaohiff from the apprecif ndon thereafter every year, and at each visit renewed my acquaintance with Mr. Seyd, and upon each occasion became his guest one or more times — joining his family at dinner or other meals. In February, 1874, while on one of these visits, and while his guest for dinner, I, among other things, alluded to rumors afloat of parliamentary cor- ruption, and expressed astonishment that such corruption should exist. In reply to this he told me that he could relate facts about the corruption of the American Congress that would place it far ahead of the English parliament in that line. So far, the conversation was at the dinner table between us. His brother, Richard, and others, were there also, but thia was table talk between Mr. Seyd and myself. After the dinner ended he invited me to another room, where he resumed the conversation about legislative corruption. He said : "If you will pledge me your honor as a gentleman not to divulge what I am about to tell you while I live, I will convince yru that what I said about the corruption of the American Congress is true." I gave bim the promise, and he then continued : "I went to America in the winter of 1872 3, authorized to secure, if I could, the passage of a bill demonetizing silver. It was to the interest of those I represented— the Governors of the Bank of England— to have it done. I took with me £100,000 sterling, with instructions if that was not sufficient to accom- plish the object, to draw for another £100,000, or as much more as necessary. He told me German bankers were also interested in.having it accomplished. He said he was the financial adviser of the bank. He said : "I saw the committees of the House and Senate, and paid the money and stayed in America until I knew the measure was safe." ^ , . t , I asked if he would give me the names of the members to whom he bad paid the money ; but this he declined to do. He said : ^ ^ . ^u * "Your people will not now comprehend the far reaching extent of tba. measure, but they will in after years. Whatever jou may think o£ corrupUon m 66 BREAKERS AHEAD. the English parliament, I assure you, I would not have dared to make such an attempt here, as I did in your country." I expressed my shame to him for my countrymen in our legislative bodies. The conversation drifted into other subjects, and after that — though I met him many times — the matter was never again referred to. (Signed.) Frederick A. Luckenbach. Subscribed and sworn to before me at Denver, this ninth day of May, 1892. (Signed.) James A. Miller. [Seal.] Clerk Supreme Court State Colorado. HOOPER ON ERNEST SEYD. The mint bill which demonetized silver in 1873 was signed in the House by the Hon. S. Hooper. During the discussion he made a speech which was printed in the Congressioruil Qlobe, at that time the official record of Congressional proceedings. In the course of that speech he said : **Mr. Ernest Seyd of London, a distinguished writer who has given much attention to the subject of mint and coinage, after examining tbe first draft of the bill, furnished many valuable suggestions which have been incorporated in this bill."— Volume 89., page 2304. April 9, 1873. Ernest Seyd's son has lately denied that his father was in America at that time, but as a bill pending in Congress could not be sent oflf to London to be improved upon by a foreigner, this record is an absolute proof ihat Ernest Seyd was in America and did help to get the bill passed. SENATOR DAWES ON ERNEST SEYD. The Congressional Record gives a speech made on December 11, 1877, by Senator Dawes of Massachusetts. The Senator was trying to rebut the charge that the mint bill of 1873 had been passed by improper means. Speaking of Ernest Seyd, he said that he— "Was here at that time and has been here since." The Senator's chief argument against Seyd having anything to do with the demonetization of silver was that he — "Has been delivering lectures in this country in favor of the very object that this bill, when it became a law, controverted." — Part I, Volume 7, page 125. DAVID A. WELLS ON ERNEST SEYD. In the October Forum, David A. Wells who wrote considerably on financial matters before 1873, says : "There was a mm by the name of Seyd and he was in this country in 1872, but he was not a gold bug, but a friend of silver, and he wi ote a long letter to a leading member of Congress (Mr. Samuel Hooper) protesting against the coinage act of 1873." summary of SE-iD CASE. These quotations from Senator Dawes and David A. Wells, whilst they agree with the Hon. S. Hooper, F. A. Luckenbach and others, that Ernest Seyd v>a8 in America at the time, say that he was against the demenetization of silver. This is probably correct, but that very fact would make him the very man for the job if he could be bought over. For the same can be said of Carlisle, R. Q. Mills, Voorhies, J. Gordon and J. Sherman. They all spoke or wrote against the demonetization of silver, and they were all bought over by the gold bugs of Wall street. Some of them professed to be friendly to silver at the very time they were getting in their deadly work. BREAKERS AHEAD. 67 Representative Finley and others gave currency to the tollowing, which was said to be from the Bankers^ Magazine for August, 1873 : "In 1872, pilver being demonetized in France, England and Holland, a capital ot $500,000 was raifced and Ernest Seyd of London was sent to this country with this fund, aa agent for the foreign bondholders and caoitali«ts to effect the same object [demonetization of silver], which was accomplished." The Bankers^ Magazine of New York says that this paragraph never appeared in its columns. There are other cities which have Bankers^ Magazines, but wht ther it is authentic or not I have not been able to ascertain. [G] TABLE OF PRICES, ETC., COTTON, CORN, WHEAT AND SILVER. YEAR. IN CHICAGO MARKET w8 ts ^2 fej o 1872 1879. 1880. 1881. 1882. 1883. 1884. 1885 1886. 1887. 1888. 1889. 1890 1891. 1892 1893 1894. 19.3 18.8 15.5 15.0 12.9 11.8 11.1 9.9 11.6 11.4 11.4 10 8 10.5 10.6 9.9 95 9.8 9.9 10.2 9.0 8.7 7.3 $1 47 34 31 43 12 24 17 34 07 25 11 19 13 1 07 86 87 89 85 90 83 85 80 72 57 $1 32 1 29 1 27 I 24 15 20 16 12 14 13 13 11 01 06 99 97 93 93 04 90 86 78 60 AVERAGE WHEAT CROP OF THE UNITED STATES. .OKI an 1,198.000.000 bu^^hels IS^Ian 1,794.000,000 bushels ■^°'^'^" 2,271.000,000 bushels 1881-88 . — Mulhall. 1 QQo Qo 2,246,000.000 bushels ^^^^-y^ — Beerbohm's. The population is still increasing, but the production of wheat is stationary. What about overproduction ? THE PRICE OF WHEAT. The San FranciEco Chronicle of March 31, 1894, has the following on this Bubject : 68 BREAKERS AHEAD. "When we examine the records and price liste we find that although the production of wheat increased at the annual average rate of 596,000,000 bushels between 1851 and 1870 prices steadily advanced during the whole neriod. In 1873, when silver was demonetized in this country, they began to decline, and have been falling constantly since. To establish the truth of this contention it is only necessary to reproduce the table of average prices of English wheat frorr 1851 to 1873 and from 1873 to 1889. English wheat is selected, as the prices are less aflftcted by epsculation. The figures are from Mulhall : Year. Per Ton 1851 £ 9 13f^ 1852 10 4 1853 13 iB 1854 18 2 1855 18 14p 1856. 1857. 1858. 1859. 1860. 17 6e 14 2> 11 U 11 Oa 13 6e 1861 13 178 Year. Per Ton. 1862... £13 178 1863 11 48 1864 10 18 1865 10 5a 1866 12 10a 1867. 1868. 1869. 1870. 1871, 1872. 16 2a 16 Ob 12 la 11 15s 14 43 14 58 "From the above table it will be seen that between 1851 and 1872 the price of wheat advanced steadily. There were variations in the average, due to short and long crops, but the tendency was always upwards. After 1873 this process was reversed. From the same source ai the above we derive the following average prices of English wheat between 1872 and 1889: Year. Per Ton 1873 £14 14^ 1874 14 9b 1875 11 5p 1876 11 llB 1877 14 4p 1878 11 128 1879 11 Os 1880 11 2s 1881 11 7s Year. Per Ton. 1882 £11 68 1883 10 88 1884 8 19a 1885 8 5a 1886 7 158 1887 8 3s 1888 9 Os 1889 7 143 "There is no escape from the logic of these fiaures. They show unmistak- ably that during the first period, when the production of wheat was increasing more rapidly than since 1873, prices were steadily going up, while in the latter period, with a smaller average increa-^eof production, they have steadily declined. "But if these facts are not sufficiently conclusive it ou-^ht to be sufficient to dispose of the assumption that the present phenomenally low price of wheat is the result of increased production if we show that in years of great yields, namely 1891 92, prices were higher than in 1893, which showed a diminished production. In the money article of the New York Tribune of March 19th, we find this statement : " 'The average price of wheat per bushel at the port of New York for March thus far, only 62.05 cents, is 13.83 cents lower than March of last year, and 51.82 cents lower than in March, 1891.' "As the world's production was nearly 70,000 bushels less in 1893 than in 1891, it will be hard to explain a drop of nearly 52 cents a bushel by saying that it is due to overproduction. There can only be one explanation of the curious phenomena under discua- Bion, and that is the one furnished by the bimetallis'a, namely, that the destruction of one-half of the world's money, by making the remaining half do all the work of measuring values, has caused a general depreciation in prices, which is only another wav of saying that gold has been made dearer to the whole world of producers, who are forced to buy it with their products." BREAKERS AHEAD. [H] REPUBLICANS AND SILVER. The Republicans claim to be the friends of silver. Here is their record taken from the Congressional Record: In the House April 8, 1886— Republicans for silver 30; Republicans against 98 In the House June 7, 1890— Republicans for silver 15 ; Republicans against 127 In the House June 25, 1890— Republicans for silver 23; R^^publicans against 130 In the Senate June 17, 1890— Republicans for silver 15; Republicans against 21 In the House March 24, 1892— Republicans for silver 11 ; Republicans against 67 In the Senate July 2, 1892— Republicans for silver 11 ; Republicans against 19 In the House July 13, 1892— Republicans for silver 9; Republicans against 60 In the House August 23, 1893— Republicans for silver 13; Republicans against 111 In the House March 1, 1894— Republicans for silver 19; Republicans against 71 Total, 146 /or silver and 705 against it. [I] FOREIGN LAND OWNERS. Here is a list of some of our foreign land owners, taken from "A New OrieiB,*' by Captain Bell. NAMES. ACRES. An Engl sh Syndicate, No. 3, in Texas 3 000,000 The Holland Land Company, New Mexico 4,500,000 Sir Edward Reid and a syndicate in Florida 2,000,000 English Syndicate in Mississippi 1 800,000 Marquis of Tweedale 1,750 000 Phillips, Marshall & Co., London 1,300,000 German S3 ndica-e 2,100,000 Anglo-American Syndicate, Mr. Rogers, President, London 750,000 Bryan H. Evans of London, in Mississippi 700,000 Duke of Sutherland 425 000 British Land Company, in Kansas 320,000 William Whalley, M. P. Peterboro, England 310,000 Missouri Land Company, Edinburgh, Scotland 300,000 Robert Tennant of London 230,000 Dundee Land Company, Scotland 247,000 Lonl Dunmore 120,000 Beniamin Newgas, Liverpool 100,000 Lord Houghton, in Florida 60,000 Lord Dunraven, in Colorado 60,000 English Land Company, in Florida 50.000 English Land Company, in Arkansas 50,000 Alexander Grant of London, in Kansas 35,000 English Syndicate, represented by Close Brothers, Wisconsin 110,000 M. Ellerhauser of Halifax, Nova Scotia, in West Vh-ginia 600,000 A Scotch Syndicate, in Florida 500,000 A. Boyson, Danish Consul, in Milwaukee 50,000 Missouri Land Company of Edinburgh, Scotland 165,000 Total 20,700,000 This list does not include the railroad lands, which are also owned by the foreigners who own the railroads. The railroad lands cover an area as large as England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and France. [J] THE UNEMPLOYED PROBLEM. The following article from the San Francisco Examiner of December 28, 1893, is worthy of the attention of all who are interested in the welfare of their fellowfl. Not being able to improve on it, I give it as it is without comment. MR. Bellamy's scheme. "A correspondent suggests that the expedient proposed by Edward Bellamy rO BREAKERS AHEAD. in the New Nation would be a better mode of relieving tbe distress of the unem- ployed than that of undertaking vast publi^i works. Mr. Bellamy's plan ia that of state aided co-operation. Against the public improvements scheme he objects : " *In the first place no community can afford to sink such vast sums in extraordinary public works ae would be necessary in a crisis like this to provide anything like work enough for the idle. In the second place, the sort of work offered by such undertakings is just digging. Not one in three of the men thrown out of work at this time in Massachusetts is physically able to do this sort of work, because utterly unaccustomed to it. Your average mill hand, machinist or other indoor worker is an imbecile at shoveling. Moreover, women who form a large part of the unemployed, cannot even offer to do this sort of work at all.' "Mr. Bellamy would set the unemployed to work, not for the state, but for each othfr, *The whole industrial army,' he says, 'is simply a more or less blundering arrangement by which men work to supply one another's needs, whether of shoes, garments, house lots, potatoes or beef st»-ak8, the several sorts of products being brought together and exchacged in the market. The unemployed problem results from the breakdown of this machinery of exchange.' The proper thing for the Government to do, in the opinion of the author of **Jx)oking Bach ward," is to supply the place of the broken down machine. *' 'That is to say, the state should organize the unemployed workers, so that they may co-operatively supply one another's needs, the state performing the functions of the broken-down market in bringicg together aad distributing the products, " We have stated the whole proposition when we add that the state- organized exchange would need to be kept distinct from the outside market, substantially completing within itself the circle of production and consumption." This is a scheme that would have appealed to the late Senator Stanford. Mr. Bellamy thinks that its executir.n would be " perfectly simple." If he can prove that, he will have oroved his case, for the end proposed is certainly desirable and the doubtful question is simply one of practicability. It is a matter in which everything would depend upon the nice adjustment of details. Mr. Bellamy re- cognizes what some of our local advocates of Government interference with in- dustry overlooked when he says that ** the state organizad exchange would need to be kept distinct from the outside market, substantially completing within it- self the circle of production and consumption." Public factories competing with private enterprises in the market would immeasurably intensify the evils they would be meant to relieve. We would like to see a detailed and practical plan for the employment of idle labor through State-aided co-operation, involving no interferance with labor already employed in private establishments. It would be worth studying. [K] PARALLEL HISTORY OF ENGLA.ND AND THE UNITED STATES. Showing how similar causes produced similar results. The history of the United States since the rebellion has been a repetition of what took place in England after the last Anglo-French war. SUMMARY OF BOTH. I. War declared. II. Hard money proved insufficient to carry on the struggle. III. Paper money resorted to. The people prospered in spite of the war. IV. Paper money abused and depreciated by greedy capitalists. V. War closed. VI. Silver practically demonetized. Distress followed. VH. Resumption Act passed. Depreciated paper money bought in cheap by bankers. Then sold to government for bonds at face value and destroyed. Prosperity of people declined tremendously. Paupers and millionaires multiplied ^ J together. BiREAKEIlS AHEAJO. n So far there is a parallel. But in this country the process has not yet been completed. In England the people recovered to a great extent when the discovery of ex- tensive gold fields increased the amount of money. In the United States the people will recover as soon as the amount of money is sufficiently increased, and not before. There is also a parallel with regard to protection and navigation laws. England bought her experience at a great cost, and America, too proud to profit by that experience, is laying in huge chunks of it for future consumption. [L] NEW ZEALAND'S EXPERIMENT. The following is an editorial which appeared in the Chicago Tribune of April 10, 1894. "The eyes of practical minded social reformers have for the last two years been fixed upon New Zealand, that modern little Australian colony where advanced theories of sociology and political economy have been put to experi- mental test. In the current number of the Outlook, Mr. A. 0. Fradenburg outlines the course of these experiments and sums up the results achieved in the most imporfant. His article is quite comprehensive and his conclusions are of a nature to attract the earnest attention of every thinking man and to awaken enthusiasm in the mind of the student who has attempted the solution of many existing problems along the lines of state socialism, or "new liberalism," as they term it in New Zealand. "In New Zealand state activity has resulted in the Government assuming many other functions besides that of mere governing, Tae state controls rail- roads, telegraphs, telephones, mails, roads, irrigation and other public works which involve the management of natural monopolies, and by reason of its superior credit and resources has been able to precede and lead in civilization with these, instead of following at a conservative distance, as is the case where- ever theHe industries are in private hands. Up to March of 1893 the Government of New Zealand had expended over £20,000 000 or $130,000,000 on railroads and other public works under this policy of clearing the way for civilization and immig'ation. Some of the railroads it built, others built by private parties it purchased. In 1872, when the policy went into effect, there were only sixty-five miles of railroad in the colony. Last year there were 1,886 miles under Govern- ment control, and only 150 miles still owned and operated by private corpora- tions. In 1892 the earnings of these state railroads were $5,900,000, and the net earning over all expenses, $2 249.150. Telegraphs, mails and water works have likewise yielded encouraging profits, the gross income of tue two first named, which are operated toi?ether, being $1,498,325. Telephones, over which the Government but recently assumed control, paid into the treasury during the same year, $95,775, a good proportion of which was in excess of fixed and operating charges. And this, too, in a new country, a colony far removed from older civilization, a small countrv containing altogether less than 700,000 people! "Had the people of New Zealand stopped at this point they would still have led the world in the rational solution of vexing social problems. But they did not stop. The Governaaent has assumed control of native lauds, opened them up, and will either lease, rent or sell outright to a settler on easy terms whatever ground be may require, or if he have no money will advance him a suffiiJient sum to make his first payments and to begin his improvements. The system of land tenure and taxation is a modified application of the principles expounded by Henry George. Most of the ground is leased in perpetuity or rented out by the state at an annual rate varying from 4 to 5 per cent of its cash value. Land owned by individuals is taxed at a low figure, providing it doas not exceed in value .$25,000. On all property over that amount in value a special graded tax is assessed, which increases with the increase in size and value of the estate, becoming almost prohibitive when that value gets beyond $150,000. it is tne settled policy of the New Zealand Government to prevent the acquisition oi a 7^ BREAKERS AHEAD. great tract of land by any individual or corporation. If however, any victim of this policy thinks his taxes are too high the state always stands ready to pur- chase his property. Small holders hava scarcely any tax to pay on their la ad, and none whatever on improvements. The state also acts as trustee, adminittera estates at the actual coat of administration, and runs \ free public employment bureau, with branches in every town, where the mutual requirements of employers and employes all over the colony may be ascertained. "These are not all the social experiments which have baen tried in New Zealand. They are but a few of many, and all have thus far been attended with most gratifying success. When the recent financial panic devastated the whole of Australia and the Australasian colonies, extending in its effects even to the Sandwich Islands and California, New Zealand alone of them all escaped the Bcourge. Her commerce was not impaired, her banks remained solid, her values were undisturbed. Call it, then advanced liberalism, state socialism, what you like, the fact remains that state activity and state performance of many functions hitherto left to individuals has proven an unqualified success in New Zealand. And if in New Zealand, why not elsewhere? Why not In America?" I I '*A Just Weight and Balance Are the I. ^^^^^^^g L/v\PTY ^ . _ • /5.'^'l^.::^^ pockets:'^ \ Thieves. Bankers. LL I ON Amis, i fLmlhoab KiNOrS. TRANWS. 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