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 THE REMEDY- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 FALLING PRICES AND THE REMEDY
 
 FALLING PRICES 
 
 AND THE REMEDY 
 
 BY 
 
 LYMAN F. GEORGE 
 
 Equity and justice demand that the mercliant, 
 manufacturer, farmer, and wage-earner sliall 
 receive as much consideration at the hands of 
 the law-makers as is accorded to those who 
 deal in money. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 GEORGE BOOK PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 1898
 
 Copyright, i8g8 
 By Lyman F. George 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 
 
 Colonial ^3ress 
 
 Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. 
 Boston, U.S.A. 
 
 C 4. 
 
 ^ < 
 
 
 '.1 '.' c 
 ft *«cc * «C0 Cb« c
 
 \-\ 
 
 - / 
 
 -^'c^ 
 
 TO MY WIFE 
 
 mitt 
 
 IN RECOGNITION OF HER 
 
 INVALUABLE INSPIRATION IN PROMPTING 
 
 MY MIND TO THE SERIOUS CONSIDERATION OF A 
 
 SUBJECT CONCERNING WHICH I HELD A VERY POSITIVE 
 
 OPINION, BUT UPON WHICH, HITHERTO, I 
 
 HAD GIVEN BUT LITTLE STUDY, 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS BOOK. 
 
 386481
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 A SINGLE, irresistible thought, energizing, pos- 
 sessing, and impelling me, has led me out of the 
 paths of my daily vocation and forced me into the 
 arena of public discussion. The great truth which 
 I have sought to make clear, which, if I could, I 
 would burn in upon the understanding of my fel- 
 low men, is that national prosperity is governed by 
 laws, that these laws are now known, and can be 
 scientifically applied, and that it is only necessary 
 for our merchants, manufacturers, farmers, and 
 laborers to ascertain these laws in order to enable 
 them to dispel from our midst forever the long 
 night of poverty, depression, and despair which 
 now engulfs us. If a perusal of this book will 
 help, even in a small degree, to establish this great 
 truth in the minds of my countrymen, then I shall 
 feel my labors have been not wholly vain. 
 
 In the preparation of this work my thanks are 
 due to Mr. Tho.s. H. Procter, the well-known 
 writer on financial and economic subjects, for mucli 
 valuable information and suggestion, as well as for 
 his generous assistance in other respects ; to Mr. 
 
 V
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 Aug. Sauerbeck, the world's greatest statistician, 
 for his index tables ; and to Mr. Clinton V. S. 
 Remington, the well-known Fall River authority, 
 for valuable price quotations on cotton and cloths. 
 
 LvMAN V. George. 
 March i, 1898.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 Introduction 
 
 I. Thirty Years' Fall in Prices 
 II. Disastrous Effects of P^alling Prices 
 III. Opinions Regarding the Cause of the 
 
 Fall in Prices . 
 I\'. Money, Its Use and Abuse 
 \'. Our Money a Banker's Money 
 VI. A Monetary System Which Will Re 
 STORE Prosperity 
 VII. P.imetallism as a Cure . 
 
 \'III. I.mmigration 
 
 I.\'. TRU.STS and Department Stores as a 
 
 Cause 
 
 -X. Overproduction .... 
 XI. Hard Times the Effect of "Improved 
 
 Machinery " 
 
 XFI. Confidence 
 
 XIII. Supply and Demand 
 
 XIV. Review and Summary of Overproduc 
 
 TION 
 
 XV. Review anh Summakv of Ulmictalllsm 
 XVI. Conclusion 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 27 
 
 36 
 
 59 
 76 
 
 II I 
 
 125 
 132 
 
 139 
 
 '45 
 
 1 48 
 F52 
 
 '55 
 
 160 
 
 '97 
 226
 
 FALLING PRICES AND THE 
 REMEDY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In presenting this work to the public the author 
 desires to call the attention of the merchants and 
 manufacturers of New England to the fact that 
 they have been doing business on a falling market 
 for thirty years, and are to-day confronted not only 
 with falling prices but with a congested market 
 resulting from an accumulated stock of goods, and 
 with an outlook which portends disaster to all 
 industrial enterprises. 
 
 Having been engaged in mercantile pursuits, the 
 author has had an opportunity to exchange views 
 with many leading merchants and manufacturers, 
 and with the business men of the country generally, 
 upon this state of affairs, and in but few instances 
 has he found a man who was desirous of a fall in 
 prices and the resulting effect of business depres- 
 sion. He was therefore led to inquire of our most 
 
 I
 
 2 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 eminent public men — those who are responsible 
 for conditions growing out of legislation — the 
 cause of this perpetual and ruinous fall in prices 
 for such a long and trying period. 
 
 Having at best received only evasive or conflict- 
 ing answers, and finding the anxiety intensifying 
 in the mind of the business community, and suffer- 
 ing and distress increasing in the ranks of the 
 working classes, the author determined to take up 
 the study of political economy, and to discover, if 
 possible, for himself the real cause of the rise and 
 fall in values in the markets and nations of the 
 world. 
 
 In undertaking this work the author resolved, at 
 the outset, to pursue the subject on conscientious 
 and patriotic lines, and to avoid those opinions put 
 forth by men for the purpose of influencing votes 
 for party success in order thereby to get legislation 
 in the interest of special grants and privileges, 
 instead of seeking the common welfare of the 
 whole country. In order to do this he believed it 
 necessary to study the laws and systems laid down 
 by the old masters and authorities of the world, 
 and then determine to the satisfaction of his own 
 mind whether the rise and fall in prices, the high 
 or low values ruling in different nations, were the 
 result of chance, of nature, or of laws and systems 
 designed by man for the purpose of producing 
 desired results, and furthermore to ascertain if it 
 were possible to get, through legislation, a continu-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 ous rise or a continuous fall in price, or to establish 
 high or low values upon property and commodities 
 by adopting a certain system and law designed to 
 produce any desired effect upon prices by the 
 people of any nation. 
 
 After having devoted much time and labor to 
 study and research, the author submits to his 
 readers the fixed and positive opinions of the 
 world's standard authorities upon this great ques- 
 tion, — making this single observation, however, 
 that they are all of one opinion upon one point : 
 namely, that all prices and values ruling in differ- 
 ent nations are established by the lazvs and sys- 
 tems prevailing in those nations. 
 
 It is the firm belief of the author of these pages 
 that the business men of New England are imbued 
 with a broad and patriotic spirit ; that they would 
 waive all selfish ends in considering a great ques- 
 tion involving the welfare of their whole country ; 
 and that if they found upon the study of such a 
 question they had been mistaken in theory, they 
 would, to a man, — as they substantially did from 
 1850 to i860 upon the question of slavery, — 
 change their opinion in order to effect the great- 
 est good to the greatest number. This belief has 
 been the staff of encouragement upon which he 
 has leaned in his earnest and untiring efforts to 
 discover if there were laws and systems which 
 would, if applied, lead us out of this long night of 
 business depression and constantly falling prices.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THIRTY years' FALL IN PRICES. 
 
 On January first of every year most business 
 houses take their annual account of stock, as 
 upon the rise or fall in the value of the stock on 
 hand at that time depends very largely the profits 
 of the previous year's business. This is such a 
 self-evident fact that all prudent business men 
 wait until stock has been taken, the books bal- 
 anced, and the profit or loss of the past year's 
 business ascertained, before placing contracts for 
 the coming year. 
 
 All good business men understand the advan- 
 tage of buying heavily at the beginning of the 
 year, during periods of rising prices ; and they 
 also know the disadvantage of large purchases 
 during periods of falling prices. 
 
 For the careful business man, who is not a 
 student of political economy, or who is not 
 familiar with the laws and systems designed to 
 produce high or low prices, it is fairly safe for 
 him, in making his calculations and fixing upon 
 the policy to be pursued in his business affairs 
 for the coming year, to be guided by the business 
 prosperity of the nation during his past year's 
 
 4
 
 THIRTY YEARS' FALL. 5 
 
 business. It is also considered good business- 
 sense to act upon the theory that, if prices have 
 been not only good, but have shown a slight ad- 
 vance in all departments of commerce and trade 
 throughout the land over those of the preceding 
 year, this is an indication that the markets are 
 low in stocks of goods ; that the factories and 
 mills have been unable to keep supply up to the 
 demand ; and that under such conditions it would 
 be safe to contract for a sufficiently large stock of 
 goods to fill all prospective orders for at least the 
 first six months of the year. It would also be rea- 
 sonable and logical to think that, since the mills 
 were unable to supply the demand of the previous 
 year's trade, as reflected by a general rise in prices, 
 under such circumstances labor throughout the 
 country must not only have been fully employed, 
 but must occupy a position in the labor market to 
 dictate good pay, which in turn will enable the work- 
 ing class to consume a larger amount of goods. 
 
 This would further deplete the stock on the 
 markets, as it is clear that the working class is al- 
 ways in need of goods, and that its extent of pur- 
 chases is limited only by the amount paid to it in 
 wages. It will be seen by the law of cause and 
 effect that this rise in prices would continue indef- 
 initely, unless interfered with by .some deeper prin- 
 ciple more potent than the mere laws of trade. 
 The increased demand caused by rising [)riccs 
 would constantly operate still further to raise
 
 6 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 prices. As far as the mercantile community and 
 the producing classes are concerned, it must be 
 admitted that this condition of trade would be very 
 satisfactory. But that there is another class in so- 
 ciety to whose interests this rise in prices would be 
 detrimental will appear as the argument unfolds. 
 
 To reverse this picture, it can be shown that the 
 falling prices which have prevailed for thirty years 
 have produced the present deplorable conditions, 
 and will continue indefinitely to do so under the 
 same law of cause and effect that attends rising 
 prices, unless corrected or checked by the same 
 deeper and more potent principle alluded to above. 
 
 Prices in general in this country still have a 
 downward tendency, and as a result the business 
 men are reducing stock, whilst the mills and fac» 
 tories are either curtailing their output, shutting 
 down, or reducing wages. That this condition of 
 trade is very undesirable to the merchants, and to 
 the producing classes generally, is evident without 
 taking time to prove it. The fact that low prices 
 have prevailed through any preceding year is proof 
 that the subsequent year, with causes remaining 
 the same, must continue to show a continuous fall. 
 All conservative and prudent business men will 
 purchase the smallest amount of stock possible to 
 meet a constantly narrowing and shrinking de- 
 mand. At the same time the output, which never 
 lessens in ratio to the falling off in demand, helps 
 to force down prices through the accumulation of
 
 THIRTY YEARS' FALL. 7 
 
 stock, which, if not moved at forced sales, must 
 cause congestion, and finally result in panic and 
 collapse, — as was the case in 1893, when over 
 seventy-five per cent, of the mills and factories 
 were forced to close. Under such conditions of 
 trade, it would be folly to claim that any consider- 
 able class of the people desired to perpetuate any 
 laws or systems that they generally beHeved to be 
 the cause of the distress. 
 
 Before showing the impossibility of changing 
 the continuous upward and downward tendency of 
 prices without first changing the systems and laws 
 created for the purpose of producing them, I will 
 quote the following statistics and tables of prices 
 from 1865 to 1895, showing a rapid and continu- 
 ous fall in prices under which our merchants have 
 been forced to do business. 
 
 
 1865 
 
 1870 
 
 1875 
 
 1880 
 
 1885 
 
 1890 
 
 1895 
 
 Copper . . . . 
 
 t> -5° 
 
 $ .2I> 
 
 $ .22 
 
 $ .21 
 
 $ .11.V 
 
 % -13 
 
 $ .10 
 
 Wheat, bushel . 
 
 2.50 
 
 1.40 
 
 1.25 
 
 1-33 
 
 .92 
 
 •«3 
 
 •73 
 
 Cotton, 11). . . 
 
 1.22' 
 
 .25 
 
 •I4i 
 
 ■13 
 
 .1 1 
 
 .09', 
 
 •05 i 
 
 I'eeves, lb. . . 
 
 .16 
 
 .11 
 
 .12 
 
 .08 
 
 •09.1 
 
 •04^1 
 
 •o3.i 
 
 Dressed Hogs, lb. 
 
 •17 
 
 .\\\ 
 
 •09 1 
 
 •04J 
 
 .06 
 
 •04 :J 
 
 .06 
 
 Com. Wool . . 
 
 •95 
 
 •44 
 
 .42 
 
 •35 
 
 .34^, 
 
 •33 
 
 •17 
 
 Lead, lb. . . . 
 
 .20 
 
 .16 
 
 .12 
 
 .07 
 
 •o3i 
 
 ■031 
 
 ■031 
 
 I'ig Iron, ton . 
 
 56.00 
 
 21.00 
 
 24.00 
 
 27.00 
 
 16.00 
 
 20.00 
 
 12.00 
 
 [.eather, lb. . . 
 
 •55 
 
 .40 
 
 •35 
 
 .28 
 
 .27 
 
 •23 
 
 .29 
 
 ' It will be noticed that cotton is fiuotcd at $1.22; this was 
 due to the blockade. Soon after peace was declared, it fell, and 
 remained at about forty-five and fifty cents for .some years. 
 
 * The above f| notations on wool from 1885 to 1895 are taken 
 from the sales book of a large and reliable wool hou.se in lioston.
 
 8 
 
 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 The above table I have compiled from the mar- 
 ket reports of the files of the New York Daily 
 Tribune. The average market price of the first 
 month of each five years was selected, for thirty 
 years.' 
 
 I think this table substantiates the statement 
 that we have had falling prices for thirty years. 
 To show that this fall in prices is destructive to 
 the best interests of the whole nation, I will now 
 submit tables to prove, by showing that the increase 
 of failures has kept up in ratio to the fall of prices. 
 The following table will show the commercial fail- 
 ures in the Northern States from 1865 up to the 
 year 1870, after which it shows the failures of the 
 whole country : 
 
 IN THE NORTHERN STATES. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Number of Failures. 
 
 Aggregate Liabilities. 
 
 1865 
 1866 
 1867 
 1868 
 1869 
 
 530 
 632 
 
 2,386 
 
 2,197 ^ 
 2,411 
 
 ^17,625,000.00 
 47.333'00o.oo 
 86,218,000.00 
 57,275,000.00 
 65,246,000.00 
 
 ' It will be remembered that gold and silver were not used as 
 money from 1862 to 1879. These metal dollars were bought and 
 sold as metal, and not as dollars to be used in general business. 
 They no longer measured values. They fluctuated more than 
 any other commodity. The prices during the period from 1862 
 to 1879 were based on volume of money, and not on gold. Wheat 
 at $2.50 per bushel would pay $2.50 worth of mortgage, but 
 wheat at fifty cents in gold to-day will only pay off fifty cents 
 worth of mortgage.
 
 THIRTY YEARS' FALL. 
 
 IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Number of Failures. 
 
 Aggregate Liabilities. 
 
 1870 
 
 3.551 
 
 $ 88,242,000.00 
 
 1871 
 
 2,915 
 
 85,252,000.00 
 
 1872 
 
 4,069 
 
 121,056,000.00 
 
 1873 
 
 5,iSi 
 
 228,490,000.00 
 
 1874 
 
 5.695 
 
 151,689,000.00 
 
 1875 
 
 7.404 
 
 195,289,000.00 
 
 1879 
 
 6,652 
 
 99.636,34200 
 
 1880 
 
 4.350 
 
 57,120,995.00 
 
 1881 
 
 5.929 
 
 76,094,667.00 
 
 1882 
 
 7.635 
 
 93.238.93600 
 
 1883' 
 
 10,299 
 
 175,968,000.00 
 
 1884 
 
 1 1,620 
 
 248,740,000.00 
 
 1S85 
 
 11,116 
 
 119,120,700.00 
 
 1886 
 
 10,568 
 
 113,648,291.00 
 
 1887 
 
 9.740 
 
 130,605,001.00 
 
 1888 
 
 10,587 
 
 120,242,402.00 
 
 1889 
 
 11,719 
 
 i40,359.490-oo 
 
 1890 
 
 10,673 
 
 175.032,836.00 
 
 1891 
 
 12.394 
 
 193,178,000.00 
 
 1892 
 
 10,270 
 
 108,595,248.00 
 
 1893 
 
 15,508 
 
 382,153,676.00 
 
 1894 
 
 12,724 
 
 151,548,520.00 
 
 1895^ 
 
 12,958 
 
 158,727,682.00^ 
 
 I call the reader's attention to the above tables 
 to show the small number of failures in 1865, when 
 the circulation of money was large and the business 
 done on a paper basis ; and I ask him to compare 
 
 ' About seventy-seven per cent, were those of small traders 
 whose capital was less than $5,000. 
 
 ^ In the United States ahout eighty-six per cent, of the total 
 number of the concerns failing had $5,000 or less, and nine per 
 cent, had from $5,000 to $20,000 capital. 
 
 ' I am greatly indebted to The Hradstreet Company for the 
 above tables of failures and liabilities from 1879 to 1895, and also 
 for the note siiowing percentage of failures of small concerns in 
 comparison with large ones.
 
 10 
 
 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 the same with the large number of failures since, 
 under a small volume of money and a gold basis. 
 The difference is very significant. 
 
 The following table of Index Numbers compiled 
 from London prices of forty-five principal commod- 
 ities, by Augustus Sauerbeck, F. S. S., who is 
 looked upon as standard authority, shows clearly 
 that some cause must be looked for of further 
 reaching effect than that of tariff, foreign markets, 
 foreign labor, or free trade, since prices fell in that 
 country as well as in our own. Mr. Sauerbeck's 
 Index Numbers are as follows : ' 
 
 
 Index Numbers of 
 
 
 Index Numbers of 
 
 Year. 
 
 45 Principal Com- 
 
 Year. 
 
 45 Principal Com- 
 
 
 modities. 
 
 
 modities. 
 
 1874 
 
 102 
 
 1885 
 
 72 
 
 1875 
 
 96 
 
 1886 
 
 69 
 
 1876 
 
 95 
 
 1887 
 
 68 
 
 1877 
 
 94 
 
 1888 
 
 70 
 
 187S 
 
 87 
 
 1889 
 
 72 
 
 1879 
 
 83 
 
 1890 
 
 72 
 
 1880 
 
 88 
 
 1891 
 
 72 
 
 1S81 
 
 85 
 
 1892 
 
 68 
 
 1882 
 
 84 
 
 1893 
 
 68 
 
 1883 
 
 82 
 
 1894 
 
 63 
 
 1884 
 
 76 
 
 1895 
 
 62 
 
 ' " There have been various Index Numbers, seven or eight 
 of accredited authority, but after a careful comparison of several 
 of these numbers, I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Sauer- 
 beck's is, upon the whole, the most carefully prepared, and the 
 one which best represents the general movement of prices." — 
 Royal Co??ttnission on Depression in Agriculture. (Prof. H. S. 
 Foxwell, No. 23,558.)
 
 THIRTY YEARS' FALL. 11 
 
 When one contrasts the conditions of trade from 
 1 86 1 to 1868, which gave an annual rise in values 
 upon all investments for seven years equal to the 
 fall in values during the subsequent thirty years, 
 it is easy to see that it was not the superior brains 
 of the men doing business during the former period, 
 but the more favorable conditions of the latter 
 which made their fortunes. Their success grew 
 out of the constant enhancement of value of every- 
 thing they bought. This can be easily proven by 
 the fact that men who were engaged in business 
 in 1869 and 1870, and who understood the princi- 
 ples of financial legislation, sold out their business 
 at the high-water mark of prices in material and 
 merchandise, and invested in the low-water mark 
 price of bonds and securities. They knew full 
 well what the destruction of so much government 
 money was designed for. The truth of the mat- 
 ter is that the men during the period of rising 
 prices did not do the money-making part of the 
 business, but constantly rising prices did it for 
 them. 
 
 Any business man can sleep more restfully when 
 he knows that every morning he awakes a richer 
 man from the rise in values upon all he owns, and 
 he will naturally wear a different expression upon 
 his face from that of the business ni.in of to-day, 
 who goes to sleep conscious of the fact that every 
 morning he awakes a poorer man to the extent of 
 the fall in prices of everything in which he has his
 
 12 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 money invested, especially if this has been going 
 on for thirty years. 
 
 While Mr. Sauerbeck's Index Numbers do not 
 show such a violent diop in prices for P^ngland as 
 the Tribune s market reports do for America, al- 
 most any practical business man can see how well- 
 nigh impossible it must be for any new undertaking 
 in which "clear cash" is invested in material, with 
 the annual shrinkage for thirty years constantly 
 going on, as shown by the above tables, and with 
 the close margins existing under the sharp compe- 
 tition and depression in trade, to not only hold its 
 own but to avert disaster in time. 
 
 The difference, however, between the man who 
 did business under rising prices and those now do- 
 ing it under falling prices, is that the former did 
 not oppose any measures in legislation which sent 
 prices "kiting" for eight years; while the busi- 
 ness men of to-day, especially of the East, are op- 
 posed to any movement in legislation which will 
 even temporarily check the downward trend of 
 prices. Of course there are instances where some 
 business men go back of what their rich neighbor 
 said, who retired from business years ago, or what 
 the discount clerk tells them the president of the 
 bank said, as to why prices fall ; such men inves- 
 tigate for themselves the laws passed in Congress 
 from 1 86 1 to 1865, and read Congressional pro- 
 ceedings, and thus find out that there were two 
 classes in this country, and that these classes had
 
 THIRTY YEARS' FALL. 1 3 
 
 conflicting interests ; that one class wanted low 
 prices, while the other class wanted high prices. 
 The former class wanted to buy much for few dol- 
 lars ; they had no interest in business prosperity ; 
 in fact, their success depended upon the business 
 man's distress ; while the class who had all in 
 farms, in commodities, in mines, furnaces, facto- 
 ries, or in business pursuits generally, wanted 
 money issued, and were not particular what kind 
 it was so long as it gave the country prosperity 
 and power to put down rebellion and preserve the 
 Union. 
 
 We are now brought face to face with an exist- 
 ing fact which cannot be pushed aside, and cannot 
 be circumvented. We must meet it ; we must 
 contest it and change it, or we must accept it as 
 being an unalterable condition to which we must 
 unconditionally surrender. 
 
 There is no longer the fallacy of " low or falling 
 prices being a blessing" existing in the minds of 
 the people in the l^ast. West, North, or South. 
 The farmer has been crying out for higher prices 
 for his crops for twenty years. The abandoned 
 farms of the East, the evicted farmer of the West, 
 present a picture of agricultural decay in this new 
 country, resulting from falling prices, which makes 
 the heart sick. The planter of the South has 
 struggled on for years under promises of restored 
 prices and prosperity, until now, after twenty years 
 of exhausted fortitude and i)atiencc, he has at last
 
 14 FALL J N (J rKJCES. 
 
 seen the cotton of his section, which once brought 
 forty cents, settling down to six cents a pound ; 
 and as a result he finds not only his plantation and 
 machinery mortgaged by Eastern or English capi- 
 talists, but his ungrown crop covered by the cold 
 hand of the usurer for money advanced upon it, 
 and like the farmer he, too, in the end, must aban- 
 don his holdings to those who know not work. 
 
 The miner who has given his whole life to bring- 
 ing to the earth's surface copper, lead, iron, and 
 other ores, meets the same fate of the farmer and 
 planter. He, too, looks back upon the day of 
 high prices, which with him was the day of pros- 
 perity ; but to-day he is also brought face to face 
 with prices so cruelly low that they crush the 
 strongest heart. 
 
 Then comes that great class of wage-workers, 
 once prosperous and free, but to-day facing a fu- 
 ture as black as night, without a ray of hope, most 
 mercilessly cut down in wages, and this without 
 being consulted. Worse still, they are told that 
 their hunger will soon bring them to terms. All 
 this suffering and sorrow to the wage-earners 
 grows out of a constant and persistent fall in 
 prices which a few sordid and hardened rulers 
 term "the blessing of low prices." 
 
 The merchant with his large stock of goods 
 drums the retailer for trade, while the retailer sits 
 in his store with last year's styles unsold, and his 
 bills dragging upon his heels. In desperation he
 
 THIRTY YEARS' FALL. I 5 
 
 rushes to his windows, rearranges, and again 
 marks down his goods. But still the people do 
 not come to buy. They look in his windows and 
 comment upon how low everything is getting, but 
 turn wistfully away, while the storekeeper looks at 
 their threadbare clothes and poorly shod feet, won- 
 dering why the people do not buy, — forgetting 
 all about the abandoned farms, the mortgage-cov- 
 ered plantations, and the cut-downs and shut-downs 
 in the mills, mines, and factories. At last the re- 
 tailer, like the wholesaler, the manufacturer, and 
 the farmer, comes to the conclusion that he, too, 
 is tired of low prices. At last, the wage-worker, 
 finding that before he can buy cheap he must first 
 suffer a cut in his wages in order to have cheaper 
 goods put on the market, resolves that he has had 
 enough of low prices. And to-day it may safely 
 be said that, outside of the few whose fortunes are 
 in non-shrinkable, non-taxable, interest-bearing se- 
 curities, the whole people of the nation have be- 
 come heartily sick of low-priced goods, and would, 
 to a man, advance prices all along the line, being 
 perfectly willing now that planter, farmer, and 
 wage-earner should share in the advance. 
 
 The press of the r>ast has wrongfully instilled 
 into the minds of the people of New England that 
 the lower the prices forced upon the {producers of 
 food and raw material in the South and West, the 
 better it would be for the consumers of food and 
 manufacturers of raw material in the luist ; since
 
 1 6 FALLING PRJCES. 
 
 the wage-earner is protected, first, by his labor or- 
 ganization, and secondly by a high tariff in which 
 he shares with the manufacturer, and that under 
 these protective measures he will not suffer. This 
 teaching is as narrow as it is short-sighted. 
 
 The wealth-producing sections in raw material 
 amount to four-fifths of the nation ; and when this 
 great portion of our country has been robbed as 
 they have been through low prices for the past 
 thirty years, the other one-fifth of the country is 
 sure to suffer as severely in the end. It may be 
 true that the growers of food and raw material suf- 
 fer first and longest when an era of low prices sets 
 in, as has been proved in our experience during the 
 past thirty years. The country being very rich 
 when prices began to fall, men who were growing 
 raw material, even at a loss, kept on hoping for the 
 best ; but not until they had exhausted their reserve 
 capital, accumulated under high prices, did they 
 begin to murmur and organize politically to protect 
 their sectional interests. During all this time the 
 manufacturers of the East were selling under legis- 
 lative protection, while the wage-earners sustained 
 their price-lists through labor organizations ; but in 
 the end they find that prices have fallen to that 
 level at which both the employer and employee are 
 threatened with bankruptcy and want. Or, to 
 express it more clearly, the East has found out 
 that by impoverishing the raw-material growing 
 West and South, it has lost its great customer, and
 
 THIRTY YEARS' FALL. 1/ 
 
 that the only way to regain the prosperity it once 
 enjoyed is first to restore those profitable prices to 
 the West and South, under which they will again 
 send their orders to the East, that she may again 
 run her mills night and day. This will restore 
 prosperity. It formerly gave the whole country 
 prosperity, except a very small class, who were 
 investors in bonds, and who lived on board ocean- 
 liners ; who bought their goods abroad, but whose 
 influence over our legislation has always been to 
 depress prices, until now Europe can get our raw 
 products for nearly one-third their value, thus 
 impoverishing our producers and destroying our 
 own market. 
 
 That this question of falling prices is the result 
 of some law or system which has a very extended 
 effect can be best judged by the fact that it is felt 
 throughout the whole Western world. True, those 
 nations which are more closely connected by lan- 
 guage, travel, custom, laws, and systems affecting 
 commercial transaction and trade relations, are the 
 most deeply affected. One remarkable fact will be 
 observed, however, which is that, during the past 
 thirty years of falling prices, there have been no 
 wars, pestilence, famine, or widespread disaster of 
 any kind to which this alarming destruction of 
 values can be attributed, at least not to those 
 nations most closely allied l)y trade and commerce. 
 
 It is shown by Mr. Sauerbeck's Index Numbers, 
 that prices have fallen (|uilc as heavily, for the past
 
 I 8 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 ten years, in luigland as in America, while other 
 nations have felt the fall, if not so severely, yet as 
 steadily and as continuously, and seemingly by the 
 same causes affecting us, whatever those may be. 
 
 In looking over Mr. Sauerbeck's Index Numbers, 
 it will be observed that the fall in prices in Eng- 
 land, from 1868 to 1895, move downward, and in 
 close sympathy with prices in this country during 
 the same period, which forces us, when looking for 
 the cause, to find one which is not only far-reach- 
 ing, but at the same time productive of simultane- 
 ous and similar effects, here as well as in England. 
 
 Having thus far presented tables of statistics of 
 the most eminent men who stand as the recog- 
 nized highest authorities at home and abroad in 
 substantiating that which we claim to be a fact, — 
 namely, a thirty years' fall in prices ; and having 
 also submitted statements and opinions of our 
 public men of the disastrous effects upon the ma- 
 terial welfare of the nation in general, and against 
 the interest of the producers and distributors of 
 wealth in particular, — including in the above- 
 named classes the mercantile, agricultural, indus- 
 trial, and laboring classes, — I now desire to call 
 the reader's attention to the fact that this long 
 and continual fall in prices, as well as its disas- 
 trous effects, was neither sought nor desired on 
 the part of the above-named interests. Yet from 
 some cause it has been persistent and continuous, 
 in spite of all the protests and objections made on
 
 THIRTY YEARS' FALL. 1 9 
 
 the part of those representing the wealth-producers 
 of the land. 
 
 The writer is willing to hazard the opinion that 
 if it could be known by the masses of the nation 
 that, by adopting a certain system, law, or policy 
 known to political economy, it would raise prices 
 and bring national prosperity, the people would 
 carry every State in the Union by voting for its 
 adoption. 
 
 The patriotism of the American people is fast 
 rising above party leaders and party platforms. 
 Matters are becoming too serious to permit mere 
 politics longer to interfere in them. Conflict of 
 opinion is beginning to intensify as to the cause 
 of our troubles ; and this is the first sign of hope, 
 the first ray of light, which has appeared during 
 the long depression. When all classes have been 
 reached, and suffering has become general, as in 
 the present case, a spirit of harmony between pre- 
 viously conflicting interest is sure to be manifested ; 
 and the moral law in the community, which always 
 asserts itself in the face of danger, injustice, or 
 suffering, will cause men to relax their hold upon 
 their positive and rigid opinions, the origin and au- 
 thority for which they cannot trace back of their 
 party leaders, party press, or party i)latform. 1 lav- 
 ing seen our present system adopted by both par- 
 ties, they have taken it for granted that the system, 
 or policy, was a correct one. As, in the case of 
 sickness, they leave all matters of treatment and
 
 20 FALLING rRICKS. 
 
 medicine to their doctor ; as, in the case of reli- 
 gion, they follow their parents and their ministers, 
 so it is no wonder that men whose every minute 
 is taken up with the care of business have no time 
 to give to the study of political economy, and at 
 best have but limited knowledge of the cause of na- 
 tional disaster in commercial affairs. To show this, 
 I will quote from one of New P2ngland's grandest, 
 if not her greatest sons, Daniel Webster : 
 
 By far the most valuable practical knowledge that can 
 illumine the mind of man is tliat concerning money. A 
 correct knowledge of its jjrinciples and operations is worth 
 more to the merchant and the man of enterprise than the 
 capital invested in his business; and to the farmer, the ar- 
 tisan, the salary or wage laborer, than the outcome of ten 
 years of his toil. Yet, even among merchants and those 
 who conduct the great enterprises of the country, hardly 
 one in a thousand has any real or correct knowledge of a 
 matter which, more than all others, should receive their pro- 
 found study. It is almost universally true that that which 
 is counted as a knowledge of money in reality is ignorance 
 of the grossest character. Out of that ignorance I have 
 spoken things of which I am now ashamed and greatly 
 grieved, and which I shall undo if life and the opportunity 
 are spared me. 
 
 Every business man is excusable for not being 
 able to account for years upon years of falling 
 prices, especially when the same becomes not only 
 national in scope, but world-wide ; and when, upon 
 finding the effects coming home to himself, he, in 
 seeking the cause, finds himself confronted with
 
 THIRTY YEARS' FALL. 21 
 
 conflict of opinion in each and every party, throw- 
 ing his mind into utter confusion upon his first at- 
 tempt to find a solution. Becoming discouraged 
 in this first attempt, unless he has a mind superior 
 to the average business man, and resolves that he 
 will study the question for himself, he is very apt 
 to drift along for years with the idea which most 
 shiftless and careless business men fall into when 
 they find a screw loose in their business which can- 
 not be easily accounted for, — that, " if let alone, it 
 will all come around right in time." 
 
 This has been the position taken by the average 
 business man for the past fifteen or twenty years 
 regarding falling prices, but with the business man 
 who is a thoroughbred in business it is looked at 
 in an entirely different light. lie wants to knozv. 
 If he cannot find knowledge by one method, he 
 seeks another, and usually, before he can become 
 satisfied, he is driven to make a study of the sub- 
 ject for himself. After having studied and found 
 the correct solution, and become informed upon the 
 question, he finds that almost every man he meets, 
 and whom he knows has not studied the question, 
 will turn from him, cither with a feeling that he 
 cannot meet the logic and arguments of his oppo- 
 nent, or else that he " knows it all " becau.se he has 
 " read all about it in the papers," and does not wish 
 to discuss it. To show how few Inisiness men 
 there are who do know the cause in tlic hill <it 
 prices, I have quoted Webster ; in order now to show
 
 22 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 that most business men do not know the effects of 
 the various monetary systems, I will quote Bodin 
 (1557), who says : 
 
 Men have so well obscured the facts about money that 
 the great part of the people do not see them at all. The 
 moneyers do as the doctors do, who talk Latin before women 
 and use Greek characters, Arab words, and Latin abbrevia- 
 tions, fearing tliat if the people understood their receipts 
 they would not have much opinion of them. 
 
 One would naturally suppose that, moved by 
 patriotism, by the love of justice, and the cause of 
 humanity, the press of this country, supported as 
 it is by the people, would give the laws set forth 
 by the world's greatest authorities upon the class 
 of legislation needed to effect a continuous fall in 
 prices, or on the other hand would show that class 
 of legislation which would cause a continuous rise 
 in prices. It would be difficult to find a man of 
 prominence who will claim that it is impossible to 
 force prices up or down, in view of the steady rise 
 in prices from i860 to 1867, and that after the 
 reversal of the "lever," or systems and laws then 
 existing, there was a continuous fall for thirty 
 years. More especially does this fact carry weight 
 when it is known that in each instance the rise and 
 fall in prices was caused by the adoption of those 
 systems recognized by all standard authorities on 
 political economy, and which in each instance was 
 sufficient to produce the desired effects. 
 
 We have shown the continuous fall in prices for
 
 THIRTY YEARS' FALL. 23 
 
 over thirty years by Index Numbers prepared by 
 the acknowledged ablest authorities abroad, and 
 also those of standard authorities at home, and feel 
 that there can be no reasonable doubt upon this 
 point. Further on we shall show the disastrous 
 and the most deplorable effects resulting from it. 
 
 Since it is the desire of men in all schools and 
 of all parties to raise prices and to restore general 
 prosperity, not alone in the centres of commerce 
 and trade but also in the ranks of agriculturists, as 
 well as of those engaged in the industries and in 
 labor, would it not be broad intelligence to ignore 
 all party lines upon other question.s, and to ascer- 
 tain the systems which, if applied for this one pur- 
 pose, would produce high prices to-day as they did 
 centuries ago, and by so doing avoid the contention 
 growing out of party feeling and prejudice.'' 
 
 In taking this step, we must resolve to hold our 
 personal views in suspense if the systems proposed 
 by the authorities (who are sustained by history, 
 which shows that the results took place which they 
 predicted) seem to clash with our party or even 
 personal interest, trusting that that which will ben- 
 efit the nation as a whole must in some manner 
 benefit us individually. 
 
 It is a very prevalent idea to-day lliat no real 
 distress had come from the unprecedented fall in 
 price during the past quarter of a century, until 
 about four years ago. This arises from the fact 
 that men do not memorize events which do not
 
 24 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 come home with a blow to them personally. Before 
 they can judge of systems and their effects, they 
 must first look up their results during the years 
 they are in force, for man's memory is a very un- 
 certain thing to depend upon for accuracy in such 
 matters. The incidents and events chronicled at 
 the time, and later woven into history, are a great 
 deal more reliable. Hence it is necessary to pro- 
 duce history, which oftentimes refreshes our mem- 
 ory and assists us in formulating our opinions 
 regarding the merits and demerits of a question. 
 
 According to the Index Numbers of Augustus 
 Sauerbeck, the fall in prices commenced in 1 820, 
 and continued until 1843. Without going into the 
 cause at this time, we desire only to give the dis- 
 tressing effects. This we do in order to correct 
 the fallacy held by so many that, the lower the 
 price, the more of the good things of life one can 
 procure. Here again we see the effects of a lack 
 of knowledge upon political economy ; for had such 
 believers been influenced by this knowledge, they 
 would have seen that there were two classes in 
 society, and that the very limited class who were 
 non-producers, but who lived upon income (these 
 being paid in the products of the great class of 
 producers at low prices, often below cost of pro- 
 duction), would be left without any money with 
 which to purchase at any price, however low it 
 might be. 
 
 Mr. Sauerbeck's Index Numbers show that in
 
 THIRTY YEARS' FALL. 2$ 
 
 taking thirty-one leading commodities in 1819, the 
 Index Number being 106 at that time, a constant 
 fall in prices occurred until 1843, ^t which time 
 eighty-two becomes the Index Number. To show 
 the effect of falling prices during this period of 
 twenty-four years upon the masses, we will quote 
 from Sir Archibald Alison, F. R. S. E., to show 
 the condition of society in England during these 
 years of falling prices. He writes as follows : 
 
 The blue folios of the houses of Parliament teem with 
 authentic and decisive evidence of the vast increase, during 
 the last thirty years, of crime and frequent destitution among 
 the working classes in all parts of the empire. Every four 
 or five years a brief feverish period of gambling, extrava- 
 gance, and commercial prosperity is succeeded by a long 
 and weary season of anxiety, distress, and depression. 
 Frightful strikes among the working men, attended with 
 boundless distress among, and hideous democratic tyranny 
 over them ; suffering or pestilence stalk in the rear of fam- 
 ine, and popular insurrection has become so common that it 
 is a rare thing to see two years pass without martial law 
 being of necessity practically enforced in some parts of the 
 empire. And, as if to bring this chaos of contradictions to 
 a perfect climax, at the very time when unheard-of exer- 
 tions have been made for the education of the people in 
 every part of the empire, and the newly aroused fervor of 
 religion in all denominations of Christians has drawn fortli 
 unparalleled efforts for the diffusion of the gospel among 
 the working classes, cnme has made unexampled progress 
 in every part of the empire; and the scandal has been 
 exhibited of serious and delected offences having multiplied 
 sevenfold in a realm which, in the same period, has not 
 added more than seventy per cent, to the amount of its
 
 26 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 population ; in other words, during a period of unparalleled 
 growth of wealth and effort at instruction, crime has aug- 
 Tiiented ten times as fast as the numbers of the people. 
 
 We repeat it, — this state of things is unparalleled in any 
 other age of the world or quarter of the globe. We say 
 this after due consideration and a full appreciation of the 
 unutterable and now forgotten miseries in which the world 
 in general and ourselves among the rest have been involved 
 in former ages, from the ravages of foreign war or the grind- 
 ing of domestic oppression. Nothing is more certain than 
 that the wretchedness of those days infinitely exceed any- 
 thing in the present, and that, compared with their suffer- 
 ings, the low wages of our sullen Chartist, or the destitution 
 of our starving repealers, would be esteemed absolute 
 paradise. 
 
 Having shown that we have had falling prices 
 for thirty years, I will now show that, in whatever 
 nation or at whatever time falling prices have pre- 
 vailed, they are always accompanied with financial 
 disaster and bankruptcy to the merchant, and 
 enforced idleness and want to the laborer.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF FALLING PRICES UPON 
 REAL ESTATE, MERCHANTS, FARMERS, AND 
 WORKING CLASSES. 
 
 Having shown in the previous chapter the fall 
 in prices of all kinds of property, commodities, and 
 labor for thirty years, and having produced tables 
 substantiating the statements made, I will now 
 proceed to show the disastrous effects which this 
 has had on all classes except one, — which one I 
 shall designate later. 
 
 If any merchant will go back through the years 
 subsequent to the acts of Congress from 1866 
 down to 1896, thereby refreshing his memory in 
 regard to the distress following those acts, he will 
 find a wreckage of financial institutions, railroads, 
 and merchants, and the loss of farms and homes, 
 as well as loss of time and wages of the laboring 
 class, never before equalled in the world's history. 
 I do not desire to let this statement rest upon my 
 bare assertion, but will substantiate it with facts 
 and figures. 
 
 No doubt the famous despatch sent out by Tom 
 Scott, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 
 
 27
 
 28 
 
 FALL/jVG FN ices. 
 
 in 1877, will help to refreshen the memory of the 
 reader. It was in answer to one sent him that the 
 people living on his lines were living on an oatmeal 
 diet. Scott answered, " I will send them a leaden 
 diet." It will also be remembered that at that 
 time there were five States under arms, and that 
 the hungry mobs had destroyed $7,000,000 worth 
 of property in and around Pittsburg. All this 
 trouble and suffering was the result of falling 
 prices, which commenced with the years 1867 and 
 1868. To show further the severity of the dis- 
 tress existing at that time, I will quote from a let- 
 ter written by Henry Carey Baird, who is the 
 present head of one of the oldest publishing houses 
 of works on political economy in America. This let- 
 ter was published in the North American, of Phila- 
 delphia, Nov. 4, 1893. I quote parts as follows: 
 
 WRECK OF RAILROADS, 1876-1877. 
 
 . . . On Feb. 22, 1877, the Railway Age of Chicago 
 .stated that eighty-six railroads had, during the year 1876, 
 met with disaster as follows : 
 
 
 No. of 
 Roads. 
 
 Mile- 
 age. 
 
 Capital Invested. 
 
 .Sold under foreclosure 
 
 Receivers appointed, or foreclosures 
 New defaults 
 
 30 
 46 
 10 
 
 3.460 
 7.576 
 2.577 
 
 $217,848,000.00 
 538,000,000.00 
 156,661,000.00 
 
 Grand total 
 
 86 
 
 14.179 
 
 $912,509,000.00 
 
 And the same paper, under date of March 22, 1877, 
 says:
 
 DISASTROUS EFFECTS. 
 
 29 
 
 " Out of a total nominal investment of the railroads of this 
 country of ;jt4,775,ooo,ooo, about thirty-eight per cent., or 
 $1,800,000,000, is represented in defaulting roads, and is, 
 therefore, for the present at least, almost wholly unproduc- 
 tive to investors. . . . 
 
 " The losses incurred by the shrinkage of the stock of the 
 four principal coal-roads within the last year are ap^Dalling, 
 as shown by the following table : 
 
 
 Value 
 March 8, 1876. 
 
 Present Value. 
 
 Shrinkage. 
 
 Central New Jer- 
 
 
 
 
 sey 
 
 Delaware, Lacka- 
 
 121,961,750.00 
 
 $1,744,625.00 
 
 $20,217,125.00 
 
 wanna, and 
 
 
 
 
 Western . . . 
 
 31,178,000.00 
 
 17,423,000.00 
 
 i3.75S'00o-oo 
 
 Delaware and 
 
 
 
 
 Hudson Canal . 
 
 24,000,000.00 
 
 1 0,400,000.00 
 
 1 3,000,000.00 
 
 Reading .... 
 
 32,863,500.00 
 
 4,251,000.00 
 
 28,612,500.00 
 
 Total . . . . 
 
 $110,003,250.00 
 
 $33,818,625.00 
 
 $76,184,625.00 
 
 " Add to this ,^76,000,000 of loss from the depreciation 
 upon the bonds of the companies, and the estimate that the 
 total apparent loss caused by the coal panic witliin a year 
 will reach one hundred millions of dollars, is not far from 
 correct. . . . The loss of nearly $8,000,000 in annual divi- 
 dends by the stockholders of the four roads named is a 
 calamity of widespread effect." 
 
 On April 16, 1877, the New York Tribune^ under the 
 heading of "Wrecked by Real Estate," says: 
 
 " A reporter of the Tribune recently had a long interview 
 with a gentleman who has been closely identified with the 
 ups and downs of the market during liie past few years. 
 ' It is a frightful retrospect,' he said, 'but as a warning to 
 those who may again desire to speculate in iiiiiin])iiivf(l 
 property, the whole story ought to be told. Il is not nctcs-
 
 30 FALLING rRICES. 
 
 sary to give names ; the facts will speak for themselves, and 
 those at all acquainted with our market will at once be able 
 to identify the bodies when I come to call the roll of the 
 killed and wounded. . . . The masses of the people, who 
 imagine that they alone have suffered during these hard 
 times, would open their eyes if tliey could understand the 
 misfortunes sustained during the past four years by many 
 of the formerly wealthy families of New York, and see how 
 changed are the circumstances and surroundings in which 
 they are now living.' " 
 
 And early in 1S77 the same journal e.xpressed the opin- 
 ion that either the debt of the city of New York must be 
 repudiated or the entire real estate in that city would pass 
 into the hands of new holders at lower prices. 
 
 Thus it will be seen, from the quotations I have 
 made, that millions of men were reduced in wages, 
 and millions more were thrown out of employment ; 
 that hundreds of millions of dollars were lost by 
 the holders of stocks in the railroads of the country, 
 while the shrinkage shown in New York City was 
 only a fair sample of the shrinkage in real estate 
 throughout the land. When we consider that this 
 shrinkage took place over twenty years ago, and 
 has been going on steadily from that time until the 
 present day, and that to-day we are still confronted 
 with stagnant business, with cut-downs and strikes 
 on every hand, with unmovable stocks of goods in 
 the mills and retailers' hands, — is it any wonder 
 that men become tired of falling prices, and begin 
 to look for the cause, and seek, if possible, a 
 remedy .-'
 
 DISASTROUS EFFECTS. 3 1 
 
 To show how difficult it is for the business man 
 and farmer to detect or discover the true cause for 
 falHng prices, and how subtle and illusive that 
 cause is, I will quote from the Report of the Mone- 
 tary Commission of the United States, page 5 i : 
 
 Whenever and wherever the mutterings of discontent 
 were hushed by the fear of increased standing armies, the 
 foundations of society were honeycombed by powerful secret 
 political associations. The cause at work to produce this 
 state of things was so subtle, and its advance so silent, that 
 the masses were entirely ignorant of its nature. They had 
 come to regard money as an institution fixed and immovable 
 in value, and when the prices of property and the wages of 
 labor fell, they charged the fault, not to the money, but to 
 property and the employer. They were taught that the 
 mischief was the result of overproduction, never having 
 observed that overproduction was complained of only when 
 the money stock was decreasing; their prejudices were 
 aroused against labor-saving machinery. They were angered 
 at capital because it either declined altogether to embark in 
 industrial enterprises, or would only embark in them upon 
 the condition of employing labor at the most scanty remu- 
 neration. They forgot that falling prices compelled capital 
 to avoid such enterprises on any other condition, and for 
 the mo^t part to avoid them entirely. They did not com- 
 prehend that money in shrinking volume was the prolific 
 parent of enforced idleness and poverty, and that falling 
 prices divorced money, capital, and labor, but they none the 
 less felt the paralyzing pressure of the shrinking metallic 
 shroud that was closing around industry. 
 
 From the above quotation one can sec that in 
 former times men talked as they do to-day, and
 
 32 FALLING PR ICES. 
 
 that every man to-day has just the same opinion 
 concerning the effects he sees resulting from con- 
 traction of money and the fall in prices. But 
 whether the fall in prices to-day is the result of 
 our nation's having contracted its volume of money, 
 or has come from other causes, it cannot be dis- 
 puted, either from the testimony adduced from 
 history, or by actual experience of our day, that the 
 result is disastrous to the merchant and laborer 
 alike. That beneficial effects flow from rising 
 prices to merchants and laborers equally is evident. 
 Therefore, in order to restore prosperity, the first 
 step necessary is to study the subject and ascer- 
 tain what legislation is required ; to ascertain if it 
 be in the power of legislation to send prices up, 
 and, if not, then to continue the search for the 
 cause until found. 
 
 To show that this fall in prices is a very serious 
 matter, and that it extends beyond our own country, 
 I will offer in evidence the existing state of affairs 
 among the producing and mercantile classes in 
 England. 
 
 James Henry Hallard, M. A., of Liverpool, Eng- 
 land, says : 
 
 Here also is an eloquent summary, by the pen, of the evils 
 of low prices, — evils that are largely traceable to the break 
 of " exchange." 
 
 What is our position at the present time? We have, 
 according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the " un- 
 speakable blessing of low prices," and side by side with that
 
 DISASTROUS EFFECTS. 33 
 
 we have two million acres of arable land gone out of culti- 
 vation. We have nearly half of our great iron and steel 
 works closed, and out of about five hundred tin-plate mills, 
 in the manufacture of which we have enjoyed the monopoly 
 of the world, two hundred and thirty are idle, and have been 
 for the last twelve months. We have colliers working two 
 to four days a week ; we have sixteen thousand looms idle 
 in Blackburn, three thousand in Preston, and I know not 
 how many others in different towns in England. Our jute 
 mills are running intermiltcntly, and even then at a loss; 
 we have millions of tons of shipping lying idle, and our great 
 cotton, linen, and woollen industries depending upon it are 
 suffering in sympathy. Lead-mining, tin-mining, and cop- 
 per-mining have almost ceased in Great Britain; our great 
 chemical trades are in a ruinous condition, our paper trades 
 unprofitable, and nearly all our great manufacturing indus- 
 tries in the same dismal plight. What are the effects upon 
 labor? There has been a reduction, in the corn-growing 
 countries of England, of twenty per cent, in the wages of 
 the agricultural laborer, of nearly twenty-five per cent, in 
 that of the iron and steel workers, of thirty-five per cent. 
 since 1891 in the wages of the South Wales colliers, of 
 twelve and a half per cent, in the wages of tin-plate makers, 
 — such of them who are able to get work at all, — and a 
 further twelve and a half per cent, reduction is now demanded 
 by the employers, who say (and I think truly) that the alter- 
 native is to close their mills. The cotton operatives in Lan- 
 cashire, in 1893, after sixteen weeks' strike, submitted to a 
 reduction of three and a half per cent., but another five per 
 cent, is now demanded by the masters, with a threat to close 
 the whole of tlic mills of Lancashire, if not conceded. There 
 is a threatened reduction of wages in the hosiery trade in 
 Leicester, affecting six thousand hands, and reductions are 
 in the air all around. If you talk to the average employer 
 about the present deplorable position, his idea generally is
 
 34 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 that \vai;cs must come down, and I am sorry to say that if 
 tlic remedy wliich I advocate (bimetallism) is not readopted, 
 there is no help for it ; wages must come down, and come 
 down heavily. 
 
 Without regard to the opinion which Mr. Hal- 
 lard holds as to the cause of low and falling prices, 
 the injury and suffering, as a matter of fact, in the 
 then existing deplorable condition of trade, and 
 loss to the mercantile, manufacturing, and laboring 
 community, is beyond dispute, and should certainly 
 cause those who are always advocating lower prices, 
 and consequent cut-downs, to stop and consider 
 what the consequences must be if the downward 
 trend of prices is not checked. 
 
 Over twenty years ago a monetary commission 
 was created by Congress, and in its report, on page 
 55, will be found the following : 
 
 The worst effect, however, economically considered, 
 of falling prices, is not upon existing property nor upon 
 debtors, evil as it is, but upon laborers, whom it deprives of 
 employment, and consigns to poverty ; and upon society, 
 which it deprives of that vast sum of wealth which resides 
 potentially in the vigorous arms of the idle workman. 
 This estimate is not an extravagant one, that there are now 
 in the United States three million persons willing to work, 
 but who are idle because they cannot obtain employment. 
 This vast poverty-stricken army is increasing, and will con- 
 tinue to increase as long as falling prices shall continue to 
 separate money capital, the fund out of which wages are 
 paid, from labor, and to discourage its investment in other 
 forms of property. . . . Little more labor will be employed 
 under these circumstances than is sufficient to support the
 
 DISASTKOUS EFFECTS. 35 
 
 owners of capital on this parsimonious basis ; and as a 
 consequence, the labor market will be overstocked, and the 
 competition between labor will reduce wages to a starvation 
 level. But during this period, when property is being 
 sacrificed to meet current necessities, and laborers are 
 being remitted to idleness and destitution, money fattens in 
 the general disaster. 
 
 This report was made March 2, 1877. It 
 was a commission that was appointed by a Repub- 
 lican President, and on which were a majority of 
 Republicans. 
 
 It should be remembered that up to this time 
 no Democratic majority had had a voice in shaping 
 government since i860, and yet this practically 
 Republican commission says, " There are now in 
 the United States three million persons willing to 
 work, but who are idle because they cannot obtain 
 employment." The importance of this statement 
 lies in the fact that one meets men who now most 
 positively declare that this country never had hard 
 times until four years ago. No doubt these men 
 are honest in their belief, but their memories 
 should be cultivated before they make such posi- 
 tive declarations to men who have better memories, 
 growing out of a sad experience.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OPINIONS REGARDING THE CAUSE OF THE FALL IN 
 
 PRICES. 
 
 In opening this chapter, I desire to call the 
 attention of the reader to the fact that the tables, 
 or Index Numbers, used in showing the fall in 
 prices cover the leading nations of the earth, 
 showing that there must be some great and wide- 
 spread general cause. Further on the writer will 
 quote the most popular schools of writers and 
 authorities, giving their special reasons and opin- 
 ions concerning the cause which, if applied, would 
 bring about a rise or fall in prices. 
 
 One of the most prominent and popular opinions 
 prevailing to-day is that the fall in prices was 
 wholly due to the lack of a sufficiently high pro- 
 tective tariff. This was not only made the issue 
 in the last Presidential election, but won the 
 largest number of votes ; and, furthermore, it was 
 emphasized by the newly elected President, in 
 calling an extra session of Congress for the sole 
 purpose of passing a high protective tariff measure 
 to raise prices and wages to that plane on which 
 only, it was claimed, the country could prosper. 
 
 36
 
 OmV/OXS REGARDIXG THE CAUSE. IJ 
 
 Under these circumstances, the writer feels that 
 those advocating high tariff, for the purpose of 
 raising prices, are entitled to the first place in 
 having their views presented in these pages. In 
 doing this I intend to quote the ablest champions 
 on this question, and believing that President 
 McKinley stands as the highest authority to-day 
 upon the tariff, I will quote from his speeches, 
 made on the floor of the House and in public. 
 
 In his speech before the Chautauqua Association, 
 at Beatrice, Neb., August 2, 1892, Mr. McKinley 
 said : 
 
 Mr. Cleveland, I fear, has not consulted the markets 
 since 1890. . . . The value of the report, the reading of 
 which I commend to the gentlemen, will be seen when I 
 state that it was made by the following senators: Aldrich, 
 Allison, Hiscock, Jones, Harris, and Carlisle ; and that the 
 report is a unanimous one. 
 
 This report has ascertained and stated the cost of food 
 and clothing, fuel and lighting, house-furnishing, foods, 
 drugs and chemicals, metals and implements, lumber and 
 building material, for each month, commencing June, 1889, 
 and ending .Sept. i, 1S91. The result of the investigation, 
 which has been most careful and absolutely non-partisan, 
 sliosvs the decline in the retail prices of two hundred and 
 fourteen selected articles of comfort and necessity, to be 
 2.64 per cent, le.ss by one method of computation, and i .S 
 per cent, le.ss by another, in 1.S91, than duHng any of the 
 months preceding and covered by the investigation. The 
 committee, in addition to the twenty-cigiit montiis noted, 
 a.sked the Commi.ssioner of Labor of tiic Lfnited States to 
 a.scertain the retail jirices in tiuce cities, — namely, K.ill 
 River, Mass., Chicago, III., and Dubuciue, Iowa, — of the 
 
 386481
 
 38 FAI.LIXC, /'h'/CKS. 
 
 two hundred and fourteen articles referred to. The result 
 of his investigation shows a further decline in the cost of 
 living, in May, 1.S92, as compared with September, 1891, 
 of 2.1 per cent. This report also shows, in every part of 
 it, a constant tendency to lower prices of the necessaries 
 and comforts of life. This would seem to dispose of Mr. 
 Cleveland's assertion that the tariff has increased prices to 
 the consumer, and leaves his statement devoid of that 
 essential element of strength, truth. . . . Yet Mr. Cleveland, 
 in his recent speech in Rhode Island, said : " The consumer 
 has found life harder since the passage of the new tariff 
 law than before." This is not true. The consumer has 
 not found life harder, for the commodities which enter into 
 his daily life are, in a great majority of cases, lower than 
 they were before the new tariff law went into effect. He 
 has cheaper sugar, cheaper clothing, cheaper boots and 
 shoes, and cheaper nails then before. A careful investiga- 
 tion of prices of woollen and cotton goods made in the city 
 of New York, and embracing over two thousand c[Uotations 
 of articles, for a comparative period under the new and old 
 tariffs (and this was made by an expert who has reported 
 prices for forty years), shows that in about 98 per cent, 
 of all these quotations and articles, there has been an actual 
 decrease in price since the new tariff went into effect, as 
 compared with the same prices of goods under the old 
 tariff. 
 
 Carroll D. Wright, in his " Scientific Basis of 
 Tariff Legislation," says : 
 
 The free-trader urges the adoption of free trade in Amer- 
 ica, in order that surplus products may be sold abroad ; 
 and claims at the same time that " there are scores of 
 profitable industries that cannot now be carried on in this 
 country, on account of the tariff, but which would spring 
 into existence as soon as it was removed." On the other
 
 OPINIONS REGARDING THE CAUSE. 39 
 
 hand, the equally intelligent protectionist says in substance, 
 " There are scores of industries now carried on because the 
 tariff does exist, that with its removal would be abandoned." 
 
 The above shows how completely authorities 
 disagree as to the efficacy of free trade and tariff 
 in producing prosperity and high prices. 
 
 I will now quote from a letter received by Wil- 
 liam B. Allison from James M. Swank, general 
 manager of the American Iron and Steel Associa- 
 tion, of Philadelphia, as follows : 
 
 The effect of protective duties in this country has been 
 invaluable to reduce prices after the protected industries 
 have been establi.shed ; and there is no reason known to us 
 why the manufacturer of tin-plate should prove to be an ex- 
 ception to this rule. 
 
 It must be remembered here that I am not ar- 
 guing on the merits or demerits of tariff or free 
 trade, or on their effects in encouraging industries. 
 Both sides claim that their respective policies will 
 do this, and both are also agreed that each of their 
 systems will bring lower prices in the end. In ac- 
 knowledging this, we may rest assured that neither 
 will advance prices ; anfl it is to this that all men 
 in trade look with hopeful eyes as causing the 
 return u[ pros[)erity. 
 
 What is needed in this nation to restore confi- 
 dence is legislation which will stop the fall in 
 prices ; and it has been demonstrated that neither 
 high nor low tariff will do it, for the country has 
 given both a fair trial during the past thirty years.
 
 40 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 The McKinley high-tariff bill was in full operation 
 when the Wilson low-tariff bill was passed. No 
 one can deny that values had a terrible tumble un- 
 der the McKinley bill. We then went under the 
 Wilson bill, and still values fell ; and to-day we 
 are under the Dingley high-tariff bill, and still val- 
 ues are falling. 
 
 Mr. McKinley proved, by taking two hundred 
 and fourteen commodities as examples, that prices 
 fell, under the operation of his bill. We know 
 it fell, under the Wilson bill, and we are still suffer- 
 ing from the fall in prices under the new Dingley 
 bill ; hence we have the demonstrated fact that the 
 cause of falling prices lies deeper than what tariff 
 or free trade will reach or cure. 
 
 Having the acknowledgment of both free-trader 
 and protectionist that prices fall under their sys- 
 tems, and also having seen it demonstrated during 
 the past thirty years, and to the loss of the busi- 
 ness interest of the country at large, I am now 
 forced to look to the next largest party to ascer- 
 tain what in their opinion will cause prices to ad- 
 vance. 
 
 This second school which we are to consider 
 leads us to study the effect which a large or small 
 volume of money has upon prices ; and in consid- 
 ering this remedy for falling prices, we shall quote 
 not only the authorities at the head of our institu- 
 tions of learning in this country which teach polit- 
 ical economy, but also those from all parts of the
 
 OPINIONS REGARDING THE CAUSE. 4 1 
 
 globe. One striking fact in regard to this ques- 
 tion of volume in currency as affecting the rise 
 and fall of prices, is the unanimity of opinion of 
 all authorities from Aristotle down. This one 
 fact, it would seem, should entitle these authori- 
 ties to our earnest and careful consideration. 
 
 In opening the case in regard to the cause of 
 falling prices, we selected the greatest acknowl- 
 edged authority in the land upon the subject of 
 tariff, Mr. William McKinley. In introducing the 
 subject of the volume of money to account for 
 the same cause, I will quote from the writings of 
 the late lamented Francis A. Walker, Ph. D., 
 LL. D., president of the Massachusetts Institute 
 of Technology. In his great work entitled " Po- 
 litical Economy," he writes as follows : 
 
 Now, this is money function. Money is the medium of 
 exchange. Whatever performs this function, does this 
 work, is money, no matter what it is made of, and no mat- 
 ter how it came to be a medium at first, or why it continues 
 to be such. So long as, in any community, there is an ar- 
 ticle which all producers take freely, and as a matter of 
 course, in exchange for whatever they have to sell, instead 
 of looking about at the time for the particular things they 
 themselves wish to consume, that article is money, — be it 
 white, yellow, or black, hard or soft, animal, vegetable, or 
 mineral, in its composition. 
 
 The great forces lining up between the Ka.st and 
 the West ami South, for the great battle to be 
 fought ujion the (|ucsti()ii ol money in Kjoo, are
 
 42 FALLING PK/CES. 
 
 of such a character as to entitle their opinion to 
 consideration beyond that of most other agencies 
 in accounting for the fall in prices. 
 
 We are not now dealing with the quality of 
 money, of kinds of metals, of weight, or of fine- 
 ness ; we are dealing wholly with volume and its 
 effect upon other things. 
 
 I will start out with the accepted belief of all, — 
 that the more money the people issue, the more 
 they will have to give of it for that wliich they buy. 
 I think we all stand committed to this fact,- — a 
 fact attested by the experience of this country and 
 of all others when issuing large volumes of money. 
 
 In order to put this beyond question, I will 
 quote from John Stuart Mill, who said : " If the 
 whole money in circulation was doubled, prices 
 would double. If it was only increased one-fourth, 
 prices would rise one-fourth, . . . every increase in 
 quantity lowering its value, and every diminution 
 raising it in a ratio exactly equivalent." 
 
 Touching this point, Ricardo says : " That com- 
 modities would rise and fall in price in proportion 
 to the increase or diminution of money, I assume 
 as a fact that is incontrovertible. That such 
 would be the case the most celebrated writers on 
 political economy are agreed." 
 
 I fully agree with the above authorities that rise 
 and fall in money, or cheap and dear money, af- 
 fects all other values outside of money ; and also 
 that the cheaper the dollar, the more dollars we
 
 OPINIONS REGARDING THE CAUSE. 43 
 
 shall be compelled to give for whatever we pur- 
 chase, in exact ratio to the increase of them. But 
 there is one fact overlooked by the man who 
 thinks he has an argument which will frighten the 
 people when going out to " shop," — namely, that 
 somebody gets this double number of cheap dol- 
 lars. Now, let us see who receives these cheap 
 dollars. The cotton planter is receiving five cents 
 per pound for his cotton in dear dollars ; but in 
 the era of cheap ones, the buyer pays him two 
 dollars in place of one. So that the planter who 
 was compelled in the one case to sell his crop for 
 $500, would in the other receive $1,000. Every- 
 body, whether rich or poor, will accept this fact. 
 Now, the planter has a ten years' mortgage on 
 which he pays Eastern and English bankers $250 
 interest per annum. With dear money, it took 
 one-half his entire crop to pay this interest, leav- 
 ing him only $250; but with the cheap money he 
 sends the $250, deducted from his $1,000 of cheap 
 money, which leaves him $750, instead of $250 
 under dear money. 
 
 The same principle hokls good when ;ip])licd to 
 wheat, or to any commodity, or to labor. Double 
 the number of dollars must be given to all classes 
 by the money-class, if the dollars are one-half 
 cheaper. 
 
 James G. Hlaine once said: " ^''ou cannot add 
 wealth to a nation by adding money. 11 you 
 double the amount of currency, everything you buy
 
 44 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 will cost you double in price." Mr. Blaine told 
 the truth so far as he went ; but he did not take 
 the producing class-es into his confidence, and 
 whisper this truth in their ear, — that they alone 
 get the double amount of dollars ; that when you 
 pay a man dollars for dollars received, you pay 
 him dollar for dollar. No matter whether it is a 
 so-called fifty-cent dollar, or whether it is a 300- 
 cent dollar, the rich man gets but one, as he deals 
 in dollars only ; but the laborer gets two dollars 
 for one, as the price of his wages double, measured 
 by cheap or fifty-cent dollars. 
 
 This is the design of the system of expanding 
 and contracting the currency ; but those designing 
 it never thought for an instant that the people 
 would become informed upon this trick, which has 
 been played upon the world for centuries. It 
 worked well so long as the rich, after having put a 
 blanket of debt upon the people, could contract 
 the volume of money, cause thereby panic and fall 
 of prices, and then scoop in the wealth created by 
 the people. But to have the tables turned upon 
 the rich by the people, who, having discovered the 
 fraud of contracting the currency, in turn proceed 
 to expand it, — this was a movement very unex- 
 pected on the part of the moneyed class. 
 
 To prevent this turn of affairs, all of Europe, 
 led by England and backed by the moneyed aris- 
 tocracy of this country, unite to prevent us adding 
 another dollar of legal tender to our volume of
 
 OF/A'/OA'S REGARDIXG THE CAUSE. 45 
 
 money, except in gold, without international per- 
 mission. This same money power, having gotten 
 possession of the people's property through the 
 systems taught by the standard authorities of the 
 world, now turn upon these authorities for instruct- 
 ing the people how, by reversing the present sys- 
 tem, they can in time regain their lost possessions. 
 This the rich do by dismissing teachers from high 
 and honored positions in our institutions of learn- 
 ing. We have seen it done within the past few 
 years, in instances where men of the profoundest 
 knowledge and learning have been asked to resign 
 for allowing their patriotism and love of humanity 
 to rise higher than their love of ambition and gold. 
 It is this power and bitterness of the moneyed 
 class used against these good and true men which 
 has opened the eyes of thousands to a suspi- 
 cion that there is something evil in that system 
 of money by which the rich, without detection, 
 have transferred the nation's wealth to their own 
 pockets ; and once their suspicion is aroused, the 
 people begin to study the subject with a view to 
 discover how this evil may be removed. 
 
 The "silver movement" is an effort to increase 
 the volume of our currency to raise prices, more 
 than it is to use the American commodity of 
 silver. Probably two-thirds of those in the silver 
 ranks would have neither silver nor gold as money ; 
 but until the people can be enlightened upon the 
 purposes for which money was designed, these ad-
 
 46 FALLING J'A'JCES. 
 
 vanccd minds are compelled to keep back with the 
 main army in order to be effective in numbers. 
 There can be no advantage to the American peo- 
 ple in using their silver for money when all the 
 great authorities say paper money will do the 
 same work. By so doing we could ship silver to 
 Europe (and also gold) to people less enlightened 
 on money, in exchange for tea and coffee, instead 
 of sending our wheat and cotton ; but by using 
 gold for money, and not having one-hundredth part 
 enough of it, we are constantly sending our bonds 
 and securities to Europe to purchase and re-pur- 
 chase, as it is always returning them. If we had 
 a money of our own, as we had from i860 to 
 1880, it would stay at home, and all the gold and 
 silver we mined would be just so much wealth 
 gained, while now it is just that much lost. Or, 
 in other words, it would prevent a contraction of 
 the nation's money, — the result of which, accord- 
 ing to all great authorities, causes a fall in prices 
 and a depression of trade. We could then have a 
 fixed volume of currency, — so many dollars per 
 capita, — and have fixed and steady prices, as the 
 money would not be redemption money. It would 
 be like our greenback money, say, from 1862 until 
 1869, not redeemable; and not, practically, even 
 until 1879. If contraction is the cause of falling 
 prices, and falling prices the cause of loss to mer- 
 chants who are carrying goods (and all authorities 
 agree upon this latter assertion), and also a loss
 
 OP/iVIOA'S REGARDIXG THE CAUSE. 4/ 
 
 to the laboring classes by being in consequence 
 thrown out of employment and forced to consume 
 the little earnings they have saved, — thus being 
 always kept down and held back, until at last they 
 get discouraged and give up all ambition and 
 hope, — if all these results flow from the contrac- 
 tion of the currency, then surely it is an evil which 
 we should earnestly study to abate. 
 
 That there shall be no question in regard to the 
 claim that contraction has taken place, to which is 
 attributed the fall of prices, I now present the 
 following table showing all moneys in circulation 
 (exclusive of coin), as taken from the book of the 
 Treasury Department on Sept. i, 1S65 : 
 
 United States Notes $433,160,569.00 
 
 Fractional Currency 26,344,742.00 
 
 National Hank-notes 185,000,000.00 
 
 Compound Interest I.egal-tender Notes 217,024,160.00 
 Temporary Loan Certificates (lo-d-d) . 107,148,713.00 
 Certificates of Indebtedness .... 85,093,000.00 
 Treasury Five Per Cent. Legal Tenders 32,536,991.00 
 Treasury Notes, Past Due, Legal Ten- 
 ders and not presented 1,503,020.00 
 
 State Pank-notes 78,867,575.00 
 
 Three Years' Treasury Notes .... 830,000,000.00 
 
 $1,996,678,770.00 
 
 The above table shows the amount of the na- 
 tion's circulating medium in 1.S65 to be $1,996,- 
 678,770. The population of the country at that 
 time was about thirty millions, which would give 
 the nation a per ca]iita circulation of $66.55. It 
 must be remembered, however, that the war was 
 brought to a close during the year 1865, and that
 
 48 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 previous to that time there were nine States, with 
 nine millions of population, out of the Union, — 
 leaving only twenty-one millions, among which 
 the $1,996,678,770 should be divided, which would 
 give a circulation of $99.84 per capita to the people 
 of the Northern States. 
 
 Many men belong to the income class, and, hav- 
 ing no property or commodities on hand to shrink 
 in value, they find it in their interest to advocate 
 the contraction of our currency to its very small- 
 est possible limit. These men usually try to rep- 
 resent the amount of the nation's currency as 
 small as possible during the war, when prices 
 were high, and as large as possible to-day, when 
 prices are low. To accomplish this they claim 
 that the 7-30 legal-tender notes were not money, 
 but bonds ; and as there were $830,000,000 of 
 them issued, they can by so doing considerably 
 reduce the per capita of circulation. But to mor- 
 tify and humiliate them in this barefaced attempt 
 to mislead those who have not the opportunity to 
 study up the matter, it is only necessary to quote 
 authorities, — one from a letter written by a presi- 
 dent of a national bank, and also a member of the 
 Forty-third Congress : 
 
 Office of First National Bank, 
 
 New Jersey, August 12, 1878. 
 In compliance with your request of the 18th inst., that I 
 would define the relative position of the 7-30 treasury notes 
 to the general volume of currency in 1865, 1 have to say that
 
 OPINIONS REGARDING THE CAUSE. 49 
 
 I was then daily in the habit of receiving and paying out 
 the same in the conduct of my ordinary business, the same 
 as greenbacks ; and I esteem their peculiar characteristics 
 (being conducive of elasticity) as not only forming a cur- 
 rency, but a currency of special merit. 
 
 Amos Clark. 
 
 Another standard authority writes : — 
 
 Sirs, — Your letter of the 15th inst. has been received. 
 In answer I have to say that the 7-30 notes were intended, 
 prepared, issued, and used as money. 
 
 '\''ery respectfully yours, 
 
 F. E. Spinner. 
 
 Secretary McCullough, in his report for Decem- 
 ber, 1865, included the seven-thirties in his settle- 
 ment of $2,000,000,000 of outstanding currency. 
 President Grant, in his message of Dec. 2, 
 1873, refers to them as being legal tenders, and 
 held as reserves by the national bank. Under 
 the law, the national bank must hold legal-tender 
 money as their reserves. 
 
 The claim of the authorities previou.sly quoted, 
 asserting that increase of money in a nation will 
 increase prices, is clearly substantiated in the fore- 
 going table, sh(nving as it does such a large volume 
 of currency ; and right here comes in a very signif- 
 icant and coinciding fact, which is that the table 
 of the New York market price, for ten leading 
 commodities, taken from the New "S'ork Tribune s 
 market report for January, 1865, shows the highest 
 prices for the jKist thirty years. I'rices ruled
 
 so l-ALLINU PRICES. 
 
 higher in the fall of 1864 than they did in the 
 fall of 1865, and it was owing to the fact that 
 all our currency was confined to the North until 
 the fall of 1865, when it was circulated through- 
 out the whole nation. 
 
 The full force of these facts and figures, how- 
 ever, cannot be demonstrated until I show the 
 amount of the nation's circulating medium in 
 1873. The circulating medium of the country, 
 exclusive of coin, Dec. i, 1873, was as follows : 
 
 United States notes $367,001,685 
 
 Fractional currency ...... 48,000,000 
 
 Certificates of indebtedness bearing interest . 678,000 
 
 National Bank currency ..... 350,000,000 
 
 $765,679,685 
 
 It will be seen by the above table that our vol- 
 ume of currency was diminished $1,230,999,085 
 during a period of eight years. This brings us up 
 to 1874, lacking one month. Now let us examine 
 the Tribune market reports for 1875, which are a 
 little lower than those of 1874, as prices were 
 gradually falling every year. Here it will be seen 
 that, with that rapid contraction of the volume of 
 money, prices fell in the same ratio. 
 
 Note. — The following chart shows the ratio existing between 
 the volume of money in the country and the average prices of 
 nine commodities taken from the New York Tii/mue^s market 
 report for thirty years, commencing with 1865. The nine com- 
 modities are, copper, wheat, cotton, beeves, dressed hogs, wool, 
 
 lead, pig iron, and leather. The dotted line ( ) shows 
 
 the course of prices on the nine commodities, while the solid line 
 ( ) shows the increase or decrease of volume of money.
 
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 52 FALLIAG PKICES. 
 
 While the lines in the chart do not show a simul- 
 taneous conformity in change of prices of commod- 
 ities to the change in volume of currency, it does 
 show the effect a little later on. The fall in prices 
 is never felt for a year or two after the withdrawal 
 of currency. This is explained in the action of 
 the mercantile community, which usually extends 
 credits at such times, and uses mercantile papers, 
 thus substituting bank credits for money. This 
 can go on for awhile, until the banks become so 
 inflated with credits that the large and strong 
 banks call in their loans. Then panic ensues, as 
 in 1873 and 1893, and the merchandise which has 
 been bolstered up by the credit of banks is now 
 let down to rest upon its natural base, — that is, 
 the volume of actual money circulating. 
 
 It is often the case that merchandise, especially 
 that of a perishable nature, during a panic sinks 
 below the currency measure of it ; in such cases it 
 soon comes up to its line of level with currency. 
 Practically it did not go below the ratio of the cir- 
 culation and price line, as during panics money is 
 locked up, and for awhile is artificially withdrawn 
 from circulation. This is usually reflected in 
 prices. It is no unusual thing to see money run 
 up to fifty and seventy-five per cent, per annum 
 during a panic. Surely, money is not circulating 
 under such abnormal conditions, and cannot, at 
 such times, measure prices any more than supply 
 and demand ; for no business man would buy cash
 
 OPINIONS REGARDING THE CAUSE. 53 
 
 goods, no matter how low offered, if he had notes 
 coming due which he could barely see his way 
 clear to meet. 
 
 There is one very important fact, developed by 
 the above table of prices, which I desire to impress 
 upon the reader's mind, which is that gold does 
 not rule or measure prices. There was not an 
 advocate of specie payment, in 1875, ^" Congress, 
 on the rostrum, or in the daily press, who did not 
 most positively declare that, on Jan. i, 1879, when 
 the nation resumed specie payment, prices would 
 strike " bed rock," and, like gold, would not vary 
 in the least, so long as the government maintained 
 specie payment, or "honored its promises to pay." 
 The chart shows that prices slid down-hill over the 
 period of 1879, ^^ i^ the rails had been greased, 
 and have not stopped to-day. Now, if down-hill 
 prices could not be stopped at 1879, when the 
 nation struck a gold basis, where is the man to-day 
 who dares to wreck his reputation by asserting 
 that we are now at the bottom of prices } 
 
 It will be noticed that the dotted line docs not 
 run quite as low on the chart as the line indicating 
 contraction. This is accounted for on the same 
 principle as that in which bank credits play a part 
 for a time, — that is, as an artificial value. It will 
 be noticed that the articles of copper, beeves, hogs, 
 iron, and leather have been cornered by trusts, 
 while up to the year 1895, at which my table 
 closes, cotton, wheat, and wool were the only
 
 54 FAI.I.IXG PKICES. 
 
 articles the value of which rested with full weight 
 upon the volume of money in circulation. When 
 the greenbacks were issued, measuring these com- 
 modities, they rose so rai)idly in conformity to the 
 increased volume of money that there were no 
 trusts controlling commodities, for none were 
 needed, as prices were constantly advancing and 
 making all the holders rich. Those were the days 
 when "small " men owned the country, and it was 
 not until the money had been destroyed and prices 
 began to fall that " small " men were driven to the 
 wall, and the large ones began centralizing capital 
 and cornering the whole output of a commodity. 
 This of course put an artificial price on such com- 
 modity, when it left the level of measurement it 
 had formally occupied, and as prices kept falling. 
 Almost every necessity in common use has one by 
 one been fastened upon, and forced up to a paying 
 level for the trust magnates. These commodities 
 have not only been put upon an artificial market 
 value, but the men who must purchase have been 
 reduced in the prices of the products they sell the 
 trust ; and all labor has been laid off to stop out- 
 put, and in their want the wage-earners have been 
 compelled to submit to reductions in wages, — show- 
 ing clearly that the trust is a disturbing agency in 
 both the commercial and social body politic. 
 
 Since we hear so much to-day about gold and 
 silver in use in commerce and trade, I desire to 
 call attention to this vital fact, that, during all
 
 OPIXIONS REGARDIiVG THE CAUSE. 55 
 
 these years, the silver dollar was considered a more 
 honest money than the gold dollar. Gold and sil- 
 ver, during this period, became a commodity, and 
 were bought and sold on the street as such. They 
 were no longer a measure of value ; for while a 
 man was forced to go out on the street and pay 
 $2.85 for a gold dollar, and $2.88 for a silver dol- 
 lar, and with this he could only pay one dollar of 
 debts, which he could do with a greenback, he 
 had no further use for gold or silver, so far as com- 
 merce and trade was concerned. 
 
 Those who claim that higher prices constitute 
 the only basis on which to build, in our anxiety for 
 better times, claim also that higher prices can only 
 be brought about by an increase in the volume of 
 money, and not in the kind or quality of money. 
 Probably nine-tenths of the so-called " free silver " 
 advocates favor the free coinage of silver, knowing 
 that it will double our volume of metal money, and, 
 as a result, double the prices of all property and 
 commodities, as did the increase in currency up to 
 1865. 
 
 To prove that rising prices bring prosperity, I 
 now c[Uote from Walker's " Money, Trade, and 
 Industry," as follows : 
 
 It i.s clear that an increase of the money supply may 
 afford just the incentive to enterprise, and even to .s])ccula- 
 tion, in tiie best sense of tlie word, — that is, the anticipa- 
 tion of the future, — which may be sufficient to break througli 
 the crust of custom, to cause men to undertake these costly
 
 $6 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 experiments, to encounter these initial risks and search out 
 new channels for productive energy. And still bear in 
 mind our assumption tliat if the new supplies are received 
 evenly and not too rapidly, such, in greater or less degree, 
 ascending to the temperament and the industrial genius of 
 each people concerned, will almost certainly be the effect 
 produced. ..." Alterations, therefore, in the cost of the 
 production of the precious metals," says Mr. Mill, "do not 
 act upon the value of money, except just in proportion as 
 they increase or diminish its quantity," which cannot be 
 said of any other commodity. 
 
 That money can be increased, and raise prices, 
 and start business, without the aid or use, of metals 
 as a basis, there seems to be no longer any ques- 
 tion among the authorities on money. In regard 
 to this, Walker, in the same book from which I 
 have just quoted (page 198), says : 
 
 Can government, in fact, secure for its paper issues 
 such currency, such free and general acceptance, that they 
 will do the money work, and hence become the money 
 thing .'' 
 
 On this point there can be no question. Governments 
 have frequently issued paper money without adequate provi- 
 sions for its redemption in gold or silver, — without such 
 redemption, in fact, taking place, and sometimes without 
 redemption being promised, — and yet that paper money 
 has circulated as rapidly as gold and silver would have 
 done, has been taken as freely in exchange for commodities 
 and services, and even, in some instances, has maintained 
 an actual value equal to that of the amount of the precious 
 metals to which it was nominally equivalent. 
 
 Berkey, in his " The Money Question," says :
 
 OPINIONS REGARDING THE CAUSE. ^7 
 
 From an early period, tlien, money came to derive its 
 power, as an agent to represent measure and exchange 
 value, from public authority. Individuals and nations seek 
 to exchange and accumulate property and commodities, and 
 money is desirable only on account of the power with which 
 it is clothed by public authority to command property or 
 labor. It is not useful of itself, for it cannot be used as 
 food, or clothing, or shelter. It must be parted with before 
 any service or value can be obtained from it. In an accu- 
 mulated form, as capital, it can bring no income until it is 
 put to use, parted with. It is, therefore, the immaterial 
 principle or power to represent value that is the essence of 
 money ; and this it can only derive from law. " Money is 
 then," in the language of Kellogg, " a legal existence, be- 
 ing constituted a national lepresentative of property; con- 
 sequently, it is a public lien on all property for sale in the 
 nation, a public medium for the exchange of products, and 
 a tender in payments of debts." 
 
 That the American people have the right to in- 
 crease or diminish their volume of money is beyond 
 question ; for who is there to question the Ameri- 
 can people's right to administer the affairs of their 
 own nation .-* 
 
 That any question of honesty should arise in 
 regard to the material on which the dollar is 
 stamped, would seem to be unnecessary. If any 
 question of advantage or disadvantage to conflict- 
 ing interests should ari.se, it must be in regard to 
 volume, and not over the material ; for it is the 
 volume which causes the rise and fall in the |)ur- 
 chasing power of money, as is shown in the case 
 of our own government issues during the war from
 
 58 I'Al.LnXG J'h'/CES. 
 
 1861 until 1865, — prices advancing in ratio to 
 the amount of currency issued, and afterward fall- 
 ing in exact proportion to the contraction of the 
 same. 
 
 In Older to make lliis clear, I will quote from 
 " The Money Question," by Berkey : 
 
 As money is a legal public medium of exchange, pos- 
 sessing representative value, it is not necessary that the 
 material of which it is made should possess intrinsic or 
 commercial value. To use again the language of the author 
 last quoted [Kellogg], "the value of money perpetually de- 
 pends upon its power to represent value, and not upon its 
 material, because money never reaches a point at which it 
 can be used as an article of actual value." The value of 
 the material can add nothing to its power as money ; it can 
 only render its value more certain, — as when money is 
 issued l)y a weak and irresponsible government, or by a 
 nation possessing few or no products for which it can be 
 exchanged. When issued by a stable and responsible gov- 
 ernment, whose people possess ample property and valuable 
 products, its value corresponds to the value of the products 
 of the country for which it can be exchanged. 
 
 Thus far I have shown what the authorities claim 
 will result from an increase of currency, — that is, 
 a general rise in prices ; and this the advocates of 
 a larger volume of currency desire, believing that 
 the stimulus of advancing market prices will bring 
 prosperous times.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MONEY, ITS USE AND ABUSE. 
 
 In treating the question of money, nearly all 
 writers go back to the beginning of its history. 
 They go into infinite detail as to its first appear- 
 ance ; as to the multitudinous kinds, forms, and 
 designs of money which have been used by dif- 
 ferent nations at different periods of the world's 
 history ; as to the various kinds of material which 
 have passed for money, — all this, until the reader 
 has become tired out with the subject before 
 entering upon that in which he is most interested; 
 namely, to know the most practical material, for 
 wear and convenience, the amount needed per 
 capita, and the effect of a larger or smaller circu- 
 lation upon commerce, trade, and labor, — in 
 short, to know the essential nature and functions 
 of money. 
 
 The day has gone by for the banker to assume 
 that he not only knows all al)<)Ut money, but that 
 he must be allowed to do all the talking regarding 
 it. The practical business man of today can no 
 longer be pushed aside, as not having the brain.s 
 of a bank j^resident or director. The business 
 man of to-day is very different from the business 
 
 59
 
 6o FALLING PRICES. 
 
 man of five hundred years ago. He has different 
 environments ; he is doing business in a made-over 
 world ; and to-day he asks, not, What was the 
 money of the ancients ? or. What is the money of 
 other nations to-day ? but. What is the best ma- 
 terial for service, for convenience in handling, and 
 the least expensive ? Therefore, in discussing this 
 question of money, I shall start from the most 
 advanced thought regarding its usefulness in the 
 special function of facilitating exchanges in com- 
 merce and trade as an instrument of association. 
 
 Civilization has attained that degree of advance- 
 ment, through ages of growth, when man no 
 longer depends upon keeping his valuables and 
 money belted around his body, but trusts in 
 society, law, and order to render him security in 
 these possessions. The clear-headed man of to- 
 day knows that when government can no longer 
 protect him in this matter of money possession 
 and money circulation, everything else he has in 
 the world, for the protection of which he looks to 
 his government, is surely lost. Therefore, it is 
 the government to which we must look to-day for 
 money, and through the ballot-box demand of it 
 the best, the most convenient, and least expensive 
 that can be devised. 
 
 In this age, then, of the scientific and the prac- 
 tical, the modern, driving-ahead business man will 
 not allow his business to be hampered by any 
 sentiment of old usage, or of any class interest.
 
 MOiVEV, ITS USE AND ABUSE. 6 1 
 
 He will wish that these considerations should not 
 be mixed up with the money question of his 
 nation. The new man, the true American, wants 
 a dollar for service, for exchange, and not to bury 
 in the ground, or with which merely to go around 
 the world. That feeling may have deep root in 
 foreign laborers, coming here to work for a few 
 years, "to get ahead," and then return to their 
 native land ; having neither love for our country 
 nor respect for our money. The money which 
 Americans want is for practical use in effecting 
 exchange in the channels of trade in which the 
 great bulk of the people engage. 
 
 Considering the subject of money from the 
 standpoint of service to the American people, and 
 not to foreigners, the least expensive material, and 
 that which is always obtainable and without limit, 
 is the most desirable. Up to the year 1862, 
 money in this country had been designed and 
 used for money-lenders, to the detriment of traders 
 and the people. But in 1861 a party of laymen 
 (so far as the politicians were concerned) most 
 unexpectedly got control of our government. 
 They were honest men. As necessity is the 
 mother of invention, and as necessity, bordering 
 on desperation, called for larger sums of money 
 than existed in the land, and as all money con- 
 taining intrinsic value had been taken to luirope, 
 the government, composed of these laymen, 
 invented an entirely new money ; a money which
 
 62 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 has lasted until the present time, and is the best 
 we have in circulation to-day. 
 
 The merits of this money are, first, it is in its 
 material an inexpensive money ; second, the Amer- 
 ican people have the use of it without charge ; 
 third, it is not only endorsed by seventy millions 
 of our people, but the holders of it have as collat- 
 eral security seventy billion dollars of unmovable 
 wealth ; fourth, being unlike gold, it is a non- 
 exportable money, and the people can always 
 know the amount in circulation ; fifth, it is an 
 elastic money in principle, not being dependent on 
 a substance so limited in quantity that it can be 
 cornered by money-lenders, and thus made to dis- 
 tress those having obligations coming due by 
 extorting from them usurious rates of interest ; 
 sixth, it will be under the control of the American 
 people, who can regulate the volume, and, by so 
 doing, regulate the value of property and fix the 
 price of commodities and labor in the interests of 
 the people. 
 
 This is the kind of money which was designed 
 for the American people by that "rail-splitter" 
 President, Abraham Lincoln, and was issued 
 direct to the American people in payment for the 
 material and service rendered the government. It 
 passed through no banker's hands to have six per 
 cent, interest charged upon it before it could reach 
 the people and facilitate exchanges in property 
 and commodities.
 
 MOA'£y, ITS USE AXD ABUSE. 63 
 
 This ivas the first " honest " money ever issued 
 by our nation. It robbed no one ; it enriched all. 
 It was truly an American money, and in conso- 
 nance with the spirit of our free institutions. 
 
 This kind of money would save a repetition of 
 the humiliating and mortifying transaction which 
 took place in secret, in the Executive Mansion 
 of the nation, between the President of the 
 United States and some foreign Jews, on the 
 eighth day of February, 1895, — a transaction 
 which enabled the American people to procure a 
 little gold for money, and the nature of which will 
 be understood by quoting part of the contract 
 thereby made, which is as follows : 
 
 This agreement, entered into this eighth day of Febru- 
 ary, i<S95, between the Secretary of the Treasury of the 
 United States, of the first part, and Messrs. August Bel- 
 mont & Co., of New York, on behalf of Messrs. N. M. 
 Rothschilds & Sons, of London, Eng., and themselves; and 
 Messrs. J. P. Morgan «?v: Co., of New York, on behalf of 
 Messrs. J. S. Morgan & Co., of London, and themselves, 
 parties of the second part. Witncsseth : Whereas. . . . 
 Now, therefore, do tlie said parties of tlie second part liere- 
 by agree to sell and deliver to the United States 3,500,000 
 ounces of standard gold coin of the United States, at the 
 rate of $17.80441 per ounce, payable in United States four 
 per cent, thirty-year coupon or regi.stered bonds, said bonds 
 to be dated Feb. i, 1X95, and payable at tiie pleasure of the 
 United States after thirty years from date. . . . Second, 
 should the Secretary of the Treasury desire to offer or sell 
 any bonds of the United Slates on or before Oct. i, 1895, 
 he shall first offer the same to the parties of the second
 
 64 FALLING VRJCES. 
 
 part ; but thereafter ho shall he free from every such 
 obligation to the parties of the second part. . . . Third, 
 the Secretary of the Treasury hereby reserves the right, 
 within ten days from the date hereof, in case he shall receive 
 authority from Congress therefor, to substitute any bonds of 
 the United States bearing three per cent, interest, of which 
 the principal and interest shall be specifically payable in 
 United States gold coin of the present weight and fineness, 
 for the bonds herein alluded to; such three per cent, bonds 
 to be accepted by the parties of the second part at par, i.e., 
 at $18.60465 per ounce of standard gold. . . . Mfth, in 
 consideration of the purchase of such coin the parties of 
 the second part, and their associates hereunder, assume 
 and will bear all the expenses inevitable to loss of bringing 
 gold from Europe hereunder, and, as far as lies in their 
 power, will exert all financial influence and will make all 
 legitimate efforts to protect the Treasury of the United 
 States against the withdrawals of gold, pending the com- 
 plete performance of this contract. 
 
 In witness whereof, the parties hereto have hereunto set 
 their hands in five parts, this eighth day of February, 1895. 
 
 J. G. Carllsle, Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 August Belmont & Co., on behalf of Messrs. 
 N. Rothschilds & Sons, London, and them- 
 selves. 
 
 J. P. Morgan & Co., on behalf of Messrs. J. 
 S. Morgan & Co., London, and themselves. 
 Attest : W. H. Curtis. 
 
 Francis Lynde Stetson. 
 
 Yes, the United States bought 1^50,000,000 
 worth of cornered material on which to stamp her 
 money. This fifty millions stayed in the country 
 about three months. Thus, this country, by adopt- 
 ing a material so limited in supply that it could
 
 MONEY, ITS USE AND ABUSE. 65 
 
 easily be cornered, and by putting herself at the 
 mercy of unscrupulous money-changers, was made 
 to pay thirty years' interest on money of which 
 her people had the use for but three months' time ! 
 By this one transaction it can be seen that there 
 will be no limit to the amount of debt which the 
 holders of this kind of money material can force 
 upon this nation. 
 
 This money material bargained for in the White 
 House was intended for foreigners. Probably not 
 one American farmer, mechanic, or merchant will 
 ever see or handle a dollar of it, but will be taxed 
 for the fifty millions of material upon which the 
 dollars were stamped, for the next thirty years, at 
 the rate of four per cent. Thus it will be seen by 
 any bright business man that, for the use of 
 $50,000,000 of money material, for three months, 
 the people of this nation will have paid $60,000,- 
 000 ; and this amount will be paid by the poor, as 
 the bondholders are exempt from taxation. This 
 is money designed by the rich, and is for the rich, 
 — a money the people never handle. Had that 
 material been the same which Abraham Lincoln 
 used, the money made from it, instead of costing 
 us to the tune of sixty millions in interest, would 
 not have cost us anything, and it could have 
 been used without interest until the end of time. 
 Moreover, it would have stayed in this coun- 
 try, and kept up the prices of labor, ])roperty, 
 and procjucts, and kept business going, instead
 
 66 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 of breaking down prices and business by its 
 withdrawal. 
 
 Not one person in one thousand really compre- 
 hends the office of money. Most people think it 
 was devised to lend, while the opposite is the truth. 
 Instead of money being created to incur debts, its 
 real office is to liquidate them. Any nation that 
 increases its volume of currency, thereby dimin- 
 ishes its public and private debts ; while any na- 
 tion that contracts its currency thereby increases 
 the same. One hundred years ago it was quite a 
 common belief that " A national debt is a national 
 blessing." Such control did the money-lenders 
 have of the public mind, that a man was looked 
 upon as a little queer who would not accept it. 
 
 To show that the money-lenders have the same 
 shaping of the public mind to-day, in spite of our 
 commop school system, and in spite of an issue of 
 papers, magazines, and periodicals sufficient to re- 
 paper the walls of every house daily, — ^all which 
 educational facilities ought to make the people too 
 intelligent to be so subservient to the money- 
 power, — I will assume that this nation will have 
 not less than two billions of circulating medium 
 for the next twenty-five years. 
 
 Mr. Gage, who claims to be a banker by occu- 
 pation, but is now Secretary of the United States 
 Treasury, has placed a bill before the committee 
 on currency to issue $930,000,000 to the banks. 
 In order to get this sum of money, the banks
 
 MONEY, ITS USE AND ABUSE. 6/ 
 
 must collect from the people's pockets the 
 money now outstanding and in circulation, as a 
 currency free of interest, take it to the Treasury, 
 and with it purchase $930,000,000 bonds, — say, at 
 about three per cent, interest. Upon these bonds 
 the government will then issue to the bankers 
 $930,000,000, which the banks will own. These 
 dollars the banks now lend to the people as a cir- 
 culating medium, at six per cent. ; this would make 
 nine per cent. Thus we should have paper money 
 and paper bonds for which we should jjay nine per 
 cent, interest. Suppose the balance of the $2,000,- 
 000,000, which I am assuming to be in existence, 
 should be gold, or gold and silver ; this the gov- 
 ernment cannot get sufficient to use as material 
 upon which to stamp the dollar, without paying a 
 dollar for it. Thus the material used for the bal- 
 ance of the currency ($1,070,000,000) will require 
 an investment equal to the amoimt of dollars of 
 the currency. The interest upon this at five per 
 cent, will be $53,500,000 per annum. The total 
 interest on the $930,000,000 of bonds and cur- 
 rency, averaging nine per cent., would amount to 
 $83,700,000, as will be seen by the following 
 table : 
 
 3 per cent, on $930,000,000 Bonds . . ,527,900,000 
 
 6 per cent, on 5930,000,000 Currency . . S5,<Soo,ooo 
 
 5 per cent, on $1,070,000,000 Material • . 53.500,000 
 
 Interest per annum $137,200,000 
 
 25 years at $137,200,000 per annum . . $3,430,000,000
 
 68 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 By the above, any business man can see at a 
 glance what it will cost the American people to 
 use the money of monarchies, and a money-lend- 
 ing class, instead of using the money originated by 
 Abraham Lincoln and the early fathers of the Re- 
 publican party. They were bitterly opposed by the 
 money-lenders ; but they were honest, and stood by 
 the people's interests. There is only a remnant 
 of this money left ; but it is this money, however, 
 which has served the American people for thirty- 
 six years without a cent of cost for interest or 
 material, which has aroused the bankers and Mr. 
 Gage to use all the powers at their command to 
 annihilate it. But Abraham Lincoln's name and 
 his life's blood have not only made that money 
 honest money, but have made it sacred to every 
 lover of the old fathers of the Republican party, 
 who had to fight the money-lenders on both sides 
 of the Atlantic in order to get it issued. It is 
 American money. It has been as.sailed by every 
 opprobrious epithet which the banking fraternity 
 could hurl against it, and, next to the Stars and 
 Stripes, it has the admiration and love of all the 
 truly loyal Americans in the land. And, right 
 here, I wish to observe that to-day no better 
 test of loyalty can be had than that which 
 gives endorsement to the money issues by the 
 fathers of the Republican party ; and any man's 
 loyalty to free institutions and the people's in- 
 terests should be carefully looked after who
 
 MONEY, ITS USE AND ABUSE. 69 
 
 would assail the work that came from their 
 hands. 
 
 This Abraham Lincoln money to which I have 
 referred was not a visionary money, — a so- 
 called "theoretical," "mythological," "soap-bub- 
 ble" money. It was money which stood the heat 
 of battle, suspension of banks, shaking of confi- 
 dence, and the most treacherous and fiercest 
 attacks from the money power ; and yet, all 
 through this crucial test, it stood one-half per 
 cent, higher than that most boasted-of gold money, 
 — a pirate's money, a slave-trader's money, an 
 outlaw's money, every dollar of which in existence 
 has the mark of Cain upon it. It has sold out 
 the widow ; it has robbed the orphan ; it has 
 taken bread from the hungry, and clothes from 
 the shivering. It lusteth for the sensual. It 
 steals home and farm alike. While it denounces 
 the use of law in money, it uses law to effect its 
 own insatiate greed. It imparts its own nature to 
 the man who clutches it ; and his soul, like his 
 hands, contracts at its touch. 
 
 It was not so with Lincoln's money. That was 
 hailed with delight by tlie siin-l)rovvncd face of the 
 honest farmer, as he t(jok it loyally, patriotically, 
 and gladly, in payment f(jr forage sold to the 
 government. The i)atriots in the army received 
 it with round u[)i)n lound of cheers, as the trisp 
 bills were counted out to them, lor llic first 
 time in their lives they had been paid in actual
 
 70 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 pajicr money. This was their own money, just as 
 much as the postage stamps or the war-ships or 
 the capitol at Washington was theirs. They sent 
 it to their homes, where it was eagerly sought by 
 the storekeepers, who, too, expressed joy as they 
 put it away in their money-drawers. The store- 
 keepers took it to the bank ; but here the scene 
 changes. Scowls and black looks only greeted it 
 by the mone3''-changers. But the law said, "Take 
 it, and surrender your mortgage on this man's 
 property ; " and the banker was compelled to obey. 
 It lighted the fire in the furnaces, and the idle men 
 went to work ; the factory gates were swung wide 
 open, and the thin faces of the hungry operatives 
 brightened up. No more hard times ; no more 
 low and constantly falling prices. The food from 
 the field of the farmer soon reached the hungry 
 workers of the mills ; and, in return, the fabric of 
 the mill soon found a market on the farm. It 
 turned gloom and despondency into cheer and 
 hope. Young men and maidens, adorned in their 
 new bright clothes, earned through the life-giving 
 influence to trade by this new money, mated and 
 made happy homes, which in turn called upon the 
 woodman for lumber for buildings and furniture ; 
 and thus its power spread until the whole nation 
 became a busy hive. Advertisements for workmen 
 appeared everywhere, and wages were advanced 
 all along the line. Mills had orders for a year 
 ahead. Shipyards were pushed night and day.
 
 MONEY, ITS USE AND ABUSE. /I 
 
 Market-houses and stores alike were constantly 
 clamoring for stock, and the old familiar complaint 
 of "overproduction" was silenced by a complaint 
 of under-supply ; the " want of confidence " cry 
 by the bankers, to start trade, was drowned out by 
 the cry for goods coming from the people with 
 pockets full of Uncle Abraham's money. 
 
 A great change had now come over the nation. 
 The workers in field and factory, by Uncle Abra- 
 ham's money, had had purchasing power imparted 
 to their labor, the farmer to his products, and the 
 manufacturer to his goods. The people were on 
 top in legislation, and the cry went out at the 
 polls, from the masses, for the dearest labor, the 
 best wheat, and the finest beef ; and the only 
 complaint came from those who would not work, 
 and whose occupation of issuing money had been 
 taken away by Uncle Abe. From these came the 
 wail of distress, and the cry for the old money, — 
 gold money, dear money ; and for its concomitant, 
 cheap labor and cheap wheat, low-priced beef and 
 cheap goods. As long as Uncle Abe lived, the 
 prices of everything the common people owned 
 went up on their hands. They grew richer and 
 richer ; merchants and business men could retire 
 in early life, and hand their business over to their 
 children. The working pc..|)K- hnili themselves 
 new and elegant houses, filled them with comfort- 
 able and luxurious furniture ; they bought stock 
 in the mills in whic h they worked, and began to
 
 72 
 
 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 have a voice in their management. Longer sum- 
 mer vacations and shorter work-hours became the 
 order of the day, and from one end of the land to 
 the other there was joy and happiness ; and, 
 although there was war in the South, there was 
 peace and plenty everywhere else where Uncle 
 Abe's money went. 
 
 In this heyday of universal prosperity an unex- 
 pected blow fell on the common people. The 
 whole land was draped in mourning ; but while 
 the people felt the terrible blow in the loss of 
 their great benefactor, who had given them their 
 own money, and restored the Union, and freed 
 four millions of slaves, they did not know of the 
 terrible future which awaited them. 
 
 Little did they dream that in less than thirty 
 years those who would not work, — those who were 
 complaining of hard times in good times; those who 
 wanted the old moiiey, gold money, dear money ; 
 who wanted cheap labor and cheap wheat, low- 
 priced beef and cheap goods, — that the non-pro- 
 ducing money-lenders would get into power, destroy 
 Uncle Abe's money, demand gold money, dear 
 money, cheap labor and cheap cotton and cheap 
 wheat, and that the happy and unsuspicious work- 
 ing people of that day would be reduced to the 
 verge of starvation, thrown out of employment, 
 and the land filled with marching armies of hungry 
 men unemployed. All this has come to pass, and 
 in the face of all this suffering, at every election,
 
 MONEY, ITS USE AND ABUSE. 73 
 
 the old cry goes up for gold, for banks, for bonds ; 
 and those men who do not work, and never have 
 labored, have, under the reign of gold money, 
 become worth hundreds upon hundreds of millions 
 of dollars, and have accumulated this during the 
 same years in which the working people have lost 
 their homes, their farms, and their opportunity to 
 labor. 
 
 This is the lesson and the experience which the 
 American people have had to pass through before 
 they could be made to understand the importance 
 of becoming informed upon the subject of finance 
 and banking, and of learning the secret which the 
 money power uses to get possession of the labor 
 and products of the masses. It is done by con- 
 trolling the material on which the money is stamped. 
 When the money power of a nation gets control of 
 the government, they can, by dictating the material 
 on which the dollar is stamped, control the volume 
 of dollars by selecting that material which, because 
 of its scarcity, is impossible to be obtained in suffi- 
 cient volume to make the necessary exchanges, — 
 thus forcing the people to use credit money, fur- 
 nished by the banker, and upon which they must 
 pay interest. 
 
 It may be well right here to show what this 
 money is to which I have referred. 
 
 Probably there is not a business man living, wlio 
 did business in 1862, who does not remember the 
 great change which then came over the country,
 
 74 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 in business activity, in rise in values, and in the 
 great demand for labor; but probably not one in a 
 thousand, who has not made finance a study, even 
 mistrusted that this change was brought about by 
 financial legislation and not by war. Iwen many 
 of those who do now know that financial legislation 
 was the agency which brought about this great 
 change in 1862, would jeopardize their popularity 
 with the rich by trying to show the benefits that 
 would come to the producing class should they use 
 the power they have at the ballot-box once again 
 to devise a dollar and to secure financial legisla- 
 tion which would promote the real interests of the 
 people, — just as the bankers have always done in 
 behalf of their own interests, since banking and 
 money came into existence. 
 
 This movement throughout the country to-day, 
 having for its purpose to take the legislation con- 
 cerning the dollar of the United States out of the 
 hands of the bankers and restore it to the people, 
 instead of allowing irresponsible Conventions and 
 Bank Associations to meet and get the President 
 to mention their plans in his messages, is as im- 
 portant a movement as the Abolition movement 
 was, and a thousand times farther reaching, because 
 it is something which concerns the whole people 
 alike. North, South, East, and West. It is no 
 more the banker's business, as a banker, to decide 
 what kind of a dollar the American people shall 
 adopt than it is the business of the painters of the
 
 MONEY, ITS USE AND ABUSE. 75 
 
 United States to regulate the color to be used in 
 painting our houses. After the American people 
 have decided at the ballot-box what kind of a dol- 
 lar they will have, and the number of such dollars 
 they will have issued per capita, it is then the 
 banker's privilege to do a banking business with 
 these dollars. If he objects to the kind of dollar 
 the people have fixed upon, it is his privilege to go 
 out of the banking business. So far as brazen- 
 faced assumption has been exhibited by any class 
 of trade or business, the bankers have exceeded 
 them all in their attempt to dictate the kind of a 
 dollar which the American people shall use. In 
 England, and in monarchical countries generally, 
 the bankers have been indulged in such privilege ; 
 but they make the mistake of their lives in demand- 
 ing that privilege from this republic. It must be 
 acknowledged that even in this country, in a more 
 or less covert way, they have always interfered in 
 the matter of the people's money, but never before 
 have they been so emboldened as to dictate the 
 kind of a dollar which the American people shall 
 use. 
 
 it is to oppose this last attempt at dictating the 
 banker's dollar, that this present uprising of the 
 people has taken place, — a movement which is as 
 sure to end in the people's favor as did the revDJu- 
 tion of seventeen hundred and seventy-six.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OUR MONEY A BANKER's MONEY. 
 
 It may be well here to show how the moneyed 
 aristocracy confiscate the labor and commodities 
 of the producing classes without returning any 
 equivalent. 
 
 It is done through the dollar, and in four 
 different ways : 
 
 First, by inducing the people to purchase a 
 commodity which costs a thousand times more 
 than is necessary for the material out of which 
 the dollar is made. Second, by selecting that 
 kind of material which, because of its scarcity, 
 makes it impossible to furnish sufficient currency 
 for the needs of trade. Third, by creating private 
 institutions to furnish the amount needed to do 
 the business, and charging the people six or ten 
 per cent, for its use. Fourth, by limiting all cash 
 transactions to about three per cent., by limiting 
 the volume of money, — leaving about ninety- 
 seven per cent, to be done on some substitute for 
 money, but upon which interest is paid. 
 
 As to the first of these methods, — that con- 
 cerning the material used in the dollar, — it is 
 very plain that the gold in a dollar costs thou- 
 
 76
 
 OUR MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. 'J "J 
 
 sands of times more than paper would cost. No 
 one can dispute this fact. The people have been 
 forced under circumstances over which they have 
 no control to use paper dollars most of their 
 life, and to-day Secretary Gage is recommending 
 the issue of $930,000,000 of paper dollars for 
 the bankers. Now, this money is intended for the 
 people's use ; that is, by their paying for it. But 
 if Mr. Gage can make money out of paper for the 
 banks which is good enough for the people's use, 
 it goes without saying that paper will make good 
 money for the people without the banks. There- 
 fore, all the money taxed out of the people's 
 pockets for the purpose of buying gold, to coin 
 into dollars for our currency, is an unnecessary 
 ta.x, and hence a robbery. 
 
 The second and third of these methods I will 
 treat under one head. 
 
 In having our money made from a material the 
 insufficiency of which causes the use of credit- 
 money, and for which the people pay interest, is a 
 cleverly devised trick by which labor and products 
 are taken from the people and for which they 
 receive no equivalent. The reason the govern- 
 ment coins so little gold is that it cannot get 
 more to coin. Now, had the government stamjied 
 I^apcr instead of gold, it could have had sufficient 
 for its entire currency without providing private 
 money stamped on paper, thus forcing the people 
 to pay for the use of it ; and instead of taking the
 
 78 FALLING PRICKS. 
 
 profit derived from it and using it for government 
 expenses, the government allows the banker to 
 put it in his pocket. If the clerks in the postal 
 money-order department did the same thing, — 
 that is, put the percentage paid for the use of 
 government money in their pockets, they would 
 be sent to State's Prison. 
 
 In exposing the outrage involved in the fourth 
 method, by which currency has been kept so 
 limited in the interest of the money-lending 
 classes that only three per cent, of all our busi- 
 ness is done on a cash basis, I have already shown 
 how we could have all the currency the people 
 saw fit to fix upon for our business needs, and will 
 only here say that if the same material were used 
 which the government uses for the banks, the 
 currency could gradually be increased until ninety- 
 seven per cent, of the business should be done for 
 cash, and only three per cent, done on credit. As 
 to the effects of this change upon the people, — 
 upon the great producing and distributing classes, 
 — I will say that they would be able to keep all 
 they produced, and enjoy the full fruits of their 
 own labor. 
 
 In order to show clearly how the people get 
 nothing back for interest money paid to the 
 money-lenders, I will prove that all interest is 
 paid upon that which it would cost the people 
 barely nothing to aupply. 
 
 We use millions upon millions of dollars' worth
 
 OUR MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. 79 
 
 of postage stamps. Suppose the government 
 should Hmit the issue of these to only one-tenth 
 the volume needed, and then charter a company 
 for the purpose of supplying a substitute stamp, 
 "receivable by the government," requiring that 
 this substitute stamp should be procurable by the 
 people by paying six per cent, commission to this 
 company for it. If this seems to my reader a 
 queer supposition, let me whisper in his ear the 
 additional suggestion that a majority of the mem- 
 bers in Congress might be stockholders in the 
 company to which these six per cent, commission 
 substitute stamps were sold, and then he may be 
 assisted in accounting for the qucerness of the sup- 
 position ! For there is no more excuse for issuing 
 a certain part of our nation's currency in six per 
 cent, substitute corporation money than there 
 would be in the stamp scheme which I have sup- 
 posed ; and all the money issued in this manner is 
 only a trick whereby to confiscate the earnings of 
 the masses. It is estimated by different authori- 
 ties that the annual sum taken from the producing 
 classes through our present financial system, with 
 its limited supply of currency, amounts to the 
 enormous total of $2,000,000,000. 
 
 I have shown how the people could be robbed 
 by a postage-stamp scheme ; let me now show 
 how it could be done with the water we drink. 
 
 It is a fact that there is water enough for all 
 in the land. Now, suppose that Congress should
 
 8o FALLING PRICES. 
 
 lease this water of the nation to a National Water 
 Company at a nominal sum, say enough to pay 
 for the lease and for drawing it up. Suppose, 
 also, that in order to protect this company the 
 government should levy an internal revenue tax of 
 ten cents per quart upon any water not bought 
 of this National Water Company. Would not the 
 people be out of pocket by every dollar they paid 
 for water, — the water which already belonged 
 to them, but which, for some reason unknown to 
 them, had by the government been leased to a 
 private company .^ Yet this is precisely what the 
 legislators in Congress have done with our money. 
 It was once the people's ; issued direct to the 
 peojile. It was paper money. It was in common 
 use by, and free of cost to, the people. Congress 
 took this money from the people, and farmed it 
 out to a private national bank company, charging 
 the company nothing for the use of it, but taxing 
 all other companies ten per cent, upon their issues 
 in order to suppress all competition. It is very 
 clear, then, that if the people once had this amount 
 of money in use without charge, and it was after- 
 wards farmed out, and the people charged for its 
 use, such a transaction was equivalent to just so 
 much transfer of products to the rich without 
 giving to the people any equivalent whatever in 
 return. 
 
 But capturing Congress and getting the peo- 
 ple's money away from them was not the worst of
 
 OCK MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. 8 1 
 
 the crime committed by the money-lenders. After 
 once acquiring in this way the control of the 
 people, they began to conspire to squeeze them 
 in every way for a profit. I will not stop to go 
 into a detailed account of the different schemes 
 employed by the money-lenders since the govern- 
 ment turned the people's money over to them, 
 but will be content to give only one instance, in 
 order to illustrate the matter. 
 
 On Feb. 2 i, 1893, twelve of the largest National 
 Banks in New York City conspired to spring a 
 panic on the country. They invited all the finan- 
 cial institutions of the city to join them ; and on 
 May ist the panic came. It was brought about 
 by these Banks refusing any discounts for the 
 month of May, and, furthermore, by calling in all 
 outstanding call loans. It is needless to describe 
 at length the widespread disaster following this 
 panic caused by the conspiracy of these lianks." 
 Suffice it to say that not only were si.x hundred 
 financial institutions wrecked in four months' time, 
 but that nearly all the industrial institutions in 
 the country closed, while the leading staples of the 
 country, — cotton, wheat, corn, beef, etc., — fell 
 fifty per cent, during the year, carrying ruin ami 
 disaster into thousands of families throughout the 
 
 ' The history of the conspiracy entered into by these Hanks, 
 for the purpose of sprini;in}^ the panic of 1.S93 upon the country, 
 was written by J. \V. .Shuckers, private secretary to Salmon P. 
 Chase during the late war.
 
 82 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 land.' Moreover, by means of this panic brought 
 on the country in 1893, the money-lenders vvei'e 
 able to extort usurious rates of interest, and to 
 force sales of all property which they had in their 
 power. This break-down in the prices of fifty 
 per cent, on products, in four months' time, was a 
 transference of property from the hands of the 
 poor to the hands of the rich, " through the dol- 
 lar." Had the people been permitted to retain 
 the national money in circulation, which would 
 have prevented the banks from controlling it, that 
 loss to the producers of the land of a fifty per 
 cent, fall in their products could not have taken 
 place. With a few exceptions, — such as wheat, 
 which on a short world's crop advanced, — this 
 fall of prices has become permanent. 
 
 This great loss to the producers of the country, 
 resulting from the contraction both of the currency 
 and credits of the nation, should be charged home 
 to the Old World's iniquitous bank system, — a 
 system which was imported during our early colo- 
 nial days, and which, like all other British sys- 
 tems, was designed for the purpose of confiscating 
 the products and labor of the toilers. Could the 
 fathers of the Republic have overthrown the slave 
 system and the financial system at the same time 
 they overthrew the governmental system of Eng- 
 land in our land, there would be no estimating the 
 
 ' The object these Banks had was to force a " slow" Senate 
 to act, as I will show further on by quoting Bank papers.
 
 OUR MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. 83 
 
 blood and treasure and human suffering from which 
 the American people would have been saved. 
 
 Having shown the four methods by which the 
 present monetary system of our country, unwisely 
 borrowed from the Old World, has oppressed and 
 despoiled the people, I will further on produce 
 some of the acts creating money, as well as some 
 of the speeches of loyal men who sustained the 
 money of Lincoln, — a money independent of the 
 redemption principle, which was designed to rob 
 producers and toilers of the fruits of their labor. 
 
 In treating of the nature of that money which 
 was first issued by Lincoln and his party, I will 
 quote from the opening paragraph of " Spaulding's 
 Financial History of the War," in order to show 
 that some kind of money had at that time to be 
 devised, or the cause of the Union would have been 
 lost. It says : 
 
 The United States, at the breaking out of the rebellion, 
 had no national bank currency, and no gold or available 
 means in the Treasury or Sub-Treasury, to carry on the war 
 for the Union ; and consequently the means to prosecute the 
 war had to lie obtained upon the credit of the government 
 and by taxation. The fundable legal tender was the most 
 available form of credit which the government could use in 
 crushing the rebellion. It was at once a loan to the govern- 
 ment without interest, and a national currency, which was 
 .so much needed for disbursement in small sums during the 
 pressing exigencies of war. It was indispensably necessary, 
 and a most powerful instrumentality in saving the govern- 
 ment and maintaining the national unity.
 
 84 FALLING PKICES. 
 
 All the gold and silver had fled the country. 
 This being the basis upon which the State-bank 
 issues rested, the country was also deprived of the 
 State-bank bills, which were shaky, even in the 
 best of times. JCvery one was waiting for money, 
 
 — money with which goods could be bought and 
 debts could be paid, — and all eyes were patiently 
 fixed upon Congress for help. There were a few 
 wise and patriotic men who were doing the best 
 they knew in getting a money as a substitute for 
 gold and silver. This they had to do, for gold and 
 silver had deserted the cause of freedom at the 
 first gun fired at Sumter. Hon. E. G. Spaulding, 
 chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, 
 was a loyal man. He was a banker, and could see 
 money and its use only as a banker sees it, hence in 
 his history, from which we have quoted, he ejcpresses 
 his ideas regarding government money " as a loan 
 to the government without interest, and a national 
 currency." How a dollar issued to a citizen and 
 made a legal tender in payment for service or 
 material, — the citizen, in turn, buying stamps 
 with the same dollar, or paying his government 
 taxes with it, — could be called "a loan-money" 
 is only clear to bankers ; but it shows how hard it 
 is for men educated in old schools of thought to 
 see new ideas. 
 
 Ericsson was turned down with his monitor 
 model until he got his idea before a " hayseed," 
 
 — that man whom the people affectionately call
 
 OUR MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. 85 
 
 "honest Old Abe," — who, when he saw it, said it 
 was a good idea ; then naval authorities took it up, 
 since which time it has revolutionized the architec- 
 ture of the navies of the world. So with money. 
 Those who look upon it as something to hoard, to 
 store away as wealth, to receive as interest on dol- 
 lars loaned, who have nothing to sell except money, 
 and who, of course, wish to buy cheap everything 
 they need, — such men want a dear dollar, a dollar 
 which shall compel men not dealing in money to 
 sell everything cheap and buy everything dear. 
 Such men did not favor the creation by the 
 government of a people's money, a money which 
 should circulate freely among the people, as cur- 
 rency. They wanted a hard dollar, as hard as 
 their own selfish hearts ; and they therefore looked 
 coldly upon the proposed legal-tender "greenback." 
 But " honest Old Abe " saw that it was a g-ood 
 thing, — that it would save the country from de- 
 struction and the peoj^le from financial distress ; 
 and the result completely vindicated his judgment. 
 T'rom this it may be seen that there are two 
 sides to look at in making a government dollar. 
 There is something superior to scholastic finance; 
 and this i.s equity in the dollar. A dollar created 
 in such a manner or under such a law as to force 
 interest to be paid by one class to another uiincccs 
 sarily is robbery. Now there aic two ways to 
 effect this robbery. Owe is first to pass n l.iw 
 that all debts must be [)aid in money, then (o find
 
 S6 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 the scarcest thing on earth of which to make that 
 money, so that only one-tenth of what is required 
 caji be supplied : thus the man buying on credit 
 will be forced to sell an unjust proportion of what 
 he has produced, to get this scarce dollar, or will 
 be compelled to hire it at an unjust rate of inter- 
 est. The other way is to issue a certain volume 
 of dollars, measuring the values of things outside 
 the dollar ; then to put out loans, and afterward 
 make these dollars scarce by either demonetizing 
 part of them or refunding (" converting ") them 
 into bonds. This process will cause the price of 
 everything else that is in the people's hands to 
 fall, so that the banker, or credit class, will get an 
 overamount from the people when paying their 
 debts. 
 
 If ever a golden opportunity was offered this 
 nation to make itself great, it was in 1861, at the 
 beginning of the Civil War, — to emancipate chat- 
 tel slavery, and by a new financial system to eman- 
 cipate the masses from a Bank-dollar slavery. At 
 that time, however, but little was known about 
 money and its effect \\\>ox\ labor, products, and 
 property. The most known was from a few well- 
 posted bankers, and a few books by foreign writers 
 upon the subject ; therefore, it would not now be 
 just to judge harshly the men that devised the 
 dollar of that time in the interest of the rich peo- 
 ple instead of the whole people. The first issues 
 of paper money made in our country, and known
 
 OUR MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. 8/ 
 
 as " Demand Notes," were issued in the interest 
 of the whole people, and were made legal tender 
 for paying all debts alike, whether to the rich man 
 or the poor man ; but soon the bankers were sum- 
 moned in counsel, and the first thing recommended 
 by them was that the government should pay the 
 poor people in a paper money, and the rich in gold. 
 The bankers then advised creating paper bonds 
 bearing interest, into which the paper dollars 
 might be converted. 
 
 The reader will here notice the new principle in- 
 troduced into our money system. It had been nec- 
 essary under gold and silver money to use a substi- 
 tute, as there was not gold and silver money enough 
 in the world to do the business of the world ; so 
 resort was had to paper money, redeemable in 
 gold. But this paper money was not money ; it 
 was an auxiliary paper scrij) only, — a promise 
 to pay money, and upon which interest was 
 charged. All this pai:)cr money drew interest 
 from labor. It was then proposed by Lincoln to 
 issue a real paper dollar, which should take the 
 place of a metal dollar, and not draw interest from 
 labor. But here the bankers came in, and took a 
 hand in shaping financial legislation, which should 
 enable their class to draw interest upon paper 
 df)llars belonging to the people. To accomplish 
 this the new principle of convertibility, lo whic h I 
 have just referred, w:is invented to take the ]-)lacc 
 of rcdccmability. liy resorting to this scheme the
 
 88 FA^AJNG PRICES. 
 
 paper dollar, which it was impossible to avoid issu- 
 ing, was to be limited in volume, in order to pre- 
 vent the rise in wages and products, and also to 
 force the government to buy back its own money, 
 to be used over and over again. 
 
 In order to get this money the government 
 issued a bond, drawing interest, into which this 
 paper money might be converted ; so that while 
 the banker did not draw interest direct from the 
 dollar, he manipulated it in its issue so that he 
 received interest upon the bond. Not satisfied 
 with this, he induced the government to allow him 
 to deposit this bond as security, — still, however, 
 drawing interest upon it, — and then receive an 
 issue of money free, which he could lend to the 
 people. 
 
 To show the hollowness of the bankers, in their 
 pretence that the government was not safe in 
 issuing paper money direct to the people, which 
 the bankers knew would be without interest, they 
 at once demanded that the government issue paper 
 bonds and paper money to them, redeemable in the 
 very same paper money they had just pronounced 
 unsafe ! This quieted them for awhile upon the 
 safety of paper as compared with coin. 
 
 It was interest money they were working for at 
 that time, not an " honest dollar." They saw 
 that to allow the American people to issue their 
 own money would be to emancipate the producing 
 and working classes from the moneyed institutions
 
 OUR MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. 89 
 
 of the North, as effectively as the war promised to 
 emancipate the slaves from the slaveholders of the 
 South. This would not do ; it was too much eman- 
 cipation going on in the world at one time for 
 those using labor ; therefore they rushed in upon 
 the new party of emancipation, and took control 
 of the financial legislation of the country. 
 
 The Northern working-men, knowing the slaves 
 could not read or write, knew they were helpless 
 in their enslavement ; but these same Northern 
 working-men did not know that all the time they 
 were in the ranks, fighting for the freedom of the 
 slaves in the South, there was another class of 
 men, — not Southern slaveholders, but Northern 
 would-be bondholders, — in Congress, working for 
 laws which would as effectively take the products 
 from the Northern freemen as ever slavery had 
 taken freedom from the Southern negroes. 
 
 The people know and feel that something is 
 terribly wrong. They see poverty and want upon 
 all classes — save one; and this one class, by 
 means of laws favoring them alone, are rapidly 
 piling up excessive riches. Since this class deals 
 in money only, and since they invest in bonds 
 upon all industry and enterprise, always taking 
 profit (interest) whether tlicy earn it or not (and 
 the harder the times, the more comi^letely nidiiey 
 controls the situation), there has been a suspicion 
 that money might be so manipulati-d th;it the en- 
 terprising, energetic, and progressive business man
 
 90 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 and manufacturer, as well as the working-man, may- 
 fall a victim to the wiles of a powerful money 
 class ; and it is to these victims of plutocratic 
 rapacity that I desire to submit some interesting 
 manipulations of our money, which took place 
 some thirty-five or thirty-six years ago, when all 
 the rest of the country was intent upon saving 
 the nation, and striking -the shackles from the 
 limbs of the enslaved. I shall endeavor to show 
 how fiercely the "Copperheads" and bankers 
 fought to defeat the vital principle in the reform 
 dollar created in the interest of the people. 
 
 The whole struggle was over the legal-tender 
 clause. To clothe any form of money made out of 
 other than gold and silver with a legal-tender power 
 was then being considered. In opposing this legal- 
 tender clause, Vallandigham, of Ohio, said : " He 
 objected to their being called ' United States 
 Notes,' instead of 'Treasury Notes,' as they had 
 always been called, and deprecated the idea that 
 they were likely to be a permanent currency, or at 
 least until the Secretary's grand fiscal machine, 
 ' his magnificent National Paper Mill, founded 
 upon the very stock provided for in this bill, can 
 be put into operation.' He insisted that these 
 notes were not money ; that they would not cir- 
 culate as currency, would not be taken as legal 
 tenders, in discharge of judgments and contracts 
 and State debts, or private debts, though you send 
 them forth bearing ten times the image and super-
 
 OUR MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. 9 1 
 
 scription, — that fair face and form of Abraham 
 Lincohi, now President and Czar of the American 
 Republic." Vallandigham was a "Copperhead," 
 and tried to cripple the government by depriving 
 it of means to crush the rebellion. 
 
 Mr. Roscoe Conkling, whom the New York 
 bank papers extolled to the sky, joined such as 
 Vallandigham in fighting this legal-tender clause 
 in the bill creating the new dollar. He said : 
 " Every agent, attorney, treasurer, trustee, guard- 
 ian, executor, administrator, consignee, commis- 
 sion merchant, and every debtor of a fiduciary 
 character who has received for others money, hard 
 money, worth one hundred cents on the dollar, 
 will forever release himself from liability by buy- 
 ing up for that knavish purpose, at its depreciated 
 value, the spurious currency which we have put 
 afloat. Everybody will do it, except those who are 
 more honest than the American Congress advises 
 them to be. Think of Savings Banks entrusted 
 with enormous aggregates of the pittances of the 
 poor, the hungry, the homeless, the stranger, the 
 needlewoman, the widow and orphan, and we ar- 
 ranging for a robbery of ten, if not of fifty, per 
 cent, of the entire amount ! " 
 
 7Mic above is a sample of the harangues made 
 in the interest of a banking class, while our country 
 was in the death-throes (^f a gigantic rebellion. 
 Picture to your minds the "enormous aggregates" 
 of "the pittances of the pf)or, the hungry, the
 
 92 FALLIiXG PRICES. 
 
 homeless, the stranger, the needlewoman, the 
 widow and orphan " deposited in the banks ! 
 What sympathy these men had for such can be 
 shown by the fact that when the loyal and honest 
 men in Congress wanted to pay the soldiers and 
 sailors in gold, which had been voted to the money- 
 lenders and the bankers, the tears of these sympa- 
 thizers dried up, and they voted against it. They 
 voted to pay the millionaire in gold, but to pay the 
 soldier and sailor in as low as thirty-eight-cent 
 paper dollars ; and any motion that has since been 
 made to make good this robbery of the soldier and 
 sailor has been met by a solid front of the bank 
 representatives in Congress, — men who make 
 such a plea for paying the "hungry" and the 
 "homeless" in honest money! What rank hol- 
 lowness and heartlessness in pretence of honesty 
 and humanity in their endeavor to save a moneyed 
 aristocracy ! Compare with this cant and hypocrisy 
 the patriotic and stirring sentiments of those fear- 
 less men who fought for the legal-tender clause, 
 who believed in one money for all, rich and 
 poor alike, and that it was time that exceptions 
 in favor of a moneyed aristocracy should stop. 
 I now quote from Mr. Kellogg, of Ohio, who 
 said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I am pained when I sit in my place in the 
 House and hear members talk about the sacredness of capi- 
 tal ; that the interest of money must not be touched. Yes,
 
 OUR MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. 93 
 
 sir, they will vote six hundred thousand of the flower of the 
 American youths for the army, to be sacrificed, without a 
 blush ; but the great interest of capital, of currency, must 
 not be touched. We have summoned the youths; they 
 have come. 1 would summon the capital ; and if it does not 
 come voluntarily, before this Republic shall go down, or one 
 star be lost, I would take every cent from the treasury of 
 the States, from the treasury of the capitalists, from the 
 treasury of individuals, and press it into the use of the 
 government. 
 
 Mr. Blake, of Ohio, said : "We are not legislat- 
 ing for the money-shavers, who oppose the bill, 
 but for the people, the soldiers, and the laboring 
 classes." 
 
 Mr. Spaulding said : " For myself, I prefer to 
 issue the demand notes based on adequate ta.\a- 
 tion, and with the highest legal-tender sanction 
 that can be given them by the government, placing 
 the soldiers and capitalists all on the same footing 
 in regard to their notes." 
 
 In one of his speeches, Thaddeus Stevens, of 
 Pennsylvania, said : "Sir, I wish no injury to any, 
 nor with our bill ((Hikl any happen ; but if any 
 must lose, let it not be the soldier, the mechanic, 
 the laborer, or the farmer." 
 
 Thus it will be seen that all those advocating 
 the bill for this new form of dollar — a dollar for, 
 of, and by the people, the whole people — were 
 not only in favor of making soldiers and sailors, 
 but the farmer and laborer, the equal of ihc 
 money-lending class; for they knew that the sol-
 
 94 FALLIAU PKJCES. 
 
 diers and working classes, through their necessi- 
 ties, would be compelled to take any dollar that 
 might be issued ; and there was love of justice 
 enough in the souls of those men who were on the 
 side of the Union, and for the freedom of the slave, 
 to cause them to resent the injustice of discrimi- 
 nating against the weak and in favor of the strong. 
 In the fight for the creation of this new dollar, — 
 a dollar issued direct to the American people, with- 
 out having them buncoed out of six per cent, by- 
 first giving it to the banks free, — no man stood 
 more firm and determined than did Thaddeus 
 Stevens. Mr. Stevens wanted an " honest " dol- 
 lar, one that banker as well as farmer should be 
 compelled to take. 
 
 The American people are greatly deceived in 
 regard to "specie payments" and "resumption." 
 About election time we hear men discussing 
 finance, and declaring that " they want a dollar 
 that is a dollar ; " that " they want every dollar as 
 good as a gold dollar;" that when they have a 
 paper dollar in their hands " they want to know 
 that they can go to the bank, or the government, 
 and get a gold dollar for it." Do not these men 
 know that they cannot go to any bank, or the govern- 
 ment, and compel them to give gold for a dollar, or 
 for ten, twenty, thirty, or forty dollars ? Do they 
 not know that after about twenty years of " re- 
 sumption " it has been proven that such "resump- 
 tion " is not for the poor, but the rich .? The
 
 OUR MOXEY A BANA'ER'S MO.VEY. 95 
 
 government could not maintain " resumption," 
 even in both gold and silver, for a week if it dared 
 to redeem in sums earned weekly by the working- 
 class. The man who concocted the Resumption 
 Act for specie payments did it, not that the farm- 
 ers or the working people might have " honest " 
 money, but paper money, — money like that $930,- 
 000,000 which IMr. Gage is now trying to get 
 throuoh Con2:ress. Had the framers of the Act 
 intended that the people should have gold, they 
 would have had sub-treasuries in every city from 
 Maine to California, from Oregon to Texas, and 
 would have made the amount to be redeemed less 
 than $50. Instead of this, however, the only 
 spot ' in the United States where fifty or more 
 dollars can be " redeemed " is Wall Street, New 
 York City ! But neither the farmers nor the 
 working people of this nation live in Wall Street 
 or New York City. No, my deluded fellow 
 citizens, resumption was not for you, but for 
 Wall Street bankers and brokers. I will quote 
 you that part of the Resumption Act referring 
 
 'The Resumption Act of 1875, making New York the only 
 place of redemption, held in force until the Act of March 3, 
 1887, by which Act the Assistant Treasurer of San Francisco 
 was empowered to redeem notes in coin. These were the only 
 places until 1890 when an Act was passed giving the Secretary 
 of the Treasury the discretionary power to redeem notes in coin 
 through the nine assistant .secretaries in the following cities : 
 New York, Hoston, lUltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. I.ouis, 
 New Orleans, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.
 
 96 I'ALLIAG J'RICES. 
 
 to the redemption of paper money. It is as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 And on and after the first day of January, A. D. 1879, the 
 Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem in coin the United 
 States legal-tender notes then outstanding, on their presenta- 
 tion for redemption at the office of the Assistant Treasurer 
 of the United States, in the city of New York, in sums not 
 less than $50. 
 
 Yes, I repeat, that had that Act read that every 
 National Bank in the Union would, on the first day 
 of January, 1879, redeem all outstanding notes of 
 every denomination, without restriction, the govern- 
 ment would have had to suspend specie payments 
 in less than two weeks. Why, under the present 
 law, in this one place (the city of New York), the 
 government has been called upon to redeem as 
 high as $15,000,000 in one day ; and at times the 
 gold reserve has run down to as low as $50,000,- 
 000 ; and, in order to keep the reserve up to the 
 $100,000,000 point, the government has been 
 compelled to buy as high as $262,000,000 of 
 gold in less than two years' time. This shows, 
 conclusively, how utterly impossible it would be 
 for the government to attempt to redeem in small 
 amounts, in every part of the nation, to all who 
 desire gold, — which in justice it should do, and 
 thus place all, the rich and the poor, on the same 
 footing. 
 
 The bankers and bullionists understand this ; 
 hence it is that they are so anxious to adopt some
 
 OUR MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. 97 
 
 " currency reform " legislation, to prevent the 
 people from getting the gold from this one place 
 only. To stop the people from " working this 
 endless chain," as the gold men call it, they have 
 concocted the plan which Secretary Gage has be- 
 fore Congress, and which President McKinley has 
 endorsed in his message to Congress. This plan 
 proposes to call in $930,000,000 of different kinds of 
 money, and then issue non-taxable, long-term bonds, 
 interest and principal to be payable in gold, and 
 upon these issue to bankers only a non-legal-tender 
 paper currency. This would most effectively cut 
 the peoi)le off from getting gold, and would com- 
 pel the American people to pay nine per cent, to 
 get the use of a circulating medium which they 
 were already supplied with before the Gage scheme 
 was proposed. This barefaced scheme has been 
 advocated by all the bank papers throughout the 
 length and breadth of the land ; and because 
 the Senate cannot be prevailed u[)on to approve 
 this colossal fraud and robbery of the American 
 people, these same bank papers denounce it in un- 
 measured tones. 
 
 To show more clearly the glaring inju.stice 
 which this proposed scheme would work to mer- 
 chants and manufacturers, especially in such a 
 depressed state of business as the country is suf- 
 fering from at the present time, when mill-men 
 and merchants cannot get a "new dollar back lor 
 an old one," it is only necessary to state that if
 
 98 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 these mills should take a million of dollars of these 
 same bonds to the government as security, and 
 ask for their face value in money, without in- 
 terest, in order to help them start up their mills 
 and put the hundreds of thousands of suffering 
 unemployed to work, they would be politely in- 
 formed that the government is not in the banking 
 business, — though at the same time it would be 
 very evident that the bankers are in the govern- 
 ment business. 
 
 Let me emphasize this "Bucket Shop" scheme 
 by an illustration. Suppose the law read that 
 cotton mills in the Southern States only should 
 have this privilege to deposit bonds and con- 
 tinue to draw interest upon them, and receive 
 their full face in money free of interest, simply be- 
 cause the South had a majority in Congress, and a 
 Southern man for President ; who would coun- 
 tenance such a monstrous discrimination ! Would 
 not such colossal injustice be apparent to every 
 one .'' Yet why would it be more unjust than the 
 proposed scheme, which would allow any one who 
 held bonds to get this money free, and cause all 
 those outside of bondholders to be taxed for in- 
 terest on that from which they would receive no 
 benefit, and which would put them to a disadvan- 
 tage in competition .? 
 
 No ! we do not want such systems in a Republic. 
 Let monarchies, where such banking schemes were 
 hatched, hold a monopoly on them.
 
 OUR MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. 99 
 
 That the business men of the country may 
 know the importance of using their influence and 
 vote for a volume of money sufficiently large to 
 transact the business of the nation (the same to be 
 gradually increased, to keep up with the increase 
 of population and extended trade), and to maintain 
 a fixed amount per capita to prevent shrinkage of 
 values and business depression, I will quote in- 
 cidents in our country's history showing that this 
 question has at all times overshadowed all others, 
 and that upon this depends the success or over- 
 throw of the wealth-producer, or of the wealth 
 confiscator. There must always be war between 
 these two classes until one or the other is driven 
 from the face of the earth. 
 
 When the bank power pounced upon Congress 
 at the time the new monetary system was being 
 devised, Thaddeus Stevens, the " Grand Old Com- 
 moner," as he was called, said, in reply to a ques- 
 tion from \V. D. Kellcy : 
 
 Yes, we have had to yield; the Senate was stuhborn. 
 We did not yield until we found that the country must be 
 lost or the banks gratified ; and we have souglit to save the 
 country in spite of the cupidity of its wealthier citizens. 
 
 On another occasion, when speaking upon the 
 bill to issue $900,000,000 legal-tender money 
 direct to tlic people instead of to the banks, he 
 said : 
 
 'Ihc bill I introduced .some days since to provide 
 means to defray the expenses of the government produced
 
 lOO FALLING PRICES. 
 
 a liowl among the moiicy-cliangeis as liideous as that sent 
 forth l)y their Jewish cousins wlien they were kicked out of 
 the Temple. It produced what seemed to me an unac- 
 countable excitement in financial circles. This was caused, 
 I suppose, by wrong information as to its origin and under- 
 standing as to its object. This was partly the fault of 
 letter-writers, and partly the fault of stock-jobbing money 
 editors. . . . When this Congress assembled a year ago, all 
 the banks in the llnion, as well as the government, had 
 suspended specie payment. The last $50,000,000 of loan 
 which had been taken by the banks at a discount of $5,000,- 
 000, payable in coin, was no longer paid in anything but 
 the currency of suspended banks. The immense expenses 
 of the government (from $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 daily) 
 were to be provided for. It was impossible to negotiate 
 loans, except at a ruinous discount. 
 
 In closing this speech he used these i^rophetic 
 words : 
 
 But I ought to say, before I close, to my country 
 banking friends, that they need not be alarmed. There is 
 no great prospect that we shall return to the system 
 I have indicated, nor do much to protect the people from 
 their own eager speculations. When, a few years hence, the 
 people shall liave been brought to general bankruptcy by 
 their nnregiilated cntetprise, I shall have the satisfaction 
 to know that I attempted to prevent it. 
 
 On another occasion Mr. Stevens said : 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I have a very few words to say. I ap- 
 proach the subject with more depression of spirits than I ever 
 before approached any question. No personal motive or feel- 
 ing influences me, — I hope not, at least. I have a melan- 
 choly foreboding that we are about to consummate a cun- 
 ningly devised scheme, which will carry great injury and
 
 OUR MOXEY A BANKER'S MONEY. lOT 
 
 great loss to all classes of the people through this Union, ex- 
 cept one. ... I have a despatch from the Chamber of Com- 
 merce of Cincinnati, sent to the Secretary of the Treasury, 
 and by him to me, urging the speedy passage of the bill as it 
 passed the House. It is true there was a doleful sound 
 came up from the caverns of bullion brokers and from the 
 salons of the association banks. Their cashiers and agents 
 were soon on the ground, and persuaded the Senate, with 
 little deliberation, to mangle and destroy what it had cost 
 the House months to digest, consider, and pass. They fell 
 upon the bill in hot haste, and so disfigured and deformed 
 it that its very father would not know it. 
 
 It must be clear to any mind that any power in 
 government over which the people lose control is 
 a very dangerous one in a republic. Such a power 
 can be maintained only through force, bribery, or by 
 secrecy. In either case the people are justified in 
 overthrowing it at all hazards. That the dollar is 
 a power over which the American people have lost 
 control, in consequence of luigland's dictation 
 through agents holding power in this nation, is a 
 familiar saying all over luirope ; and every Amer- 
 ican travelling abroarl is humiliated and mortified 
 as he has it flung in his face by nearly all nation- 
 alities except the Mnglish, who stand by and enjoy 
 the sallies. 
 
 There has not been one President since Lincoln 
 who has nf)t either vetoed some measure to issue 
 American money, or openly condemned what little 
 wc have of such money already in circulation. 
 This is the liritish power behind the throne. This
 
 I02 FALLING PRICKS. 
 
 question of the riG;ht of the American people to 
 issue their own dollars, given to ihoni by the Con- 
 stitution, will yet be the one over which the blood 
 and treasure sacrificed to get rid of slavery will 
 be infinitesimal in proportion. 
 
 That men can be found who, for the sake of be- 
 coming President, will consent to let England 
 dictate our dollar, seems almost incredible ; and 
 yet we are told that we cannot go ahead and coin 
 or issue our own dollar until we get England's 
 consent. I quote from a subject of England, the 
 Hon. Isaac Buchanan, of Canada, who said : 
 " Money should be a thing of, or belong to, a 
 country, not of, or belonging to, the world. . . . 
 An exportable commodity is not fitted to be money ; 
 and nothing could be more monstrous than Eng- 
 land's principle, followed by the United States up 
 to the war, — her legislation forcing her people to 
 be buyers of gold, one of the scarcest articles in 
 the world, as the condition of their being able to 
 furnish themselves with food and clothing." 
 
 It may safely be said that all distinction be- 
 tween the classes and masses in the Western world 
 to-day is the result of their monetary systems. 
 Were the people enlightened upon this one ques- 
 tion, they could, by an issue of currency sufficient 
 for the purpose, wipe out all distinctions between 
 rich and poor. Society then would rest on a 
 plane in which the people would all be well-to-do, 
 and excessive riches or poverty would not be
 
 OUR MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. 103 
 
 longer known. In fact, in 1865 all Europe be- 
 came alarmed over the sudden riches coming to 
 their emigrants, who came to America in an im- 
 poverished condition, but in a few years returned 
 rich. This caused such unrest among the work- 
 ing-people of Europe, that their rulers plainly saw 
 that unless conditions were changed in America, 
 and her farmers and working people reduced to 
 the conditions of those in Europe, it was only a 
 question of time when every crowned head in 
 Europe would go off, and republics be reared upon 
 the ruins of monarchies. That was the time when 
 the plot was hatched between our rulers and those 
 of the Old World to reduce our people to the state 
 in which we find them to-day. Hugh McCullough 
 was the man who, as Secretary of the United 
 States Treasury, began the work of destroying 
 the people's money, for the purpose of carrying 
 out this diabolical plot. 
 
 To show how the people in this country have had 
 to battle to keep any money at all in circulation, 
 the banks always desiring to force bank credits 
 upon them, I will quote from Bcrkcy's "Money 
 Question," page 133. He says: 
 
 The fijjjlit l)ct\vcen Presiflent Jackson and tlie United 
 .States Bank, whicli occupied the attention of tiic people 
 for years, now began. The specie-basis .system had been 
 in operation for over a quarter of a century, and (hn ing the 
 whole time the country had never once enjoyed the advan- 
 tage of a .sound currency. Pecuniary distress, periodical
 
 I04 FALLIA'G PRICES. 
 
 ictunis of expansion and contraction, deranged currency, 
 ruined exchanges, and panic and convulsions had character- 
 ized the entire period. The banks, although based on " Hard 
 Money," and professing to pay coin, were in a state of chronic 
 suspension. The press of the country was completely sub- 
 sidized ; Congress, as well as the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, did not escape its contaminating influence. 
 The people were perfectly helpless, and the outlook of 
 American freedom and independence was dark indeed. 
 
 According to Mr. Berkey, the country then 
 passed through the same fall in prices, the same 
 stagnation in business, and the same loss to labor, 
 as it is passing through to-day. He says : " In 
 1817 and 1 81 8 the circulation was ^100,000,000, 
 and in 1819 ^45,000,000. Contraction had done 
 its work, and the ruin which it had accomplished 
 was deep and widespread. In August, 1819, 
 twenty thousand men were seeking employment 
 in Philadelphia ; and a similar condition of affairs 
 prevailed in New York and other cities. . . . 
 Stagnation and distress lasted throughout the 
 year 1820. Wheat was worth twenty cents per 
 bushel in Kentucky. At Pittsburg flour was one 
 dollar per barrel, boards two dollars per thousand, 
 etc." Further on, the author gives the account of 
 a report made by a committee chosen by the Sen- 
 ate of the Pennsylvania Legislature in February, 
 1820. It is in part as follows : 
 
 I, Ruinous sacrifices of landed property at sheriff's 
 sales, whereby in many cases lands and houses have been 
 sold at less than a half, a third, or a fourth of their former
 
 OUR MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. T05 
 
 value, thereby depriving of their homes and of the fruits of 
 laborious years a vast number of our industrious farmers, 
 some of whom have been driven to seek in the uncultivated 
 forests of the West thst shelter of which they have lieen 
 deprived in their native State. 
 
 2. Forced sales of merchandise, household goods, stock, 
 and utensils, at a price far below the cost of production, 
 by which many families have been deprived of the common 
 necessities of life, and of the implements of their trade. 
 
 Every chapter in history shows this loss to mer- 
 chants, farmers, and laborers as the sure results of 
 contracting a nation's currency ; while, on the 
 other hand, we find history gives us indisputable 
 facts showing the beneficial results to the same 
 classes from its expansion. The law underlying 
 the contraction and expansion of money, with its 
 favorable or unfavorable results, is just as sure in 
 its effect as the law controlling the planets. It 
 makes no difference whether or not the material 
 be of gold, silver, or paper, the results are tlie 
 same. The essential matter is the volume, and not 
 the material. Professor Walker shows this in all 
 his works on jiolitical economy. In speaking of 
 the great production of goM, in 1850, he says : 
 
 'I'lie metallic inflation was most welcome, for it occurred 
 at a time when commerce and production had for a Ioiilc 
 time been suffering from a money-supply, either positively 
 decreasing, or, at any rate, not kcei)ing \\\t with the; world's 
 need.s in this respect. The age had been one ul falling 
 prices, with loud com])laints of depression in trade and fail- 
 ure of employment. Never did parched ground reopen
 
 106 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 more joyousl)- to tlie first fall of rain after a long drouth, 
 than industry and trade reopened to the new supplies of 
 gold from California and Australia. 
 
 From the above it will be seen that, according 
 to Professor Walker, " inflation " can come from 
 gold as well as from paper issues. But does the 
 distinguished author use the expression here cor- 
 rectly .'' "Inflation," defined by the dictionaries, 
 is as follows : " The state of being inflated or dis- 
 tended with air." How that term can be applied 
 to an increased volume of currency, especially 
 gold, is beyond the comprehension of the writer. 
 Does it not look like an attempt on the part of all 
 writers who are opposed to rising prices, which 
 result from an increase of money circulafion, to 
 cast odium upon any movement to increase the 
 volume of money, by prejudicing the mind through 
 the use of opprobrious terms ? I have shown that 
 great benefits always come to the mass of the people 
 of any nation during periods of increasing money. 
 Can it be possible that there is a class to whose 
 interest it would be destructive, and who therefore 
 organize to oppose it ; and who, once having the 
 organization strong enough to defeat any move- 
 ment to increase money, work to contract its vol- 
 ume .'' It would certainly appear so. What class 
 is it ; and what interest have they that can be best 
 served by constantly crying out against " infla- 
 tion .? " 
 
 That there is a class in this world — nay, in this
 
 OUR MOjVEY a BAiVA'ER'S MONEY. I07 
 
 country — -which is in all, through all, and over 
 all other classes, and known as the moneyed 
 aristocracy, and which is ruled by a Czar, Em- 
 peror, Queen, or President, we know full well, 
 whether the people do or not. That these rulers 
 cannot become rulers, until they first pledge alle- 
 giance to this class, is a matter of the world's his- 
 tory. That these rulers cannot go to war without 
 first getting consent of this class ; that they must 
 stop fighting when this class commands ; and that 
 the terms of peace must be first submitted to this 
 class, — is also a historic fact. 
 
 Now, what interest is there that can conflict 
 with the common interest of all } Let us suppose 
 a case. If a nation, for instance, should have in 
 circulation $1,600,000,000 of currency, and a mon- 
 eyed aristocracy was not in existence, but some 
 brainy "financier" should desire to create a 
 moneyed aristocracy, could he not do it by resort- 
 ing to the following scheme ? He might call in, 
 say, $930,000,000 of money and destroy it ; giving 
 out to all purchasers, in place of it, non-ta.xable, 
 one-hundred-year bonds, payable principal and in- 
 terest in gold. Ijy so doing the financier would 
 have obtained the following results : 
 
 1. Nine hundred and thirty millions of projv 
 erty, in mills, mines, and factories, would be un- 
 loaded on the rest of the i)Coi)lc, by those selling 
 the same, to get money to purchase the bonds. 
 
 2. Nine hundred and lliiity millions of dollars
 
 108 FA/JJjVG pk/ces. 
 
 in a certain kind of investment would shirk taxes, 
 this injustice and burden being shifted to the rest 
 of the taxpayers of the country. 
 
 3. Nine hundred and thirty millions of money 
 having been destroyed, — which money was once 
 oivncd by the people, but being superseded by 
 bonds is now owed by the people, — this same 
 people would be placed at a disadvantage to the 
 extent of $1,860,000,000, having interest to pay 
 in gold for one hundred years on $930,000,000. 
 
 4. Nine hundred and thirty millions of money 
 withdrawn from circulation would cause panic, a 
 tumble in prices, the closing of mills, mines, and 
 furnaces, and throw millions out of employment, 
 causing poverty, engendering crime, creating 
 bread-riots, and ending in shedding of blood. 
 
 5. Nine hundred and thirty millions of bonds 
 would be in existence, the holders thereof ex- 
 empted from taxes, protected from falling prices 
 of all other forms of property and commodities, 
 and placed in a position to take advantage of the 
 falling prices in cost of living. 
 
 This class would at once become the moneyed 
 aristocracy of the nation ; and this is the class 
 whose interest it would be to oppose any increase 
 of the volume of a nation's money, by which the 
 prices of its commodities and labor would be 
 raised, thus in time enabling the people to pay off 
 the unrighteous debt forced upon them by an 
 unscrupulous financier.
 
 OUK MONEY A BANKER'S MONEY. IO9 
 
 There are only two classes which stand in the 
 way of preventing the creation of this moneyed 
 aristocracy in a nation. One is an illiterate class, 
 which cannot read ; and the other is a class made 
 up of all callings, which while they can read will 
 not read, and too often insult the men who have 
 made a special study of the question at great per- 
 sonal sacrifice. It is this latter class upon which 
 the greater responsibility rests, for the former 
 class is often led by the action and advice of the 
 latter. 
 
 It is a very serious matter to see a nation of 
 seventy millions of people delivered into the hands 
 of a moneyed aristocracy ; changed from a nation 
 out of debt, prosperous, making strides beyond 
 any nation at any time in the world's history, to a 
 nation of debtors, and becoming more and more 
 dependent upon other nations of the earth. What 
 a spectacle to see the rulers of a great, rich nation 
 like ours made the minions of a moneyed aristoc- 
 racy, which is constantly appealing to the people 
 to keep the nation's credit good,' and at the same 
 time refusing to coin a constitutional money to 
 enable the jjcoplc to pay their debts, — thus forc- 
 ing the nation to go begging of other nations to 
 furnish it with money on credit ! 
 
 ■ While United States bonds were selling on the I,ondon mar- 
 ket twenty per cent, above par, which was eight per cent, higher 
 than the securities of any other nation, these Shylocks were 
 appealing to the people to strengthen the nation's credit !
 
 no FALLING PRICES. 
 
 Yet this is exactly the case in this nation to- 
 day. Our mountains are stocked with silver 
 which would make money good enough for mer- 
 chants, good enough for the farmer, good enough 
 for the laborer, but not good enough for this ill- 
 begotten moneyed aristocracy, — a class which is 
 by self-interest and nature opposed to a republican 
 form of government, natural-born worshippers of 
 monarchs and dictators, always favoring standing 
 armies, and opposed to free schools. As a class, 
 they will see the people's interests sacrificed ; will 
 see their lands given away ; will see all nations 
 combine to rob the producers of this country, and 
 obstruct any movement in legislation intended to 
 benefit the people.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A MONETARY SYSTEM WHICH WILL RESTORE 
 PROSPERITY. 
 
 The thing most needed above all others, in or- 
 der to restore values and the return of permanent 
 prosperity, is a distinctively American monetary 
 system, one characteristic of our institutions and 
 people. 
 
 The monetary system in vogue to-day belongs 
 to the Old World's monarchies and despotisms, 
 and can never fit into our free institutions. There- 
 fore we should at once devise a dollar based upon 
 an American monetary system, which will serve 
 all classes and all men alike, and which will sup- 
 ply a sufficiency in quantity of currency to enable 
 the producer and laborer to retain the fruits of 
 their labor. To-day they are compelled to part 
 with such a large portion of their labor to obtain 
 this currency that, as a consequence, they are left 
 without any accumulated property upon which to 
 depend in their old age. 
 
 Our country is one of tlie largest and grandest 
 on the face of the globe. Our people are ener- 
 getic and enterprising, possessing an inventive 
 
 III
 
 112 FALLING PKfCES. 
 
 genius which leads all other nations in mechanical 
 art and device in overcoming natural resistance. 
 We have an area of country exceeding five bil- 
 lions of square miles, which is capable of sustain- 
 ing a population of over four hundred millions. 
 We have forty-seven States, one of which is equal 
 in size to England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Bel- 
 gium, Holland, and Portugal combined. Our 
 resources in natural wealth are limitless ; and, 
 taken as a whole, our climate is not excelled by 
 that of any other nation. We have every variety 
 of soil, immense forests, mighty rivers, and grand 
 lakes, — yes, inland seas, many of them connecting 
 with the ocean. We have a sea-coast extendine: 
 over six thousand miles, with convenient harbors 
 which could give shelter to the fleets of the world. 
 The agricultural resources of our country are 
 almost boundless, and in great sections of the 
 country our soil is rich beyond that of all other 
 nations. We have an inexhaustible supply of 
 coal, iron, copper, lead, zinc, gold, and silver ; 
 and other minerals are, comparatively speaking, 
 equally abundant. Colorado, New Mexico, Ne- 
 vada, and the Pacific States have mountains 
 packed full of the precious metals, besides being 
 rich in arable lands. The South is famous for its 
 cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco. The great North- 
 ern portion of our country has an inexhaustible 
 supply of coal, iron, salt, and petroleum. The 
 great central West is known the world over for its
 
 A MONE TA R Y S YS TEM. I 1 3 
 
 wheat, beef, corn, and pork ; while the East has 
 outrivalled the leading nations in its manufacture 
 of nearly every article in human use. As for pub- 
 lic utilities, no nation on earth can compare with 
 ours. 
 
 Yet, with all this showing of wealth and power, 
 with seventy-five millions of people and seventy- 
 two billions of wealth, we still have a class of 
 politicians and bankers who incessantly harp 
 upon the money system of England, and con- 
 tend that, unless we adopt the same material 
 for our dollar which she uses for hers, we shall 
 become a bankrupt and ruined nation. Think of 
 such an absurdity! — a nation one-sixth as large 
 as one of our forty-seven States must be taken 
 by us as the model, if not the unquestioned 
 authority, in regulating our financial affairs ! 
 
 There is no time to be lost in this matter. 
 Already, under our present British monetary sys- 
 tem, we find our values sunk to a point at which 
 our annual products pass from the hands of the 
 l)roducer into the hands of the non-producer ; 
 already we see our great mills forced to sus- 
 l)end, or to reduce wages and expenses, even to 
 hold their capital intact, and owx working-people 
 brought to the very verge of starvation. What 
 a picture this, in a country of such boundless 
 resources! Under this system, every cai)italist 
 whose capital is invested in indiluctive enterprise, 
 and every merchant and business man, is threat-
 
 114 FALLING TK/CES. ^ 
 
 ened with bankruptcy and ruin. In consenting to 
 allow England to dictate our dollar, we are, as it 
 were, selling to her by the bushel the size of 
 which she dictates, — a size which holds double 
 the bulk of that upon which our contract was 
 made ; thus we part with two bushels in bulk, 
 and get credit for one only. 
 
 The time is very opportune to correct this 
 injustice, when the financiers of the nation are 
 attempting to reform our currency laws so as to 
 make them more English. Let us, on the con- 
 trary, as Americans, make them distinctively and 
 decidedly American, in the interest of Ameri- 
 can producers and not of English investors. 
 The way to do this is to make a dollar which 
 will not leave our shores, not one which all the 
 nations of the earth are constantly trying to take 
 from us, — thereby forcing us to send more big 
 bushels of products, or issue upon issue of bonds 
 on which our children and children's children 
 must perpetually pay usurious interest. It is 
 time that, as patriotic Americans, we stopped 
 this wicked work on the part of those who wor- 
 ship dollars only, and know not country or hu- 
 manity. 
 
 The American dollar should be made of paper, 
 and should be stamped thus : 
 
 ONE DOLLAR. 
 UNITED STATES OV AMERICA.
 
 A MONE TARY SYS TEM. I 1 5 
 
 This is all a gold dollar has on it, and it is all 
 that is necessary for a paper dollar. 
 
 It may be well to call the reader's attention to 
 the fact that the material suggested for this dollar 
 is precisely the same as that recommended by 
 Secretary Gage in his plan to issue nine hundred 
 and thirty million dollars to take the place of 
 those now in use ; and since this kind of material 
 is indorsed by such high authority, and since the 
 people have practically known no other than paper 
 dollars in their business transactions, it would 
 be safe to conclude that the question of material 
 — one which, so far as a national currency is con- 
 cerned, the Constitution leaves in the hands of 
 Congress — is therefore by common consent, and 
 by its general use, practically settled. 
 
 The next question, then, which presents itself is 
 that of the purchasing power of the dollar. The 
 legal-tender power settles its debt-paying capacity 
 to rich and poor alike ; but the purchasing power 
 is another and a very important matter to be 
 looked after in the creation of the dollar. 
 
 In regard to this power, class interests have 
 fiercely raged for centuries ; for in no other in- 
 terest in life is there so much at stake as in this 
 greater or lesser degree of the purchasing power 
 of the people's dollar. Never before in the history 
 of any nation have we had the spectacle of a whole 
 people arrayed in two classes, one against the 
 other, over the greater or lesser purchasing ))owcr
 
 I 1 6 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 of their dollar ; but this contest, now fairly on, 
 must surely continue until it shall be settled on 
 the basis of patriotism, common sense, and jus- 
 tice. 
 
 This is a question between the producer and 
 the non-producer ; a (jucstion between the man 
 who works, and the man who does not work. 
 Under the present crude and unequal social sys- 
 tems, the man who must work has labor to sell ; 
 while the man who docs not work has dollars to 
 sell. Both want the highest possible price, or 
 purchasing i)ower, for that which they have to 
 dispose of ; hence we have the men who are the 
 advocates of the rich, the men who have no labor 
 to sell, declaring for the dearest, the "best" 
 money used in any civilized nation on earth ; 
 while, on the other hand, the men who are cham- 
 pions of the producers and laborers want that 
 money which, both in its quality and quantity, 
 shall be such as will stimulate production, and 
 enhance the price of that which is produced. 
 
 This brings us into a field where we find idle- 
 ness, luxury, and indulgence on the one hand, and 
 toil, hardship, and production on the other. Here 
 we may erect a pair of scales, on one end of which 
 we put dollars, representing the former class ; and 
 on the other products, rejjresenting the latter class. 
 These scales arc like all others, — when one end 
 goes up, the other goes down. They would not 
 be scales if both ends went up or went down at
 
 A MOiVETAKY SYSTEM. I 1/ 
 
 the same time ; for in such scales it would be 
 impossible to weigh or adjust differences between 
 certain quantities. It is a fixed and unchangeable 
 law that when money is "bad," labor is good, and 
 that when money is "good," labor is bad, — using 
 language applied to money to denote its worth or 
 worthlessness. In other words, cheap money 
 means high-priced labor ; and dear money means 
 low-priced labor. 
 
 This issue between cheap money and dear 
 money was what divided the two great parties in 
 the last Presidential election. It was a peaceable 
 battle between labor and interested capital for the 
 control of the dollar and all which it stands for. 
 It is by this battle of ballots that the question of 
 the purchasing power of the dollar must be settled 
 in a republic under free institutions. In mon- 
 archies and despotisms, where the laboring classes 
 are never consulted, and where the dollar-class fix 
 arbitrarily upon the dearest dollar that can be 
 found, some other and perhaps less peaceable 
 method of settling this question will be adopted. 
 
 After the battle has been settled ;il the ballot- 
 box, the question then will come up in Congress, 
 which, according to the Constitution, has the right 
 " to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of 
 foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and 
 measures." There is nothing in the Constitution 
 dictating the material out of which the dollar shall 
 be "coined." That is a ])rerogative left entirely
 
 Il8 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 with Congress ; and the Congress is elected by 
 the people. The party having a majority will 
 therefore be called on to regulate the purchasing 
 power according to their most enlightened judg- 
 ment. Since volume and not the material gives 
 or takes from the purchasing power of a dollar, 
 — and upon this all stand agreed, — and as expan- 
 sion makes the dollar cheap and contraction makes 
 it dear, the volume of the currency must be 
 adjusted to the population, or to the plain exigen- 
 cies of the actual business of the country. 
 
 Such a currency is that which Lincoln and the 
 truly loyal men of the early Republican party 
 desired to give the people ; but they finally were 
 brought to compromise with the money power, 
 fearing otherwise to jeopardize the Union and the 
 freeing of slaves. As a result of that compromise 
 we have to-day only $340,000,000 of that currency 
 in circulation, as a surviving test of its superiority ; 
 whilst the money the bankers fought for we were 
 compelled to send abroad two years ago and buy 
 $262,000,000 worth of gold, for which we now 
 have outstanding $262,000,000 of ten to thirty 
 years' bonds, which we must pay with interest. 
 If the money of the early Republicans had been 
 retained as a currency, instead of issuing these 
 bonds, we should have issued paper dollars, and 
 avoided selling our children into bondage. These 
 dollars, in sufficient volume to restore values to 
 their normal level, would cause every man to turn
 
 A MONETARY SYSTEM. II9 
 
 buyer in order to protect himself against higher 
 prices. Labor would be employed to make goods 
 ahead, to avoid paying an advance in wages. The 
 raw material and labor market would soon be 
 exhausted, and, instead of seeking a market, they 
 would now be sought for by a market in need of 
 labor and material. Thus it will be seen that an 
 ample and sufificient currency would completely 
 reverse the tables, — the manufacturers and mer- 
 chants dictating the price, instead of selling to a 
 market already overstocked and with but small 
 demand. 
 
 The corrective remedy, therefore, for the fall of 
 prices and a consequent depression in business is 
 to increase the volume of money, until prices 
 advance to that point for labor and material where 
 a sufificiency of it will be left in the consumers' 
 hands to enable them to relieve the market of 
 accumulated goods. 
 
 The two great factors, then, in preventing or in 
 causing falling prices and consequent hard times 
 are money and labor. While the former (money) 
 is an adjustable instrument intended to raise or 
 lower the prices, the latter (labor) is a fixed factor, 
 a natural law, and must be conformed to ; other- 
 wise friction, causing heat and disintegration, takes 
 place. 
 
 An enemy, as an oiler, on board of one of our 
 battle-shi])S, could soon put all the machinery out 
 of order and have the ship at his mercy, by stint-
 
 120 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 ing or withholding sufficient oil ; while a waste of 
 oil could only result in the bare cost of the lubri- 
 cant, the test of the sufficiency being in the 
 smooth and noiseless running of the same with 
 maximum results. So with money and labor : 
 money must be in sufficient volume to sustain 
 values. Plethoric banks full of money play no 
 more of a part in proving it is not money that is 
 needed, than would the machinery of the ship drip- 
 ping with oil, while the little oil-cups and feed- 
 holes were all dry, afford an argument that the 
 cause of the heating of the bearings of the ma- 
 chinery could not be from want of oil. The right 
 thing in the right place is what is needed ,at all 
 times; and "the banks being full of money," 
 which is a stock phrase of so many the moment 
 insufficiency of money is mentioned, does not 
 meet the case, for, at the same time the markets 
 are congested with goods and food, it will be found 
 that the working-people are hungry and in rags, 
 and upon investigation it will be discovered that 
 there is no money in their pockets. It can be 
 seen at a glance that the " oil " has not been 
 placed in the right place to start trade, to enable 
 the people to procure that for which they are in 
 the direst need. 
 
 At this point, however, a dozen rich men spring 
 to their feet and say, " What ! take the money 
 from the banks and put it in the pockets of the 
 workers .-' " No, not that ; but maintain a volume
 
 A MONETARY SYSTEM. 121 
 
 of money sufficiently large to keep prices to that 
 point where it would leave the producers and la- 
 borers with sufficient margin to accumulate some- 
 thing in their pockets beyond the supply of their 
 daily wants. Then the money would not be con- 
 gested in the banks, nor the goods in the stores, 
 and the want and misery so often falling upon the 
 working classes would be avoided. 
 
 The remedy, then, which would correct nine- 
 tenths of our commercial and industrial distress, 
 would be as follows : Increase the volume of the 
 nation's currency until prices of all property, com- 
 modities, and labor, have risen to the point where 
 money accumulates in the pockets of the masses 
 instead of glutting the vaults of the banks, — 
 which means profits to the rich, and which can 
 only come from contracting the currency to such 
 a small volume, and reducing prices so low, that it 
 leaves nothing in the pockets of workers. 
 
 The only guide I can suggest to indicate when 
 a sufficient volume of currency has been issued, is 
 the material well-being of the wealth-producing 
 and laboring classes of the nation. When every 
 farmer owns a good farm, and every workman 
 owns his home, and that home comfortable and 
 convenient, commodious and well furnished ; when 
 every working-man can affoi'd to be the father of 
 a family, and is possessed of mc;ins sufficient to 
 give his children a liberal education, — then wc 
 may be confident that our national finances are in
 
 122 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 a sound condition. When those who create the 
 wealth of the nation, who constitute eight-tenths 
 of the people in it, shall, under the unwritten law 
 decreeing " the greatest good to the greatest num- 
 ber," receive their proper and equitable share of 
 that wealth, the benefit which would accrue to the 
 country from such a percentage of its people en- 
 joying prosperity would make it impossible that 
 the remaining one -tenth could experience any 
 great hardship, no matter what the system that 
 produced these results might be. 
 
 Paper money is a popular money with the 
 masses. It is only our foreign population who 
 hold to the European idea of having something of 
 value in the material of which money is coined. 
 It is an absurd idea that a dollar which may be 
 taken to settle a debt, and instantly handed to 
 another to square another account, and so go on 
 indefinitely settling accounts, until at last it finds 
 its way into the post-office for a dollar's worth of 
 stamps, — when, so far as redemption is concerned, 
 it is redeemed, — yes, I repeat, it is absurd that 
 such a dollar must be a commodity of the value of 
 one dollar, when it bears the government's stamp 
 declaring it a dollar. 
 
 Paper has many advantages over metal as a 
 material out of which to make a dollar. It is 
 more convenient, as large amounts can be carried 
 on the person by using bills of large denomina- 
 tion. It also baffles the counterfeiter. Upon
 
 A MO.YETARV SYSTEM. I23 
 
 this important matter Mr. Alexander Del ]\Iar, in 
 his able work on the " Science of Money," says : 
 " The silk-threaded distinctive fibre paper, the 
 water-marks, the printing in colors, the highly 
 artistic vignettes, the geometrical lathe-work, the 
 numbers, signature, and other mechanical safe- 
 guards of the paper-note render it far more diffi- 
 cult to imitate than coin." 
 
 Paper money in different forms is not a new 
 idea in the world's history. Our own history 
 goes to show that when paper money was used as 
 a substitute for metal, and not a promise to pay 
 metal on demand, it proved itself the most reliable 
 of all moneys. The experience of the Republic 
 of Venice was perhaps the most remarkable in 
 demonstrating this principle. In regard to this 
 historical event I will quote from the writings of 
 the Hon. John Davis, M. C, as follows : 
 
 The liistory of the Republic of Venice shows that it 
 was the great commercial nation of the earth for centuries, 
 and its maritime wars were necessary for the protection of 
 its extended commerce in every quarter of the known 
 world. In the year 1171, intrinsic money utterly failed to 
 meet the monetary requirements of tlic Republic, and a 
 hook of credit, or inscription money, was adopted. This 
 in.scri])tion money had no material value whatever. It was 
 not redcemahle in coin or bullion, and there was no pre- 
 tence that it would be so redeemed; but it was receivable 
 in the revenues of government, and legal tender for all 
 debts. That legal-tender quality, in the language of Mr. 
 Franklin, was "greater advantage" than coin redemption.
 
 124 FALLING PR ICES. 
 
 For six hundred years that paper-credit money ruled twenty 
 per cent, above coin. During all the time there was not a 
 money panic in the country. Venice became and remained 
 the centre of commerce and the clearing-house of the world. 
 There is not a line or record that any citizen of Venice was 
 dissatisfied with tlieir financial system. This is the longest 
 and most satisfactory continuous financial experience re- 
 corded in history, and it proves very conclusively the supe- 
 riority of financial or fiat money over intrinsic money in 
 times of war. 
 
 By the above quotation the reader can see that 
 full legal-tender money stood the shock of battle, 
 and was always at a premium for a period of six 
 hundred years. Now, would it not be strange if 
 the people of this nation could not in a time of 
 peace use a money composed of paper, — a money 
 for which everything we could wish was pledged 
 to redeem at sight } I feel it is left for this 
 republic to demonstrate to the world that it can 
 have a people's money composed of any material 
 they see fit to choose, without asking the consent 
 of the tottering thrones of the Old World.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BIMETALLISM AS A CURE. 
 
 Having given attention to the many and vari- 
 ous theories put forth by different party creeds 
 and schools in regard to the great fall in prices 
 during the past thirty years, I will now proceed 
 to speak of that one which of all others has the 
 greatest amount of approval and support among 
 all parties, — namely. Bimetallism. 
 
 There is not a party that has not been rent 
 or torn, in its conventions, upon this question of 
 Bimetallism. In the struggle of 1896 the na- 
 tional Prohibition Convention w-as split in two, 
 and broken up. The Republican Convention was 
 seriously convulsed, and a portion of its delegates 
 walked out of the convention. The national 
 democratic Convention shared the same fate, and 
 was equally distressed in witnessing the with- 
 drawal of many of its former supporters. 
 
 One significant fact regarding Bimetallism is 
 this, — that while all parties and factions are 
 agreed upon it as a potent remedy loi om finan- 
 cial distress, they dilTcr as lo the polii y ol adoj)!- 
 
 '-5
 
 126 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 ing- it without cooperation with other nations. 
 That this one great question is preeminent and 
 overshadows all others needs no proving. Even 
 the party elected to power in the great contest 
 of 1896 had the following plank in its convention 
 platform : " We are, therefore, opposed to the 
 free coinage of silver, except by international 
 agreement with the leading nations of the world, 
 which we pledge ourselves to promote.'' It will be 
 seen by this that the Republican party desired to 
 have free coinage, but that they desired other 
 nations to join us in adopting it ; and they not 
 only promised *' to promote " it, but President 
 McKinley appointed a commission to go abroad 
 to urge it upon European nations. Thus, by the 
 action of their national convention, as well as by 
 that of their party leaders after the election, it is 
 plainly evident that Republicans do not believe it 
 wrong to coin a " fifty-cent dollar," and try even 
 to induce other nations to join ours in doing the 
 same. 
 
 To show still more plainly that the Republican 
 party are in favor of Bimetallism, I will quote 
 from a national campaign text-book sent out by 
 the national and general Republican Committee, 
 the latter consisting of one member from each 
 State. On page 27, in heavy-faced type, it says : 
 " Bimetallism, . . . the use of both gold and sil- 
 ver as money, the use fur which the Republican 
 party are to contend in 1896." It is safe to say
 
 BIMETALLISM AS A CURE. 12/ 
 
 that had not the Republican party committed 
 itself to Bimetallism in some form, it could not 
 have carried a single Western or Northwestern 
 State, so thoroughly grounded in the conviction 
 are the people of these sections that Bimetallism 
 is essential to the restoring of prices and pros- 
 perity. 
 
 I quote further from page 29 of the same book, 
 where Sir William Houldsvvorth, a delegate of 
 Great Britain to the Brussels monetary confer- 
 ence, 1892, is reported as saying: "A further 
 fall [in the level of prices] would be a disaster. 
 I frankly admit, that, in my opinion, there will 
 never be a permanent solution of this difificulty 
 until we have an international bimetallic agree- 
 ment." 
 
 Again, on page 28 of the same book will be 
 found, in the letter of instruction to commis- 
 sioners of the Brussels conference, the following : 
 " It is the opinion of the President, and, as he 
 believes, of the people of the United States with 
 singular unanimity, that a full use of silver as a 
 coined metal, at a ratio to gold to be fixed by au 
 agreement between the great commercial nations 
 of the world, would very highly promote the pros- 
 perity of all the people of all the countries of the 
 world." The italics arc mine, l^y these quota- 
 tions I desire to show that Bimetallism has not 
 only the sanction of the Kei)ublican party, bul 
 that it has the greatest following of any theory
 
 128 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 as being the true remedy to stop the downward 
 trend of values. 
 
 We know, by the actual votes cast, that the 
 Democratic party stands committed to liimetal- 
 lism by a vote of six million five hundred thou- 
 sand for it, to one hundred and thirty -seven 
 thousand against it. We also know that the 
 Populist party stands unitedly for it ; while nearly 
 all the Labor Conventions have passed resolutions 
 indorsing it. 
 
 Therefore, whatever the intrinsic merits of Bi- 
 metallism, we must acknowledge it has the great- 
 est of all other followings in regard to the cause 
 and cure of our present depression. 
 
 That there is, however, in the ranks of the 
 Bimetallists, a great diversity of views in regard 
 to the extent to which Bimetallism will cure our 
 trouble, admits of no question. While Republi- 
 cans are ready to admit that Bimetallism, if 
 adopted by all nations, would bring back pros- 
 perity, they are not willing to discuss the question 
 upon its own merits, but stick firmly to the in- 
 ternational feature of it. The greait majority of 
 Democrats hold that silver is an American 
 money; that our fathers regarded it as a stan- 
 dard of value; and that it stood as such, and 
 even above par, until it was treacherously demon- 
 etized in 1873. This act they claim broke down 
 the price of it ; and in the same ratio as its price 
 fell by other nations dropping its use, the more
 
 BIMETALLISM AS A CURE. 1 29 
 
 its unused bullion-value suffered ; while, on the 
 other hand, gold, being sought to fill the place 
 once filled by silver, had now nearly double the 
 work to do as primary money, and under the law 
 of supply and demand began to rise in value in 
 ratio to increased demand, and thus under the 
 law of cause and effect the two metals gradually 
 drew apart. This view is also generally held by 
 Bimetallists abroad ; but they agree that since 
 it is proven by Mr. Sauerbeck's tables that an 
 ounce of silver will buy approximately as much 
 of all other commodities as it would before silver 
 was demonetized, it is not silver which has de- 
 preciated, but gold which has appreciated. 
 
 The view of the financial question most generally 
 held is, however, that the more money you put into 
 circulation, the more prices will advance. Though 
 the free-silver party hold to this general view, they 
 are nevertheless losing some supporters, who for 
 the present may act with the gold men ; but the 
 gold men must not take any encouragement from 
 this added strength to their ranks, because it is 
 only temporary, and arises from the fact that these 
 non-supporters of free-silver coinage have found 
 out that the highest authorities are almost a unit 
 in the oi)inion that neither gold nor silver is essen- 
 tial in supplying a nation with a currency, but 
 claim that it is the legal-tender quality, backed by 
 good govern III (I// and i^'ealtli-increasiug resources, 
 which gives stability to currency. Hence these
 
 130 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 " come-outers " are opposed to either metal, and 
 believe in paper money ; and to force the con- 
 servative elements in the Silver party to take an 
 advance step in currency reform, they have tem- 
 porarily joined the Gold forces, — thus repeating 
 the action of the old Abolitionists, who, finding the 
 new Republican party would not advocate the 
 abolition of slavery, but contented itself with 
 opposing its extension into new territories, went 
 over in a body to the Pro-slavery party. This 
 temporary accession was, however, of but small 
 solace to that party. It may, in a close contest, 
 have given them one more administration, but it 
 only made more certain their doom in the end. 
 
 A similar dilemma confronts Mr. Bryan to-day. 
 There is no question of a growing sentiment for 
 Bimetallism ; but Mr. Bryan, in intimating the 
 need of a policy of a union of all Silver forces in 
 1900, shows his keen perception in forecasting 
 political events by forestalling any breaking away 
 of these advanced minds. These radical thinkers 
 in the Silver ranks, however, call attention, just at 
 this time, to the lesson of the struggle leading up 
 to 186 r. It was the Abolitionist who won in the 
 end in that struggle. So these radical thinkers 
 say to-day, " No matter by whom or how a conflict 
 begins ; the important matter is by whom and how 
 shall it end." They know that history is likely to 
 repeat itself, and that as the slaveholders came out 
 with their system, so the plutocrats will come
 
 BIMETALLISM AS A CURE. I31 
 
 out with their bond and gold system. They are 
 to-day pointing to the fact that those slaveholders 
 lost $4,000,000,000 of slave-holdings ; and these 
 prophets are throwing out dark hints as to what 
 may be the loss of the unscrupulous and grasping- 
 bondholders, when the wronged and robbed peo- 
 ple begin to settle past wrongs and sufferings. 
 They point to the fact that in Congress to-day the 
 Gold men were slow to take steps towards helping 
 bleeding Cuba, or towards resenting any insult 
 from Spain, as they dreaded any disturbance of 
 the security of their colossal holdings. But the 
 Silver men were more patriotic and truly conserva- 
 tive, desiring at least to protect their nation's 
 honor ; and the Populists, who are advanced Silver 
 men, desired to recognize the independence of 
 Cuba, and to demand satisfaction for the destruc- 
 tion of the battle-ship Maine, with the loss of two 
 hundred and fifty American seamen. In contrast 
 to the advanced Silver men and the Populists, we 
 saw the cowardly forms of the bondholders lurk- 
 ing around the haunts of the Gold men with fear 
 and trembling, forgetting honor, country, and 
 humanity in their eagerness to profit by some new 
 financial deal which might in any result put money 
 in their pockets, or fearing and dreading the issue 
 of the whole matter would be such that — as in 
 the case of the slaveholders in 1861 — not only 
 their property, but their lives might be imperilled.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IMMIGRATION. 
 
 Immigration is and has been one of the chief 
 sources of our population, and unquestionably it 
 helps to build up any nation with sufficient terri- 
 tory to accommodate it. America, surely, is the 
 last of all nations which should complain of injury 
 to its prosperity coming from immigration, for had 
 it not been for immigration there would be to-day 
 no American people outside of American Indians. 
 
 Under healthful and normal conditions one 
 man should be able to support comfortably five 
 persons ; but to-day, under our present abnormal 
 conditions, there are many thousands of men in 
 this country unable to support themselves. In 
 inquiring for the cause of this astounding fact, we 
 are told that it is the result of there being too 
 many people in the country for the amount of 
 work to be done, and that by restricting immigra- 
 tion we should have work plentiful enough for all. 
 From this explanation of the "hard times" one 
 might be led to think that work comes from some 
 source outside of human beings. What such a 
 shallow philosophy really implies is that if people 
 would come over here and not do any work at all, 
 
 132
 
 IMMIGRA TION. 1 3 3 
 
 but would spend money and give work to those 
 needing it, it would be all right. But this would 
 not be all right, for it would be adding to the very 
 trouble from which our people are now suffering. 
 The present lack of work results from the fact 
 that those who do work are not permitted, under 
 our present false economic system, to consume 
 more than perhaps one-tenth of what they produce, 
 — the other nine-tenths being consumed by those 
 who do not work, but make their money work for 
 them. Thus nine workers and producers are cut 
 off from what rightfully belongs to them, — from 
 the three prime essentials of existence ; namely, 
 food, clothing, and shelter. These they now have, 
 at least, in insufficient quantity to make existence 
 agreeable to them. Many single groups of these 
 nine workers and producers are living in two or 
 three rooms, while in equity they are entitled to 
 two houses of five rooms each. Many of them go 
 hungry every day, when they should have all they 
 can eat, and this of good quality. Many of them 
 are ill clad and in rag.s, when they .shuuld be suit- 
 ably clothed. Who can gainsay their right to 
 have all these things } Me who works, shall he 
 nf)t cat, and have in abundance of the good things 
 of life .'* Ill llie name of justice, who is entitled to 
 these things, if not the worker and the jjroducii ? 
 When we have iionii;il societary conditions, 
 under which a man receives either in money or an 
 equivalent in commodities to the full amount
 
 134 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 equalling his daily production, and this consumed 
 by his own household, then we shall have markets 
 unglutted with goods ; and those who do not work 
 will be compelled to part with an amount of money 
 in procuring their necessary supplies which will 
 be sufficient, when paid to the producer, to enable 
 him to go into the market and purchase the needed 
 supplies for Jiis family. But in to-day's abnormal 
 and brutal social conditions, the man of money 
 goes into the labor market, and takes the lowest 
 bid of the man who is most desperate in circum- 
 stances ; and these conditions hav^e prevailed so 
 long that there are always sufficient victims of the 
 inhuman system to keep the price of labor down 
 to the lowest ; and any man protesting that he 
 has a large family, and that the amount offered 
 would only support himself, leaving the remaining 
 members of his family in want, becomes a laugh- 
 ing-stock of the corporation's agents contracting 
 for labor. 
 
 This system, however, in time destroys itself ; 
 for this man's family of non-consumers deprives 
 the market of just that amount of purchase, and 
 an accumulation of unsold stock is the result. 
 The jobber, finding accumulated stocks, stops pur- 
 chases ; and the mills, not receiving sufficient 
 orders, lay off their help. Then comes the cry 
 that there are too many working-people for the 
 work to be done. As a remedy for this, we are 
 told that we must stop immigration, it being
 
 IMMIGRA TIOiY. I 3 5 
 
 argued that these immigrants add to the ah-eady 
 well-stocked labor market. This immigration fal- 
 lacy comes from seeing only the fact of an accumu- 
 lation of goods in the warehouse, and overlooking 
 the fact that in every working-man's home there 
 is a need of goods to the point of actual want ! 
 If the immigration theory is correct, that there is 
 no need for more labor, then every home should 
 be full, and there should be a surplus of goods in 
 that home. It is, however, the present unjust 
 and false monetary system which makes all this 
 trouble, by keeping from the producers a just 
 and equitable proportion of their own production. 
 They have not the money to supply their actual 
 wants, and thus relieve an apparent — but not, 
 correctly speaking — overstocked market. 
 
 For years the cry has gone out from the cotton 
 and woollen manufacturers of an overstocked mar- 
 ket. In proof of this, a statement of the num- 
 ber of pieces of goods on hand would be given at 
 a stated period, and the number of pieces added 
 since ; and then it wtnild be said that prices as a 
 result had been falling bchjw the profit mark. 
 Now the men at the head of these mills, or be- 
 longing to the Arkwright or other clubs, in meet- 
 ing this condition of market, usually advise holding 
 an auction sale, hoping through a cut in prices to 
 unload their surplus stock. Even a novice can 
 see at a glance that this docs not relieve the situ- 
 ation, for it only removes the goods farther from
 
 136 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 the mills, and allows them to accumulate in smaller 
 hands ; but they cannot be consumed until the 
 consumers can get money with which to purchase 
 them. Of course this does not help the mills, 
 except perhaps to give them the ready money to 
 pay off some bills, and to run temporarily to re- 
 plenish the stock sold ; but here comes the end. 
 They cannot do this a second time, as those who 
 have last bought are choked up with goods ; hence 
 the mills are compelled to shut down entirely, or 
 greatly to lessen the output. The intelligence of 
 these men never goes beyond the market needs, 
 as reflected by some one being ready to buy ; but 
 they are always prepared, when they cannot sell, 
 to state that the market is overstocked, and drop 
 the matter there. No intelligent examination as 
 to the cause of the glut of the market has yet 
 been made, in order to see if the people's wants 
 and needs have been supplied to a point of surfeit, 
 or whether just the speculative market alone has 
 been filled up. The most that has been done is 
 to visit other sections of the country, not for the 
 purpose of ascertaining intelligently if the families 
 of the nation have an oversupply of material for 
 sheets, pillow-cases, and clothing, but to find out 
 clandestinely, perhaps, the cost of manufacturing 
 in these sections, so as to undersell and steal away 
 their trade. Never to my knowledge have these 
 men tried to discover some law by which to reach 
 a market which three times the present number of
 
 IM.MIGRA TION. I 3 7 
 
 mills could not supply so far as actual needs are 
 concerned. 
 
 What is true of this branch of industry, in this 
 regard, is also true of all other branches of pro- 
 ductive enterprise. The men at the head of all 
 these vast trusts and syndicates know full well 
 why output has been stopped, — not because 
 there is not want for these goods, and want bor- 
 dering on suffering, from one end of this land to 
 the other ; but because by curtailing output they 
 can maintain profits, without any reference to sup- 
 plying the wants of the masses. 
 
 It is this stoppage of output of the coal and 
 iron mines to force profits ; this stoppage of mills 
 to reduce stocks on hand, — and this when people 
 all over the land need coal and all other commodi- 
 ties, — it is this which has forced the masses into 
 idleness, and put them farther away than ever 
 from the possibility of purchasing, and made them 
 willing ill their want and helplessness to turn 
 against the innocent immigrant, tliiuking that less 
 pco])le means more work instead of less work. 
 Think of men once mining copper at 50 cents, and 
 since selling it at 10 cents; cotton at 47 1-2 
 and 50 cents, and since .selling it at 4 3-4 cents ; 
 beeves at \C^ cents, and since selling it at 3 1-2 
 cents; wheat at $2. 50, and since selling it at 40 
 cents! What purchasing power do these low 
 l)rices leave in the hands of tlu' family to buy 
 back cotton cloth, and relieve the clogged niaikcts
 
 138 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 closed by the mills? Alas! the people sleep on 
 straw and cornstalk in their poverty, having had 
 all the value legislated out of their products in the 
 interest of foreign nations, who are now receiving 
 our products for thirty cents on the dollar of their 
 actual value. 
 
 If a party ever gets into power in this nation in 
 the interest of the producers, in the interest of the 
 working-people, and restores honest value to them, 
 — giving the honest products raised by honest 
 men the same purchasing power now given to the 
 money paid to the non-taxable bondholders of 
 the world, — then our cotton and woollen mills 
 can run night and day, and the people that work 
 in them will become customers, and consume their 
 own products. The non-taxable bondholder will 
 then be compelled to pay a living price to labor ; 
 and all strife and contention about immio^ration or 
 imported labor being the cause of our hard times 
 will be forgotten, and present conflicts over the 
 cause of our want and suffering will be supplanted 
 by peace and plenty.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TRUSTS AND DEPARTMENT STORES AS A CAUSE. 
 
 Many able men to-day believe that the Trusts, 
 or their counterparts, the syndicates and combines, 
 are the cause of our nation's present financial and 
 commercial distress. They claim that these mon- 
 sters of organized capital reach out their tentacles 
 and fasten upon all the commodities and necessi- 
 ties of life, and squeeze all the small holders to 
 death, unless they surrender and become contribu- 
 tors to the support of these monsters. It is also 
 claimed that they control the volume of business 
 with the design to lessen output ; to force the 
 largest possible profits on the smallest possible 
 amount of business. This selfish policy of the 
 Trusts, it is claimed, works ruin to the small mer- 
 chant, by depriving him in the end of his business, 
 — and this at a time of life, usually, when lie is 
 unfitted to begin anew in anything else, even if 
 everything else in ])usiness lines had not already 
 been overdone. Thousands of once active and en- 
 ergetic small business men, so to speak, who in 
 times gone by made up the l)nlk of the business 
 community, are to-dny not only no longer a help 
 to business, but have become so reduced as to be 
 
 '39
 
 140 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 an incumbrance upon it, — resulting in their small 
 jobbing stores, as well as their once comfortable 
 and well-furnished private residences, being thrown 
 on the market, thus breaking down the rents of 
 both, and forcing down the value of real estate. 
 
 Again, these Trusts, it is said, control prices of 
 all the commodities and necessities of life. They 
 also dictate the price to be paid to the producers, 
 as well as that to be charged to the consumers. 
 They are masters of the situation at both ends of 
 the bargain. Through low prices forced upon the 
 producer, he is placed where he is no longer a 
 consumer ; hence trade suffers to the extent of 
 the additional loss of his trade. The consumer to 
 whom the Trust sells, from being charged double 
 the price, is no longer a consumer of more than 
 one-half the former amount of goods ; and hence 
 an accumulation of stock in the Trust's hands. 
 This glutting of the market must, of course, be 
 met by some action on the part of the Trust, and 
 it immediately proceeds to curtail the output ; this 
 in time only aggravates the trouble still further, 
 by depriving the discharged laborers of purchasing 
 power by cutting off or reducing their wages. 
 Thus the disease works its way into the very 
 vitals of trade, until all life and energy have gone 
 out of it, and stagnation and decay set in. 
 
 This is the usual and common story of the men 
 who have been hurt by the Trust. But in seeking 
 for the cause of their trouble they are like the
 
 l^HUSTS AND DEPARTMENT STORES. I4I 
 
 blind man, who, being led up to the foreleg of a 
 large elephant and asked to describe what to him 
 the elephant looked like, after feeling all around 
 the limb, said he thought it must look like the 
 trunk of a tree. These men do not see the whole 
 trouble any more than the blind man saw the 
 whole elephant, and do not know that they are 
 only dealing with a result and not with the cause. 
 Something caused the Trust to form ; and that 
 something was prices falling so low that profits 
 disappeared, and to protect the profits these 
 Trusts were formed. 
 
 These Trusts were not formed for the benefit 
 of those outside, but to protect the Trusts them- 
 selves from falling prices ; and thus far they have 
 been able to do it. The Trusts, like the Banks, 
 keep the price of their commodities up, while 
 everything else in the hands of the people is con- 
 stantly shrinking in value. Thus it will be seen 
 that while everything has a cause, that cause may 
 not be a first cause ; and in the case of the Trust 
 it will be seen that while falling prices caused the 
 Trust to 1)0 formed, there was something behind 
 that which caused llic prices themselves to fall. 
 This brings us back to the main argument of the 
 book, which has been previously presented on 
 page 51. 
 
 One can readily see, then, how all these results, 
 in tlie form of unnatural, perverted, and artificial 
 monstrosities called Trusts, are .so readily seized
 
 142 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 upon as being the cause instead of the effect of 
 trouble, by men who have not had the time to trace 
 back from effect to cause, or from cause to effect. 
 If every business man would give a little time to 
 studying the masters in finance, instead of jump- 
 ing so readily to a conclusion as to the cause of 
 our financial and commercial troubles, — like the 
 man who is ready to fight the man back of him 
 for treading upon his heels, while that man back 
 of him is fighting a crowd of men pressing him on, 
 — he would soon ascertain the first cause of those 
 troubles, and, by acting in unison with all those 
 having interests in common, the correct remedy 
 might speedily be found and applied, and we 
 should soon have higher prices and national pros- 
 perity. 
 
 While the wholesaler and jobber are attributing 
 all our trouble and depression to Trusts, the re- 
 tailers throughout the land are fiercely assailing 
 the department stores as being the great cause. 
 In Chicago a formidable movement has been 
 made to tax the department store out of exist- 
 ence. But here, again, a secondary rather than 
 a primary cause has been seized upon. Compared 
 with the Trust, so far as the people are concerned, 
 the department store is a real blessing. It serves 
 the public needs, without doing the public as a 
 whole an injury, as is the case with the Trust. 
 The public can exercise a choice in dealing with 
 a department store, but not so with a Trust ; for
 
 TRi^STS AND DEPARTMENT STORES. I43 
 
 the latter controls certain necessities of the whole 
 nation, and thus compels the people to buy of it 
 alone, since they cannot do without necessities. 
 
 Commercially considered, however, the depart- 
 ment store is a detriment ; for while the practice 
 of concentrating every variety of goods under one 
 roof is convenient to the people, the practice car- 
 ries with it a power of centralizing capital which, 
 m the end, is used against its very patrons in 
 their occupations. It is a well-established fact 
 that the department store has been made a suc- 
 cess through its bargain-counters, so far as at- 
 tracting trade is concerned ; but it is a question 
 if this will not in time work its own destruction, 
 unless (which is more probable) an understanding 
 and agreement through combination does not in- 
 terfere to regulate this. The bargain-counter 
 principle in the department store undermines 
 not only a living profit for all other stores, 
 but it breaks down the general market price of 
 goods in the factories and mills, forcing them 
 to reduce labor in order to meet this slaughter 
 caused by the bargain-counter. 
 
 It is the abuse of the original bargain-counter 
 idea, however, which is now working an injury to 
 trade. Buying "job lots " at the mills or at sher- 
 iff's sales, and advertising special days, or even 
 special liours during a day, and selling an article 
 for one-half its retail ])rice, charging the loss in 
 with the cost of the advertising account, is a
 
 144 FALLING PR ICES. 
 
 practice which is rapidly developing in the depart- 
 ment store system, forced upon it by the sharp 
 competition which works such injury to trade in 
 general. This system, in time, means the anni- 
 hilation of the small stores in special lines. 
 Nine-tenths of these stores go down from loss 
 on old stock, which has been accumulating more 
 and more rapidly since the advent of the depart- 
 ment store, and for which there is no remedy. 
 But the cost of selling is the test of the two 
 systems. A seven dollars per week salesman in 
 a department store will sell double the average 
 amount taken by most stores, in single lines ; 
 and in these latter stores running expenses are 
 double those of the department store, relative 
 to amount of sales. This uneven contest means 
 the extinction of the single-line store. This takes 
 away another opportunity in the commercial field, 
 and the once small-store proprietor now becomes 
 a seven-dollar man behind the counter of the 
 department store. 
 
 But while all this works greater and greater 
 hardships upon the people under falling prices, 
 and intensifies the general business depression, 
 it must not be considered as the cause of falling 
 price.s, when it is only one of their many results.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OVERPRODUCTION. 
 
 Among the many theories, hobbies, and fads 
 put forth by writers and speakers to account for 
 the cause of the fall in prices and depression in 
 business, perhaps the one most harped upon of 
 all others is that of "overproduction." While 
 I have by no means ignored this in my general 
 argument hitherto, its importance requires that I 
 devote to its consideration a special, though short, 
 chapter. 
 
 To show the hollowness of this i)opular delu- 
 sion, put forth by banker, editor, pastor, and 
 politician, it will only be necessary to recall the 
 fact that in i .S6o, when nearly as great a per- 
 centage of our laborers were out of employment 
 as in 1893, the popular cry of "overproduction" 
 was heard above all others; and in 1X61 ihi.s 
 condition was intensified by the breaking out of 
 the war. Here again wc find 110 money in cir- 
 culation ; " shin - plasters " and postage stamps 
 were all iIkj people had with which to make 
 exchanges. No one would t(»iirh a hank hill, as 
 all the banks and the government itself had 
 
 •15
 
 146 FALLIxYG PRICES. 
 
 suspended specie payments. It was a complete 
 paralysis of trade. And yet while every one was 
 in want, and producers and manufacturers could 
 not sell a dollar's worth, the old cry of "over- 
 production " was set up for the thousandth time. 
 But in less than a year every mill, every mine and 
 furnace, was running night and day ; the work- 
 houses and jails, the highways and byways, were 
 scoured for men of every kind, and farmers were 
 scolding the manufacturers for having stolen their 
 help. Prices were advancing all along the line. 
 Foreigners came over here in swarms, leaving 
 nations with one hundred per cent. " honest " 
 dollars, and giving preference to "thirty-eight" 
 per cent, "dishonest" paper dollars. Yet men 
 enough could not be found to do the work de- 
 manded, though those employed were worked 
 night and day ; and there were no goods to be 
 found in the markets, and as a consequence prices 
 kept advancing. Any man in the dry goods 
 business at that time knows that cotton cloth 
 advanced from five cents a yard to seventy-five 
 cents in three years' time ; and still goods were 
 scarce, though only a few years previous we 
 were told there were too many goods ! 
 
 Now, every one knows that these "good times" 
 continued until 1873, when something happened. 
 That something was the contraction of the cur- 
 rency, followed by a panic and "hard times," from 
 which we have not yet recovered. The mills and
 
 OVERPRODUCriOX. 1 47 
 
 mines were closed, and this while they were full 
 of orders. The help was discharged, as the banks 
 could not furnish money for pay-rolls ; trade fell 
 off, as the people could not buy for the need of 
 money. Is it not evident, then, that not an over- 
 supply of food in the midst of want and hunger, 
 not an oversupply of clothing when people are in 
 rags, but an undersupply of money, is the primary 
 cause of our business depression ? 
 
 There is never overproduction in the great 
 cities during national campaigns on the night 
 of election. Market-baskets and bundles testify 
 to the return of prosperity in an hour's time 
 after the polls close. But it only lasts about 
 an hour, and does not return until another four 
 years come around, when the same causes pro- 
 duce the same effects. Take away a nation's 
 money, and you will have overproduction of 
 good.s, with want and suffering. We never have 
 a so-called overproduction of goods when we do 
 not at the same time have want and suffering: 
 for those very goods. The people being strijiped 
 of their money are deprived of the necessities of 
 life. Not an overproduction of goods, but an 
 undersui)ply of money is the trouble. One will 
 always hear the general complaint that money is 
 scarce just before hearing of an overproduction. 
 Ovcrproduclioti, then, |)ut Inrlh as a cause of 
 hard times, is simply putting the cart before the 
 horse.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HARD TIMES THE EFFECT OF •' IMPROVED 
 MACHINERY." 
 
 While the press, pulpit, banker, and politician 
 are clamoring about " overproduction " being the 
 cause of our nation's decay, the trades and work- 
 ing-classes are crying out against improved ma- 
 chinery as being responsible for the disaster which 
 has come upon our nation. 
 
 As the overworked and jaded street-car horses 
 used to fall under their loads in the sun's torrid 
 rays, an expression of sympathy usually went up 
 from the bystanders, and the advent of steam or 
 electricity was invoked to relieve these suffering 
 dumb servants of man ; societies for the preven- 
 tion of cruelty to animals were organized to 
 protest against overwork and underfeeding, and 
 to secure humane treatment especially for every 
 animal in the service of man. But how about 
 man himself .-* Is he not more valuable than the 
 beasts that perish ? Shall we deny to him pro- 
 tection from overwork and ill fare .'' Improved 
 machinery, if rightly applied, will bless and not 
 
 curse mankind. 
 
 148
 
 HARD TIMES. I49 
 
 Now, of course, there is some real grievance 
 back of this feeling among the people against 
 improved machinery. Let us see if we can find 
 out what and why it is. 
 
 Under the conditions produced by our present 
 financial system, which has brought about low 
 prices and sharp competition, manufacturers are 
 driven to every device to undersell one another in 
 the market ; and they have seized upon improved 
 machinery as one of the means at hand for pro- 
 tecting their own interests. Every new machine 
 invented is used to underwork human labor, and 
 so to supplant it. Therefore, the more machines 
 there are introduced into the mills and shops, 
 the less of hand-labor there is required, and the 
 lower are the wages paid to the laborers still cm- 
 ployed. All the improved machinery is thus oper- 
 ated, not to lessen, but to increase, the burden 
 of the wage-earner ; it is operated in the interest of 
 the manufacturers, of the rich stockholders in the 
 mills and factories. And why not? liuman na- 
 ture is selfish, we all say ; and when that natural 
 selfishness is stimulated and tempted by false and 
 brutal financial systems, which force down prices 
 and compel fierce competition, how can we expect 
 otherwise than that those who have the power in 
 their hands — -and combined cajiital always holds 
 that power over ill-organized and nninlclligent 
 labor — will use it for their own benefit rather 
 than for the welfare of suffering humanity .'' This
 
 I50 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 is the day, and at present this is the opportunity, 
 of the rich, — of those who work not with their 
 hands, but with their bonds and their stocks. And 
 the law-makers of the present time are their paid 
 allies, forging and supplying them with the weap- 
 ons — the so-called laws and enactments of 
 Legislatures and Congress — whereby they can 
 protect their own interests against the larger and 
 more inclusive interests of the whole people. Pri- 
 vate ownership, private gain, not public welfare, 
 holds the upper hand, and misuses every means to 
 enrich the few and impoverish the many. 
 
 Thus, while the improved machine does the 
 needed work cheaper, better, and quicker — as it 
 was intended to do — than mere hand-labor can 
 do it, the difference in gain does not go to the 
 people. It goes to the owner of the machine ; 
 and this difference in gain to the machine owner 
 is in exact ratio to the number of men displaced 
 by the use of the machine. This is in accordance 
 with the immoral law of profit at the expense of 
 human welfare. This law will not always stand, 
 any more than did the slave-laws ; but it will last 
 as long as the present money system lasts, which 
 caused the fall in prices. 
 
 To show that machinery is not wholly responsi- 
 ble for the great change which has come over the 
 country, it is only necessary to say that the manu- 
 facturers, merchants, and farmers suffer alike, in 
 the end, with the operative ; while if machinery
 
 HARD TIMES. T5I 
 
 alone were the cause, the operative alone would be 
 the sufferer. The manufacturers suffer by pro- 
 ducing with their improved machinery more than 
 the working-people, without wages and without 
 money, can consume ; and in the end their mills 
 have to shut down, and their machines stand idle. 
 The merchants suffer by having stores full of 
 goods which they cannot sell without ruinous cost 
 to themselves, because the unemployed and money- 
 less people cannot buy even at low prices. The 
 farmers suffer, because the working-people who 
 need their produce cannot purchase it without 
 work and its consequent wages. The rich alone 
 do not experience suffering, because they have 
 accumulated wealth, and are independent of labor. 
 No ; " improved machinery " is not the cause, 
 but the result of the hard times. When times be- 
 come good, under natural conditions, — conditions 
 in which man will exchange services with man on 
 equitable terms, — then every man will welcome 
 the advent of machinery in order to lessen his 
 hours of toil ; permitting, as it will, of greater op- 
 portunity for his recreation and self-improvement.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CONFIDENCE. 
 
 The term "confidence" is more frequently 
 used during financial disaster than during com- 
 mercial and trade depression. It is not unusual 
 to have financial panics without disturbance to 
 commerce. When such panics are on, the first 
 cry finding general expression is that " confidence 
 will soon be restored, and then everything will be 
 all right." There is never much knowledge at 
 hand regarding the street's financial trouble, or 
 why the banks are involved. The press tries to 
 control the situation by giving assurance that 
 " confidence will soon be restored," and that 
 " everything will be running smoothly in a few 
 days." 
 
 Such panics are like scandals and divorce cases 
 in high life, which are usually settled without 
 allowing the public to know much about the 
 details of the case. Finance has always been held 
 above the concern of the people, just as the old 
 way of doing mercantile business was before the 
 war. The common people, the working-people, 
 were never supposed to know anything concerning 
 the cost to or the profit made by those who were 
 
 152
 
 COXFIDEA'CE. I 5 3 
 
 manufacturing, buying, and selling goods. The 
 dear people were presumed to have " confidence " 
 in the integrity of merchants in those days, taking 
 it for granted that the firms paid all they could for 
 labor, and sold as cheaply as was possible. 
 
 It was not until the manufacturers applied to 
 the government for financial assistance in the 
 matter of a tariff that the people became informed 
 upon the cost and profit of all kinds of manufac- 
 tured goods ; and from this one cause, more than 
 from any other, came the great strikes of to-day. 
 Now the leaders of labor organizations can give 
 closer figures upon cost of production and trans- 
 portation of goods than those who have made 
 investments in such goods. This same observa- 
 tion holds in regard to banking. The people for- 
 merly did not know anything about banking or the 
 principle of money, ^ — about its origin, volume, 
 material, or under whose control it was. It was 
 not until the bankers in their turn api)lied to the 
 government, and asked for a royalty upon their 
 transactions, that the people became informed 
 upon the question of finance ; and to-day there 
 are more books and documents upon this subject 
 than upon any other. The people now understand 
 the financial question comparatively well, for it 
 has been thoroughly discussed in all political cam- 
 jiaigns for tlic past twenty years ; and things have 
 been so changed that "confidence" has become 
 an ob.solete expression, and of late has not had
 
 154 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 any appreciable inllucncc in affecting the public 
 mind. Ignorance and confidence may be fitly 
 called twin sisters. To-day, all alive, up-to-date 
 business men want to understand cause and 
 effect ; and now when any serious trouble affects 
 the business community, they cannot — as they 
 could twenty years ago — be hushed and com- 
 forted with the old cry, " Have confidence ! have 
 confidence ! and all will be well." No ; the peo- 
 ple are becoming intelligent, and will demand that 
 definite laws be passed to promote the interests of 
 the business community and the people, instead 
 of those of the few ; and while they may be baf- 
 fled or put off for a little time longer by their law- 
 makers, the hour will come when the people will 
 peremptorily insist upon a new order of things, 
 and then the old cry of "Have confidence" will 
 cause only a smile of derision.
 
 CHAPTER Xlir. 
 
 SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 
 
 The phrase "supply and demand" is in all 
 probability used with greater frequency in discuss- 
 ing questions regarding the regulation of business 
 conditions and the rise and fall in prices than any 
 other, especially by men who have not made a 
 thorough and scientific study of economics. It 
 will be observed, however, that this phrase is 
 more commonly used in the marts of commerce 
 and trade than in agricultural districts, and the 
 reason is obvious. The merchant has observed, 
 during his years of business experience, that a 
 scarcity of goods causes an advance in the price, 
 while an overabundance of goods causes a drop in 
 the price ; in other words, that when there is an 
 eager demand for goods the price advances, while 
 when buyers are coy and the market plethoric 
 prices soften. 
 
 While merchants are usually what we call "hard- 
 headed " men, sharp, positive, intense, and practi- 
 cal, they arc not as a rule philosophers ; that is, 
 they judge of the oi)eration of cause and effect 
 from their day-to-day narrow experience. They 
 do not take a broad outlook upon the different 
 
 «55
 
 156 FALLING r RICES. 
 
 periods of their nation's history, — periods when 
 prices were constantly rising, and other periods 
 when they were as constantly falling, — and study 
 the law of cause and effect as it operates in this 
 larger arena of activity, and try to find \.\\q primal 
 reason why prices at one time rise, and why at 
 another time they fall. It is sufficient for them 
 to know that, in their narrow sphere, when goods 
 are scarce prices rise, and when they are plentiful 
 prices fall. When a buyer asks a seller, " How is 
 trade to-day.''" and the seller replies, "First-rate! 
 Our only trouble is to get the goods ; prices are 
 advancing all the time, and you would do well to 
 book your order before they go higher," he is 
 applying the law of supply and demand to the 
 small range of his own personal affairs. From 
 his limited point of view he is indeed right in his 
 diagnosis ; but from the standpoint of the political 
 economist, — the man who is called upon to advise 
 a young and free nation what kind of a financial 
 system it must adopt in order to cope successfully 
 with old and established and plutocratic countries, 
 — he is far from being right, and needs to enlarge 
 and broaden his views to meet national and inter- 
 national requirements. 
 
 Now, let a professor in political economy ask 
 this merchant why it is that prices are from one 
 thousand to five thousand per cent, higher in this 
 country than they are in China ; or why prices are 
 fifty per cent, lower in Canada than in the United
 
 SUPPLY AND DEMAND. I 5/ 
 
 States ; or why it is that prices are one hundred 
 per cent, higher in Mexico than in the United 
 States, — and he will see that this will put his 
 "supply and demand" theory to the test at once. 
 Could he cite or explain the laws and systems 
 which produce this discrepancy in prices 1 Cer- 
 tainly it cannot be ordinary supply and demand 
 which makes wheat one hundred per cent, higher 
 on one side of the Mexican line than it is upon 
 the other ; for in that case wheat would go right 
 over the line. By this it can easily be seen that 
 supply and demand do not regulate prices in a 
 national or international sense. So far as a short 
 crop of apples or a large crop in New England is 
 concerned, it does ; and while the price may go up 
 in regard to apples, it may at the same time go 
 down in regard to potatoes, under the influence of 
 a big crop. But what was the cause of prices of 
 all commodities — of land, of railroads, of labor, 
 of everything except United States bonds and 
 other similar securities — experiencing a fall in 
 value from 1865 until to-day, and still continuing 
 to fall ? Will the answer of supply and demand 
 meet this case ? Again, what caused prices of 
 everything except United States bonds constantly 
 to rise from 1862 until 1865? Why should a 
 house that cost $5,000 in 1865 fall fifty per cent, 
 in ten years, and a $5,000 United States IkhuI rise 
 one hundred per cent, (hn ing the .same timr.' 
 When asked the cause of the fall of prices for the
 
 158 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 past thirty years, does the answer of supply and 
 demand meet the point ? Certainly not, in the 
 sense in which the merchant uses it in regard to 
 supply and demand of goods. 
 
 There is, however, a way in which the law of 
 supply and demand can be applied in accounting 
 for the rise and fall in values ; and that is in 
 the demand and supply of money, — not between 
 money-lenders and the people, but between the 
 relative amount of the nation's currency circula- 
 tion and the property of the nation. To curtail, 
 or contract, the nation's volume of money, and 
 thus make it scarce, will have the same effect 
 upon its price as upon that of the short crop of 
 potatoes ; it will become dear. Just here is the 
 mistake which the average business man makes. 
 He cannot see that the dollars as well as the 
 potatoes can go up in price. To his mind every- 
 thing else can go up or down, but dollars must 
 ever remain the same ! If he is compelled to give 
 eighty cents for a bushel of potatoes, one hundred 
 per cent, rise over last year's price, he explains it 
 by saying that potatoes are scarce, and the price of 
 them has gone up. Suppose now that he goes out 
 to buy $2,000. All he has to buy this money with 
 is a house. Ten years ago he gave $4,000 for his 
 house, and since this house has maintained its 
 relative value to all surrounding properties, he 
 expects now to get $4,000 for il. But he finds 
 the price of money has gone up, like the pota-
 
 SUPPLY A\D DEMAND. I 59 
 
 toes, one hundred per cent. ; and so instead of 
 giving $2,000 worth of the $4,000 house for the 
 money he wants, he is compelled to give $4,000 
 worth of house for $2,000 of money. Money 
 has become so scarce on account of the govern- 
 ment calling in three-quarters of its volume, that, 
 like the scarce potatoes, the price of it has so 
 risen that no one else will sell it any less. All 
 having money want as good as a $4,000 house for 
 $2,000 worth of money. 
 
 Therefore, while the law of supply and demand 
 as applied to trade and commodities will hold 
 good, the man so using it must be consistent 
 enough to apply it to the matter of money, and to 
 the greater or less amount of it in circulation ; 
 since money, under the nation's law, measures all 
 values by its quantity, and is intended to supply 
 a medium of exchange of commodities, and also to 
 be the instrument for the liquidation of all debts.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMARY OF OVERPRODUCTIONS, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 Having passed over a wide field in seeking to 
 account for the thirty years' fall in prices, a brief 
 review may be needful in assisting the reader to 
 fix upon the true cause. 
 
 In the outset we were positive of one undeniable 
 fact, and that was the constant fall in prices ; but 
 while all were agreed upon that fact, and also upon 
 the fact of the injury to business and suffering to 
 the people resulting there from, we found but few 
 who understood the true cause of it. 
 
 In order to treat the cause scientifically, it was 
 necessary to go back to the year in which prices 
 began to fall, and to seek for the cause at that 
 time, rather than to try to ascertain it in the con- 
 ditions existing after years have wrought their 
 havoc in prices. By beginning at the wrong end 
 of an investigation we are not only apt to mis- 
 take effect for cause, but we often attribute that 
 as a cause which did not exist at the beginning 
 of the trouble, — as, for instance, "overproduc- 
 tion." There was no overproduction in 1866. 
 
 160
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. l6l 
 
 There was a great scarcity of goods everywhere, 
 which scarcity continued for some five years after 
 the fall in prices began, — showing that accumu- 
 lation of goods was the effect rather than the 
 cause of fall in prices ; but once becoming a con- 
 comitant cause from which prices were depressed, 
 it was only one of the many little feeders to the 
 mighty stream of causes, — like a river, which, 
 while it has its prime great source, is often 
 swollen by many tributaries, though even these 
 tributaries do not add much until the heavy rains 
 swell their normal size. 
 
 In the stream of causes of falling prices, over- 
 production is well down the list of tributaries. 
 Taking money contraction, which commenced dur- 
 ing 1866 and 1867, another tributary to the cause 
 comes in before overproduction ; it is that of pre- 
 mium on gold. It must be remembered that as 
 fast as the currency was contracted, the premium 
 fell on gold ; and since the duties at the custom- 
 house were paid in gold, the premium was the 
 regulator of our tariff. In July, 1864, gold sold 
 for $2.85. This was an addition of $1.85 on 
 every dollar paid on the fixed tariff schedules, and 
 very naturally it was a prohibitory tariff, and kept 
 out goods which had always been made abroad, 
 but which were now made at home. As fast as 
 the tariff was reduced through the fall in gold, an 
 increase of imported goods followed ; but the 
 reader must remember that it was the contraction
 
 1 62 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 of currency which caused the fall in gold, which 
 in turn caused a drop in the tariff ; and this was 
 followed by large importations of goods, forcing 
 our workshops to close, or to reduce the home 
 prices to meet the foreign prices. As a result of 
 this, the markets became overstocked, factories 
 began to shorten time and cut wages. It was at 
 this time that the cry of "overproduction" was 
 raised as the cause of the trouble ; when the truth 
 was that the real cause — contraction — had been 
 doing its work for five or six years, and the lower- 
 ins: of the tariff and the overstocked markets were 
 both results, and not causes. 
 
 As prices continued to fall, from continued con- 
 traction of money, new tributaries of secondary 
 causes were felt, and these in turn were put forth 
 as the prime cause. Stories of fabulous prices 
 paid for labor here made the workers in the old 
 countries uneasy, and we had a great influx of im- 
 migration. This in turn was seized upon as a 
 cause of our people being deprived of labor, and 
 of the hard times ; while the times had begun to 
 grow hard long before increased immigration took 
 place. But contraction kept on its steady course, 
 and prices correspondingly fell. Although silver 
 was at a premium over gold, the political powers 
 would not allow it to be coined, making the pinch 
 of money tighter and tighter. 
 
 In 1877, as a result of this contraction, times 
 were well-nigh as bad as they could possibly be.
 
 RE VIE IV OF OVERPRODUCTION. 1 63 
 
 It was estimated that there were three millions of 
 people out of work at this time, though those 
 having work were receiving high wages, as com- 
 pared with wages of to-day ; the merchandise 
 and manufactured goods, however, were relatively 
 much lower. It was at or about this time that 
 improved machinery began to enter the field for 
 competition with hand-labor ; this started the cry 
 against machinery, and, in time, it also was given 
 out as the cause of the hard times, while it was 
 only another tributary now felt by the more acute 
 and intensified depressed condition. 
 
 Lastly comes the greatest alleged cause, "lack 
 of confidence." This is the complaint of last 
 resort, after all others have failed. This last cry 
 usually comes from the bankers and brokers, men 
 who have watered stocks and questionable securi- 
 ties to sell. The innocent and credulous people, 
 having had their fingers burned many times in 
 handling these stocks and securities, now naturally 
 "lack confidence," and their timidity and indis- 
 position to invest is announced as the cause of 
 our hard times. 
 
 It will thus be seen that nearly every trade and 
 calling has a special theory to bring forward. The 
 merchant finds the market blocked with goods, and 
 no buyers ; to him the cause of falling prices is 
 overproduction. The wage-earner is displaced by 
 machinery, and to him improved machinery is the 
 cause. The native laborer is crowded out by
 
 164 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 the immigrant, and to him immigration is the 
 cause. The broker and the banker find the peo- 
 ple do not "walk into my parlor," and they cry 
 out, " Lack of confidence ! " 
 
 All this time, however, prices were gradually 
 falling lower and lower, while the first cause of 
 the depression still remained in full force. Any 
 attempt to overcome this cause during the past 
 thirty years by any increase of currency has been 
 met by the very stoutest opposition on the part of 
 organized capital. But when the real cause shall 
 be removed by restoring to the people a sufificient 
 volume of money to enable them to carry on busi- 
 ness, then, and not before, will prosperity be 
 restored, and labor and capital alike find profit- 
 able employment. 
 
 We now come to the disastrous results of fall- 
 ing prices. There are few outside the small 
 number of the excessively rich who have not 
 felt the heavy hand of shrinkage and depression 
 either on their property, their business, or their 
 income during the past thirty years. This does 
 not show itself in public to the extent of the suf- 
 fering experienced, but has been carefully con- 
 cealed and borne in private. 
 
 By studying circular No. 123, issued by the 
 Treasury Department of the United States in 
 July, 1896, it will be observed that on page 54 
 it states that we have $1,222,618,792 in coin and 
 bullion in the nation and the Treasury. Of course
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. 1 65 
 
 this is all guesswork, since no man living can tell 
 how much or how little gold or silver there is in 
 the pockets of seventy millions of people. On the 
 same page, however, one can observe that in 1875 
 there were but twenty-five millions of dollars and 
 bullion in the whole country, which of course in- 
 cluded the United States Treasury ; in 1877 this 
 had suddenly jumped into one billion seven mil- 
 lions, in round numbers. Other tables in the 
 circular show an export of from three to forty-two 
 millions of gold per annum. This, with the 
 amount taken out of the country by tourists, 
 and the amount used in the arts, must make 
 the amount in circulation a very difficult prob- 
 lem to solve ; yet upon this unknown quantity 
 the government bases a per capita of circula- 
 lation which measures the price of our products, 
 commodities, and labor. 
 
 There are two reasons why the merchant should 
 exercise vigilance upon this matter of volume of 
 currency. The first is, that when currency is 
 contracted, one of two things results : either the 
 banks avail themselves of the opportunity to loan 
 their credit (which cost them nothing), or jianic 
 and the fall in price of all commodities in the 
 hands of merchants and manufacturers take place, 
 not mentioning the heavy loss in outstanding ac- 
 counts. Why the merchants and manufacturers 
 do not keep a lobby in (j)ngress to work for an 
 inrrensc of the volume of money in ratio t(j in-
 
 1 66 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 crease of population and business demands — as 
 do the bankers, who pack the halls of legislation 
 for the purpose of constantly reducing the volume 
 — -is more than I can account for. But the rea- 
 son most generally offered is, that the banks 
 threaten any and every merchant and manufac- 
 turer who dares to make any move to increase the 
 nation's currency, or to join any party having that 
 for its object. This opposition on the part of the 
 banks to an increase of currency began with the 
 earliest history of our country, and it has ever 
 been the policy of every great party. So far, no 
 one of our great parties, except the early Republi- 
 can party under Lincoln, ever dared, even in the 
 needs of war, to defy the banks in this regard. 
 But the importance of such an increase was never 
 before understood as it is to-day. In fact, the 
 merchants and manufacturers never had anything 
 to make them think about monetary problems as 
 the present fall in prices has done. When print 
 cloth falls from 38 1-2 cents to 21-8 cents ; when 
 raw cotton falls from 122 cents to 5 cents ; and in 
 fact the price of everything else falls in the same 
 ratio, unless it is held up by a trust ; and when to 
 create this trust the capital from England or Wall 
 Street supplants the capital of those who are es- 
 tablished in business, out of whose hands the 
 trust now forces it by bank legislation in Con- 
 gress, and thus brings about the destruction of all 
 who are engaged in a legitimate form of business,
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. 167 
 
 — when, I say, all this comes to pass, then the 
 average business man begins seriously to think 
 that something is wrong, and that perhaps it is 
 for his interest to "meddle with politics," and 
 even to study and make himself acquainted with 
 the principles of political economy. 
 
 It is said that appearances are deceitful ; and to 
 no single phase of life does this maxim apply more 
 than to the financial standing of many in the com- 
 munity to-day. That other old saying, that pride 
 and poverty walk together, applies to the present 
 times as never before. This all results from the 
 great change which has taken place in the circum- 
 stances of so many in the community. Individual 
 cases of misfortune will occur in the best of times ; 
 but the nation has never passed through a period 
 of thirty years of such depression before, so that 
 it has now become the exception to find a man 
 making money in open market. In fact, business 
 men, like the provision dealer who puts the best 
 fruit on top of the barrel, are making their best 
 show in i)ublic, while they are agonizing in 
 private. 
 
 Many are misled to think that hard times exist 
 only in their imaginations, or in their jiarticular 
 cases ; but let them try to sell goods at old fig- 
 ures, or even try to collect old accounts, or 
 ])erhaps ask a little assistance even of those from 
 whom they feel they have a right to ask a favor, 
 and they will soon find the idea vanishing from
 
 1 68 FALLIXa PRICKS. 
 
 their minds that their case of distress is an isolated 
 one. 
 
 Go to any part of the great business commu- 
 nity, and you will find this experience the same, 
 although the country does not suffer like the city 
 from the sensitiveness of pride. The business 
 man suffers by comparison with the man who has 
 money to invest ; for the latter is now richer than 
 ever, as his "goods" (bonds) are constantly rising 
 in the market. A ten or twenty years' bond invest- 
 ment, non-taxable, with everything else growing 
 cheaper, is what makes good times for the invest- 
 ing class, enabling them to live more sumptuously 
 than before ; but the mercantile community must 
 scrimp in every conceivable way to make both 
 ends meet, and this forced economy, compared 
 with the increasing luxury of those with whom 
 they once could vie in living expenses, creates 
 keenly uncomfortable feelings. All this comes 
 from a change in the nation's financial system, 
 producing conflicting interests among classes. 
 
 Then there are those who, not understanding 
 finance, and having confidence in their brokers and 
 bankers, have placed their all in second and third 
 mortgage bonds and watered stocks, who when 
 the " squeeze " came on lost their all, and were 
 thrown on a world gradually growing harder and 
 closer under the same system that had robbed 
 them ; and they find it almost an utter impossi- 
 bility to get anything to do. This class, whose
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. 1 69 
 
 numbers are simply incalculable, being oblivious 
 of the shrewd scheme adopted by the crafty ma- 
 nipulators of their holdings, instead of retaining 
 their bonds and stocks, were shaken out of them 
 by the shrinking process ; and these selfsame 
 properties, under the reorganization which fol- 
 lowed, are now owned by multi-millionaires. In 
 fact, had it not been for the shrinkage, the first- 
 mortgage bondholders would not have gotten hold 
 of the properties at all. These results are the 
 fruits of the present system of contraction and its 
 consequent falling prices. 
 
 I have not yet, however, presented the darkest 
 picture resulting from the work of contraction. 
 I have not yet shown the ruin and despair it has 
 carried into the fireside of farm and home, of old 
 and young alike, of hundreds and hundreds of 
 thousands throughout the land, who in early man- 
 hood and womanhood took up life together in 
 dead earnest, and settled in rural regions in the 
 East or West, where they built their homes for 
 life ; or the industrial and frugal young couples 
 who have undertaken, in or near our cities, to 
 build and pay for a home, — all of whom, by this 
 merciless robber - system of shrinkage on their 
 little holdings, by loss of time and enforced 
 idleness, and l)y constantly falling prices of 
 products, have had taken from them farm and 
 home alike, and seen them transferred to crafty 
 "investors," whose cold-blooded chuckling we
 
 170 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 can almost hear as the sheriff hands them the 
 title-deeds of these distrained possessions. 
 
 Then there is that great disinherited class who 
 under present systems can never hope to own a 
 home ; who were not only born tenants, but who 
 must live and die tenants, since they can never 
 see the daylight of hope under our present sys- 
 tems, — systems which do not favor the poor or 
 even the moderately rich, but which favor the 
 excessively, enormously rich. Thoughtful men 
 and true patriots are becoming startled at the 
 rapidly approaching events which cast their dark 
 and ominous shadows before, — events which will 
 surely bring to us more grievous troubles than 
 any we have yet experienced, unless men of 
 wisdom, honor, and justice get control of our 
 nation's politics. 
 
 In showing the cause which produced the long 
 depression under which the nation has suffered, I 
 desire to hold myself above any party opinion, or 
 the seeking for any party's advantage. To get 
 at the cause scientifically is alone my desire. 
 
 There are a number of systems which, if 
 adopted, would tend to lower values and de- 
 press certain lines of business for a time, until 
 the special business under the system in vogue 
 had adjusted itself to the new system, when all 
 would be running smoothly. But I shall try to 
 show that the broad system governing all values 
 in every department of trade, industry, property,
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. I /I 
 
 agriculture, and labor, — the one great lever which 
 has the power to lift or lower the values of all 
 wealth at the same time, — is in the hands of the 
 people to change as they elect, through those 
 chosen to represent them in the legislative halls 
 at Washington. 
 
 I have already shown in Chapter V., under the 
 head of Money, that every nation has its own 
 independent monetary system. No nation would 
 be an independent nation which did not ; and any 
 nation which becomes so weak as to be forced to 
 accept dictation upon this one vital function in 
 its government, is dependent upon that nation 
 so dictating for its sinews of war. Therefore, 
 the first and greatest of all functions in govern- 
 ment, so far as a people are concerned, is to have 
 the most thorough and complete control of the 
 measure of values upon individual wealth and 
 labor. l^ven the coal miners in their last na- 
 tional strike made this contention one of their 
 strongest items of comi)laint ; and it was con- 
 ceded by all to be not only a gross injustice but 
 downright robbery that the coal companies should 
 do all the weighing of the miner's coal, not allow- 
 ing him to be present to see if he got fair weight. 
 
 Now, the gold dollar which is insisted upon by 
 the Wall Street millionaires is as much a loaded 
 dollar as any dice ever thrown by the gambler. 
 These coin dollars are made payable to the bond- 
 holders, in principal and interest. Why did not
 
 1/2 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 the law require that the farmer and laborer should 
 be paid in coin ? Simply because there was not a 
 majority of farmers and laborers in the Congress 
 which made the law ; the bankers and bondholders 
 were greatly in the majority. At that time the 
 American people knew no more about finance 
 than a Southern slave knew about the elective 
 franchise ; but to-day the Southern ex-slave knows 
 more about the elective franchise, and to-day the 
 American people also understand more about the 
 principle involved in making a dollar out of gold 
 or one out of paper. 
 
 Wall Street spent millions of dollars in trying 
 to show the farmers and cotton-growers of the 
 South and West that ;^2.50 per bushel for wheat, 
 which would pay the Wall-streeters ^2.50 of debt, 
 was not as good for the farmer as fifty cents per 
 bushel, which would only pay the Wall-streeters 
 fifty cents of debt. It is not often that the Wall- 
 streeters are seized with such solicitous concern 
 about the welfare of the farmer. Had this stock 
 of anxiety on the part of the brokers been reduced 
 when their representatives in Congress gave away 
 alternate twenty-mile sections of land on both sides 
 of the Pacific Railroad from Omaha to California, 
 and in addition a loan of sixty-four millions of dol- 
 lars in bonds, the farmer might have had more of 
 Uncle Sam's domain left upon which to settle to- 
 day ; and had it not been for the loaded Wall 
 Street dollar, by which the cotton-grower's cotton
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. 1 73 
 
 has been measured for the past thirty years, the 
 cotton-grower might have been getting forty cents 
 all these years instead of five cents, which is all 
 this "honest dollar" measures out to him to-day. 
 But under such a more righteous state of things 
 Wall Street would have been in debt to the cotton- 
 growers, and the people of the South would have 
 been satisfied to stick to cotton-growing, — in 
 which case they would not now be reduced to 
 such a state of poverty that they have been driven 
 to accept Wall Street capital to build cotton-mills, 
 and to give famishing children fifty cents a week 
 for twelve hours a day labor, the result of which, 
 according to the Arkwright Club, is now closing 
 Northern mills. This Arkwright Club emphasizes 
 " Southern competition " and " overproduction," 
 but is as silent as the grave upon the havoc the 
 loaded Wall Street dollar has wrought upon the 
 people, — first, by undermining protection from 
 foreign imports, and at the same time taking 
 nearly all values out of their products ; and, 
 secondly, by reducing them to such an impover- 
 ished condition that they arc no longer able as 
 consumers to reduce the accumulated products of 
 their mills. 
 
 It is a well-known fact that the South, because 
 of its climate, was formerly a great market for 
 manufactured cotton goods ; but to-day, because 
 of its |)Ovcrty, resulting from low prices caused by 
 tampering with the dollar of the nation, and also
 
 174 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 because of trust-conspiracies which have forced 
 down the price of its raw sugar, — the banks act- 
 ing with the trust in withholding accommodations 
 during the selling season, thus helping the merci- 
 less buying agents of the Sugar Trust to press 
 collections in order to force sales at bankrupting 
 prices, — because of all this, I say, that market no 
 longer exists. Thus, by the combined powers of 
 banks, loaded dollars, and trust-syndicates, filching 
 the annual wealth produced by the people, leaving 
 them helpless as purchasers, resulting in accu- 
 mulated stocks, stoppage of mills, and bringing 
 the East face to face with Southern conditions, 
 the Arkwright Club now has to meet a crisis in 
 its own section. And in its despair the Arkwright 
 Club folds its hands, rolls its eyes towards heaven, 
 and with all solemnity cries, " Overproduction ! " 
 " Southern competition ! " " Lack of confidence ! " 
 The Club then formulates a prescription for the 
 cure of these troubles, which is, " Reduce the 
 wages of the operatives still lower, and buy your 
 cotton cheaper," — a policy which if carried out 
 means that the new goods manufactured on the 
 lower figures would force down all the stocks 
 already on hand, not only in the warehouses of 
 the mills, but all those now in the jobbers' and 
 retailers' hands ; while the holders of these stocks 
 would be called upon to i)ay what they owe to the 
 banks in one-hundred-cent dollars, or in the "best 
 dollars in the civilized world," and their holdings
 
 RE VIE IV OF OVERPRODUCTION. I 75 
 
 in goods would leave them only seventy-five cents 
 on the dollar. What a remedy ! What a subter- 
 fuge to bolster up Wall Street's "loaded dollar" 
 system ! All this shrinkage, all this misery, all 
 this robbery of worker and producer is welcomed 
 sooner than to raise values, restore wages, and 
 give full employment by an increase of money 
 sufficient for the purpose, and thus enable the 
 people to live once more and become consumers 
 of the products they create ! 
 
 The only method by which better times can be 
 realized is by restoring values in products ; and 
 the only power by which that can be done is by 
 taking the money control from Wall Street and 
 placing it in the hands of the people, — letting the 
 increase of currency go on until the masses are 
 restored not only to bare living conditions, but to 
 comfortable and humane conditions. This, and 
 this only, is the remedy for falling prices and hard 
 times. 
 
 While contraction of the currency is the fust 
 and underlying cause of falling prices, falHng 
 prices in their turn carry loss to every one who 
 holds that class and nature of wealth which falls 
 or shrinks in value. It must, however, be remem- 
 bered that all kinds of wealth or holdings do not 
 fall with contracticm of the currency. Some kinds 
 of property may shrink, and other kinds advance 
 at the same time. I''or instance, wliile raih'oad 
 stocks will naturally fall under contraction of
 
 176 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 money in sympathy with most other property, 
 railroad bonds may at the same time retain their 
 market value, and in many instances become of 
 more value. This results from the fact that the 
 bonds of a road have a fixed rate of interest ; and 
 when the bonds are the first-mortgage bonds, and 
 the property will bring many times more than the 
 price of the bonds, then the bonds will advance in 
 the same market in which the stock will fall. The 
 reason for this is clear. The stock no longer pays 
 dividends, as under the hard times the road is not 
 earning sufficient to pay interest on the bonds, 
 and holders of stock begin to sell, which breaks 
 down the price. Should the road have second and 
 third mortgage bonds, these in turn would be sim- 
 ilarly effected. The third mortgage will suffer 
 first, and fall first in price ; after which, the 
 second may or may not suffer. Under such 
 severe depression as to force foreclosure on the 
 third mortgage, for default in interest, the stock 
 is usually wiped out. Thus it will be seen that 
 the first-mortgage bondholder, hoping to get the 
 property, will be willing to bid for any of the first- 
 mortgage bonds. Usually this class of investors 
 are anxious to intensify the depression of prices, 
 hoping that the holders of the second and third 
 mortgage bond-issues will be forced to let go, 
 when the holder of the first-mortgage bonds can 
 bid in the property, choose a reorganization com- 
 mittee, issue new stock, and list the same on the
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTIOX. I 77 
 
 board of the stock exchange, and thus perhaps 
 entrap a fresh list of victims to be fleeced and 
 buncoed by these ''honest-money" men of Wall 
 Street, who are constantly railing against the 
 farmers of the West as anarchists and repudiators, 
 when the real reason why these farmers are bank- 
 rupts and agitators is because they have not only 
 been robbed of the stock which they subscribed 
 for building the roads, but also oppressed by high 
 freight and passenger rates. The Wall Street 
 press have chanted this strain of added insult to 
 robbery so long that the careless and unthinking 
 throughout the land now believe it ; for loss of 
 respect almost always attends the loss of property, 
 while increase of wealth as surely brings with it 
 increase of respect and deference for those who 
 have it, — which respect and deference grow in 
 time into fear, so that to-day even the government 
 dare not consult any section or class outside of 
 Wall Street in regard to its policy in any emer- 
 gency. 
 
 To show the pompousness and arrogance of the 
 Wall Street clique in its edicts to the merchants, 
 in order to coerce them into consenting to legisla- 
 tion in Congress, I will quote here the following 
 extract from the Philadelphia Pnss {1893), the 
 mouth-piece of that clique : 
 
 There is real necessity for the early repeal of the silver 
 law now from another point of view. 'Ilic i).inks in all the
 
 178 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 leading cities have determined not to lend money, except in 
 the case of great necessity on the part of the borrower, until 
 the Senate votes. Merchants are suffering for cash, and 
 they are like to suffer more this month and next. Well- 
 filled bank-vaults are locked against them until a slow Sen- 
 ate repeals the purchasing clause of the July law. Such a 
 spectacle was never seen before. The bank reserves are 
 larger than at any time this year, — they are nearly as large 
 in New York as they were a year ago, — yet the whole 
 commercial community is inconvenienced, and is in danger 
 of bankruptcy, because cash is not available until the Sen- 
 ate acts. The New York banks long ago locked up money, 
 and last week it was publicly announced that the Chicago 
 banks had doHe the same. Mr. Thomas Dolan, one of the 
 leading manufacturers of this city, is quoted as saying : " A 
 president of a trust company has said to me that he has 
 $1,000,000, and he knows of $35,000,000 more, ready for 
 investment as soon as the Senate passes the repeal meas- 
 ure." Mr. Dolan's statement is absolutely true. In Bos- 
 ton the same state of affairs exists. Therefore repeal is 
 imperatively demanded by the mercantile community. 
 Thousands of solvent business men, looking into the future 
 of but a few weeks, see ruin and disaster if the Senate 
 doesn't vote, or if the bank officials don't relent. 
 
 While the demonetization of silver, in India and 
 the United States, was of the utmost importance 
 to the Lombard and Wall Street conspirators in 
 the way of adding power, financially and politically, 
 to the world's moneyed aristocracy, the plotters of 
 this outrage had an ulterior motive, by the success- 
 ful accomplishment of which they hoped to reap, 
 and have reaped, a rich harvest, — namely, to 
 wreck our railroads by means of the hard times
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. I 79 
 
 intentionally produced for this very purpose. As 
 a result of this wreckage, one bold and unscrupu- 
 lous operator already has control of fifty-two thou- 
 sand miles of American railways, and is turning 
 heaven and earth so to control financial legislation, 
 by converting all outstanding money into non-legal 
 tender, and thus depressing values and business, 
 as to force the balance of the roads of the country 
 into the hands of receivers, and form one gigantic 
 railroad trust of which he may pose before an 
 astonished world as its president. Wall Street 
 has set up the cry in its press that it would be a 
 dangerous political power in the hands of the 
 government to have it come into ownership of the 
 railroads ; but not a word is said about the danger 
 of having them come into the hands of one man, 
 an agent of a British syndicate. In order to get 
 possession of these roads, think of the inillions 
 of innocent investors who must be squeezed out of 
 every dollar they own in the world, and whose 
 numbers must be added to those whose life's hap- 
 jMness has been destroyed already by this same 
 Hritish-paid exploiter in robbing them of fifty-two 
 thousand miles of railroad ! Yet this man is fairly 
 idolized in Wall and Lombartl Streets, and the 
 gates of the court of St. James and of the Capitol 
 at Washington are swung wide open to give him 
 fulsome reception. This clima.x to a system 
 forced upon the nation by the \\\'ill Street bank- 
 ers, at a time when our country and freedom were
 
 iSo FALLING PRICES. 
 
 almost in their death throes, is the vision which 
 Abraham Lincohi saw when he wrote, just before 
 his assassination, the following letter to a friend : 
 
 As a result of the war, corporations have been en- 
 throned, and an era of corruption in high phices will 
 follow ; and the money power of the country will endeavor 
 to prolong its reign by working upon tiie prejudices of the 
 people, until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and 
 the Republic is destroyed. 1 feel at this moment more 
 anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even 
 in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may 
 prove groundless ! 
 
 This gigantic scheme, plotted in 1 862, was so 
 powerful in its very incipiency that, with a nation 
 divided against itself, even the lion-hearted Lincoln 
 could not at such a time throttle it. Having once 
 gotten control of national legislation, it has not 
 only not let go, but has entrenched itself in every 
 department of government, and can now bid de- 
 fiance to the rest of the country. Well may 
 thinking men tremble for the safety of their 
 country ; and when they look into its future, no 
 wonder they ask, "Where will this power stop .-' " 
 Already we have not less than three millions of 
 men who, under the present withdrawal of money 
 from active enterprise, can no longer find employ- 
 ment. This clearly shows the falling off in the 
 nation's wealth-productive power ; and this lack 
 of employment and consequent falling off in in- 
 crease of wealth will keep pace with the rapid
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. l8l 
 
 centralization of wealth. The distribution of 
 wealth starts enterprise, but the concentration 
 of wealth deadens and benumbs enterprise, and 
 in the end is the death of it. Every trust 
 and syndicate, every combine and corner, of 
 which so many are now daily being formed, 
 gives evidence of how rapidly the decay of our 
 productive forces is taking place. 
 
 To curtail production — that is, to stop further 
 creation of wealth — is the aim and object of 
 every combine. While this means disease, and 
 ends in death, you will hear men high in power, 
 in order to protect these monstrosities, declare 
 that trusts are a public benefit ! Does it not 
 come with ill grace from a member of the Presi- 
 dent's Cabinet, — who, with all his colleagues, is 
 sworn to execute the nation's will, — to state, in 
 a public address, that trusts, combinations to re- 
 strict trade, are a public benefit .'' If this is true, 
 then the more we have of them, llic better. But 
 when every manufactory, every railroad, and all 
 the mines and land are in the hands of trusts, 
 it will mean that all the separate trusts will be 
 combined into one grand Trust, which will conlrol 
 all the industries of the country, and hold the 
 keys to all enterprise ; and then whoever would 
 embark in any business venture — if any would be 
 so audacious — must first get the consent ot ihc 
 great Trust, and thereafter pny tribute to it. 
 Under such a regime as this, prices would no
 
 I 82 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 longer be based on the cost of manufacturing, 
 because the object of organizing a trust is avow- 
 edly to manufacture at a minimum and to sell at 
 the maximum figure. A trust is formed primarily 
 to force prices to the highest bearable point for 
 profit, — that is, to the point verging on rebellion 
 on the part of the people. The people, however, 
 can never repossess anything once fairly in the 
 grip of a trust, no matter what exorbitant price is 
 charged. Take the commodity of oil, for in- 
 stance. All the oil fields are in the control of 
 the trust, and how can the people ever get pos- 
 session again } The trust could double its price, 
 and under trust conditions the dealers would be 
 helpless. Will they import from the Russian 
 fields .'' But here they would meet with a double 
 barrier. The Russian dealers are under trust 
 contract not to sell within our territory ; should 
 they do it, retaliation on the part of the trust 
 here would be the result. But even if oil could 
 be brought from abroad, the trust has such com- 
 plete control over national legislation that they 
 could prohibit by tariff its introduction. The 
 trust having once gotten control, the market 
 becomes its slave, and the matter of price is a 
 question of policy only. As to the cost of pro- 
 duction, that depends on the cost of labor ; but a 
 trust no more considers the welfare of the laborer 
 than it does that of the consumer. To pay the 
 least possible to the laborer, and to charge the
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. I 83 
 
 most possible to the consumer, — and to carry 
 this policy to the very verge of forcing both 
 laborer and consumer to open and forceful re- 
 bellion, — this is the cold-blooded method of 
 every trust. Yet a Cabinet Secretary says that 
 trusts are public benefactors ; and Cabinet Sec- 
 retaries, are, of course, "all honorable men ! " 
 
 This trust principle can be carried out as effect- 
 ively in farming as in any other calling in life. 
 Numbers and area play no part in it. A " pro- 
 moter " knows his profession. The farmer says 
 the trust can never include tilling the soil in its 
 many monopolies. The tanners of leather once 
 made the same idle remark ; but to-day if there is 
 a tannery outside the leather trust, it will be 
 inside it, or in bankruptcy, before long. How can 
 the land be tilled by a trust ? Under the bank- 
 money trust the railroad trust will have every rail- 
 road in its power within five years, at the average 
 rate of confiscation of the past five years. Nearly 
 all the bonds on the remaining roads outside the 
 trust have been written in condition of gold pay- 
 ments to this end. This same bank-money power 
 can confiscate all lands whenever it desires. It 
 only needs to contract the money volume suffi- 
 ciently to reduce values of products and laii(i, to 
 di.slodgc every farmer in the land. This was done 
 in England. When the Lords of luigland desired 
 to get hold of the land, they first made all obliga- 
 tions payable in gold, and in fifteen years they
 
 1 84 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 reduced sixty thousand landholders to seven thou- 
 sand ; and the banks would only need to get this 
 same legislation through our Congress to accom- 
 plish this same result here. We are as yet only 
 in the incipient stages of this trust principle. It 
 logically leads directly back to the feudal system 
 in any country where it once gets a foothold. Of 
 course the Lords of the Dollar in this country will 
 not touch the land until the public utilities are 
 safely in their holding ; but when their fortunes 
 become unwieldy from their magnitude, and all 
 other forms of investment have been absorbed, 
 recourse will then be had to the land for security, 
 and also for the purpose of controlling the vote of 
 the tenants. To show what can be done by mak- 
 ing mortgages payable in gold, which the moneyed 
 aristocracy are now practising on the farmers of 
 the nation, it is only necessary to quote Daniel 
 Webster, who said : " When -our paper money is 
 made payable in specie on demand, it will prove 
 the most certain means that can be used to fertil- 
 ize the rich man's field by the sweat of the poor 
 man's brow." To make all obligations payable in 
 something impossible to get is a trick being 
 played upon the unsophisticated farmer by the 
 banker, which it would make a footpad feel 
 abashed to be caught at. Yet this is the low, 
 mean, and contemptible trick which the moneyed 
 class in this country copies from the British sys- 
 tem adopted in 1 819 for the same purpose. Yes,
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. 1 85 
 
 the trust will do it all. Gold was the first com- 
 modity fastened on by the trust, and to-day it 
 is hard to find anything free from its grasp. 
 
 To understand the evil effects of falling prices, 
 one must be interested financially in some enter- 
 prise ; then he will feel the shrinkage of values in 
 materials, in mills, farms, or other property. He 
 will then find he must employ commission men 
 and agents to do the very work which the buyers 
 once did by looking for goods themselves. Now 
 the hard times force the manufacturer to hunt 
 a market. He is compelled to employ men to 
 scour the country at his expense. This he cannot 
 charge to cost of goods, as the large concerns 
 which come to the market are allowed the amount 
 on bill paid to the commercial traveller. The 
 buyer who could not obtain tliis allowance could 
 not hold his position. Under the hard times, 
 growing out of continually falling prices, the mill 
 men are forced to open warehouses and sales- 
 rooms in cities, and resort to commission houses. 
 The commission-house men, tricked into believing 
 in advancing prices and a boom by politicians who 
 serve the banks, encourage the mills to make large 
 stocks of goods ahead ; upon these the commission 
 men advance money borrowed from the banks. 
 Hut the trade is disappointing ; jiriccs drop, and 
 the borrowed money comes due. The bank (m- the 
 manufacturer in this case must suffer ; and the 
 manufacturer is sacrificed to save the bank.
 
 lS6 FALL/JVC PK/CES. 
 
 In hard times the commission man is forced to 
 •work for the buyer, because when the times are 
 good, prices are constantly advancing. With a 
 large volume of money in circulation every one 
 turns buyer. The mills are sought by the buyer ; 
 the commercial traveller and commission house 
 are therefore out of an occupation, for under 
 prosperous times the mills have orders a year 
 ahead, and every piece of goods goes from the 
 mill by the fast freight-train direct to its anxious 
 customer, and not to a commission house as under 
 falling prices, to be hauled and picked over, and 
 finally slaughtered by the commission merchant in 
 order to earn his anxious pittance of a commis- 
 sion. But under hard times the scene radically 
 changes. With our money destroyed and bank 
 credits substituted, the mill men have enormous 
 burdens to carry, — accumulated stock of unsold 
 goods, slow collections, small or no profits, and a 
 long list of discounted paper at banks, some of it 
 askins: extension. This the commission man thor- 
 oughly understands, and he unloads at an inside 
 price ("confidential, of course! ") which it is hard 
 for other dealers to get above the next day. 
 Yes, these are some of the " blessings " of low 
 prices growing out of Cleveland's "wise" finan- 
 cial legislation in cutting the nation's volume of 
 currency short by ;^50,ooo,ooo per annum, — a 
 total difference of $300,000,000 in six years ; and 
 this contraction is still going on with its uninter-
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. I 8/ 
 
 rupted " blessing " of low prices ! The " blessing " 
 of low prices always results in taking the home and 
 the farm, as well as the little savings of years, 
 from the toilers, and handing them over to the 
 rich, the class which never toils. 
 
 In consulting with members of the trade, and 
 reviewing tables, I find that cotton has sold as 
 high as $1.96 per pound, and recently as low as 
 5 7-8 cents ; and I was also informed by this same 
 authority ' that standard print-cloth has sold as 
 high as 38 1-2 cents, and to-day is selling for 2 1-8 
 cents. Just imagine the profit on one yard of 
 cloth at 2 1-8 cents, compared with a profit on 
 38 1-2 cents per yard! Think of the wage-scale 
 adjusted to 38 1-2 cents, compared with 2 1-8 
 cents for the same amount of work ! What a 
 "blessing" the 2 1-8 cents wage-scale must be to 
 the workers ! 
 
 In connection with the fall in prices T will here 
 quote a business letter sent out by Messrs. Wil- 
 liams, Yerkes & Co., 627 Market Street, Phila- 
 delphia, in October, 1885. In this letter Messrs. 
 Williams, Yerkes & Co. quote the prices issued 
 August 27, 1864. 
 
 Z?^rt/- .V//-.- -Thinking you would be interested in com- 
 parinj:( prices of twenty yeans ago with those of the present, 
 we send you ;i copy of ;i price-list issued Auj^ust 27, 1S64, 
 
 ' I am indebted to Mr. Clinton V. S. Remington, 19 Itedford 
 Street, Kail River, for fjiifitatinns on raw cottons and print 
 cloths.
 
 i88 
 
 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 by one of the largest dry-goods jobbing houses. These 
 prices, we believe, were the highest of war time; we think 
 tlie lo-a'fst prices /tai'c now, beoi reached^ and confidently 
 look forward to an early improvement. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Williams, Yerkes & Co. 
 
 PRICE OF ELEVEN STAPLES. 
 
 
 18S5 
 
 189S 
 
 Prints. 
 
 
 
 Cocheco ....... 
 
 .06 
 
 .04 
 
 Print Cloths 
 
 ■03i 
 
 .02 Jj 
 
 Ginghams. 
 
 
 
 Lancaster 
 
 •07.i 
 
 ■04I 
 
 Bleached Cottons. 
 
 
 A 
 
 New York Mills 
 
 .09 
 
 .08 
 
 Lonsdale ....... 
 
 Hope ....... 
 
 .08 
 .07 
 
 •05 A 
 •051 
 
 Brown Shirtings. 
 
 
 
 Pepperell R 4-4 
 
 Atlantic A ...... 
 
 .06 
 .06 
 
 •04.1 
 •04 1- 
 
 Brown Sheetings. 
 
 
 about 
 
 Augusta A ..... . 
 
 Lawrence LL ...... 
 
 •o5i 
 •05} 
 
 •04: 
 
 ■031 
 
 Tickings. 
 
 Amoskeag A.C.A 
 
 .11.1 
 
 .09 
 
 What was the picttire in 1864, when the high 
 prices prevailed, and when the income-holding 
 classes were so enraged at the high cost of living } 
 To show what it was, I quote the following table 
 presenting prices as they were in 1864, with a 
 cokimn of the same line of goods and prices 
 prevailing to-day, showing the percentage of 
 shrinkage :
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. 
 
 189 
 
 Prints. 
 
 Cocheco . 
 Merrimack 
 Sprague 
 Indigo Blue 
 Turkey Red 
 Solid Colors 
 4-4 I'urple 
 American . 
 Pacific 
 Dunnell 
 Lowell Dark 
 " Light 
 Wamsutta 
 Arnold 
 Amoskeag Pink 
 
 " Purple 
 
 " Shirting 
 
 " Ruby 
 
 Malory Purple . 
 Rhode Island . 
 Suffolk 
 Garner Swiss 
 Eagle & Neptune 
 Cohoes Kails 
 \'ork & Amoskeag Mourning 
 London <!v; Atlantic 
 
 Ginghams. 
 
 Roanoke . 
 Hampden . 
 Lancaster . 
 Kverett 
 
 Canton Flannils. 
 
 Hamilton X F Pro. 
 Roanoke A A 
 Naumkeag 
 
 I'.lea. 
 Portland " 
 
 Colored Corset Jeans. 
 Pepperell . 
 I.ewiston 
 Androsi iij^^in 
 I ii<lian < )r( hard 
 Newmarket 
 
 Aug. 27, 
 1864. 
 
 March, 
 1898. 
 
 NET 
 
 
 50 
 
 4 
 
 46 
 
 4i 
 
 47 i 
 46 
 
 
 47 
 60 
 
 
 45 
 46 
 
 3: 
 
 3i 
 
 43i 
 
 3 
 
 39 
 
 
 3> 
 
 
 39 
 
 38i 
 
 
 43 
 
 4l 
 
 42 
 
 
 41 
 
 
 42 
 
 
 42 
 3« 
 
 
 41 
 42 
 32 
 
 25 
 
 3.! 
 to 
 
 4i 
 
 40 > 
 
 
 43 
 
 - 
 
 40 
 
 
 40 
 48. \ 
 
 A\ 
 
 47 i 
 
 4t 
 
 75 
 
 •05'r 
 
 44 
 
 
 77 i 
 80 
 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 ^A 
 
 45 
 43 i 
 
 5iA 
 
 43 i 
 43i 

 
 IQO 
 
 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 
 Aug. 27, 
 
 March, 
 
 
 1864. 
 
 1898. 
 
 Brmvn Shiriins;s. 
 
 NET 
 
 
 Boot H 7-8 
 
 47i 
 
 
 " O4-4 
 
 54 
 
 
 " S c^-8 
 
 60 
 
 5A 
 
 Nashua D 4-4 
 
 60 
 
 
 Pacific E 7-8 
 
 57.1 
 
 5} A 
 
 " I^ 4-4 
 
 62 
 
 3JA 
 
 Atlantic E 7-8 
 
 S7\ 
 
 5iA 
 
 " L 4-4 
 
 62 
 
 4A 
 
 James 7-8 
 
 sA 
 
 
 Dwight A 4-4 
 
 55 
 
 
 Newmarket A 4 
 
 -4 57i 
 
 
 Great Falls S 7- 
 
 -8 SA 
 
 
 M 4 
 
 -4 55 
 
 4i 
 
 Pepperell O 7-8 
 
 56 
 
 4 
 
 R 4-4 
 
 60 
 
 4i 
 
 Salisbury R 4-4 
 
 60 
 
 4JA 
 
 Hamilton A A 4 
 
 -4 47-2 
 
 
 Browfi Sheetings. 
 
 
 
 All Standards 4- 
 
 -4 72i 
 
 4-4J 
 
 Atlantic R 4-4 
 
 63 
 
 
 " D 4-4 
 
 67> 
 
 4i 
 
 Nashua A 
 
 70 
 
 
 4-^ Bleached Cottons 
 
 
 
 Ilills's Semper 1 
 
 dem .... 65 
 
 5' 
 
 New York Milh 
 
 > 77i 
 
 8A 
 
 Masonville 
 
 70 
 
 6 
 
 Androscoggin 
 
 71 
 
 5i 
 
 Langdon \ r- ^ 
 
 63 
 
 6 less 5% 
 
 7 less5% 
 
 White Rock 
 
 74 
 
 
 Black Rock 
 
 65 
 
 
 Arkwright Watt 
 
 ix Twist . . . . 72.V 
 
 
 Dwight D . 
 
 68" 
 
 13 
 
 A signifies agents' price. 
 
 What a contrast the above table of compara- 
 tive prices presents between the time when mill 
 property was paying from fifteen to twenty per 
 cent, profit, when new mills were going up all over 
 New England, when operatives were building com-
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. I9I 
 
 fortable homes for themselves, when "help" were 
 coaxed (not driven) to work, and were practically 
 dictating their own wages, and the present time, 
 when we have the worst market ahead which has 
 ever been experienced in the history of the trade, 
 with mill property an uncertain asset because earn- 
 ing no dividends and being heavily taxed, and with 
 widespread strikes of operatives out of employ- 
 ment and suffering for the necessities of life ! 
 Yet this is a picture true to history, to fact ; not 
 a mill-owner nor a manufacturer will dare to deny 
 it. Prices are ninety per cent, lower to-day than 
 they were in 1864, and we now have ninety per 
 cent, less of money per capita in circulation than 
 we had then. Under our present social system, 
 prices and volume of money cannot exist apart 
 any more than could the Siamese twins. We can- 
 not dispense with money as an instrument of asso- 
 ciation. We cannot have high prices with a small 
 volume of currency, nor can we have low prices 
 with a large volume of currency. Then why not 
 increase our currency and raise our prices.-* Every 
 business man is desirous of a rise in prices, and it 
 makes him shudder when he hears of another drop 
 in them. Yet for thirty years he has not raised 
 his hand at the polls to defend his interests, 
 because the bank shakes its finger at him and 
 points to the need of discounts dming the coming 
 month. Is this liberty, is this a repul)lic, wlicn 
 one class through government favoi itism can make
 
 192 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 all other classes pay it royalty and suppress all 
 criticism ? 
 
 Every man is trying to dodge the fall of prices. 
 You will often see men pose as models of honor 
 when discussing financial policies, especially when 
 within hearing of their bank president. They 
 want "honest dollars." They have "no confi- 
 dence in men who are lax in fulfilment of every 
 obligation they assume." But these same men, 
 who, when they believed the market was going 
 "out of sight," put in heavy orders for goods, — 
 did they not then assume obligations which they, 
 while discussing the dollar, believed in living up 
 to .'• Any error of judgment in political opinion is 
 made easy to bear by being shared by seventy 
 millions of people ; but not so with an order given 
 to a mill, in good faith, for a milHon or two of 
 dollars, at a fixed price, both taking chances upon 
 a rise or fall in prices. Here is a chance to fulfil 
 an obligation ! But do they do it } Some honor- 
 able men do, but to their sorrow and loss. Under 
 falling prices the mill men find another evil added 
 to their already too many troubles, — namely, the 
 countermand dodge, a thing never known under 
 rising prices. Of course these orders are not 
 countermanded ostensibly on the ground that 
 prices have fallen, but on the ground that the 
 "goods are not up to the sample," or "not deliv- 
 ered in time." Falling prices never develop higher 
 morals in mercantile transactions. Men versed in
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. 1 93 
 
 finance understand and can anticipate market 
 and prices better than the average business man. 
 They hold on to their cash, and take advantage of 
 men forced to sell ; they buy only when sellers 
 are forced to sacrifice. They then can turn goods 
 quickly, and avoid any fall of prices which are con- 
 stantly taking place. 
 
 What the mill and factory men suffer is felt 
 equally by the producers of raw material, by the 
 men who create wealth, and are compelled to chase 
 after a market that is lost. And never, until 
 the great mass of the people are enabled to con- 
 sume up to the normal standard, will these condi- 
 tions improve ; and this will never take place until 
 prices advance ; and prices will never advance until 
 the nation's currency is increased to that point at 
 which such an advance in goods can take place. 
 
 The world of economic thought justly places 
 great weight upon the opinions of one of the 
 world's greatest statisticians, Mr. Augustus Sauer- 
 beck, F. S. S., of London, and his letter following, 
 being the last expression of his views on these 
 world question.s, will be carefully noted. 
 
 This letter was received l-cb. 14, 1898, and reads 
 as follows : 
 
 London, Feb. 3, 1X98. 
 LvMAN F. Grorgk, Esq., 
 
 Deak Sik: — I liave your favor of the lotli January, 
 find a.s desired I .send you the following : one copy of my
 
 194 FALLIiXG PRICKS. 
 
 paper of 1893; one copy of my paper of 1897; two dia- 
 grams of prices issued in 1895, with the movements for 
 1 895-1 897 tilled in ; one extract from Statist., with my letter 
 on prices in 1897. Detailed figures for 1897 will appear in 
 the Statistical Journal, March number. 
 
 ... I hold that but for the alteration in currencies and 
 the diminished supply of gold from 1873 to 1886, there 
 would not have been any fall [in prices] up to 1886 (as com- 
 pared with the average of 1867-77 equals 100); or, at all 
 events, it would have been much smaller. 
 
 Theoretically, it may be said that, if some articles fall, 
 others should rise, keeping the average of periods unchanged 
 if the currency increased at the same ratio as production, 
 or at least as population, and if the system of paying, bank- 
 ing, etc., remains unchanged. But things generally do not 
 remain the same, and it is consequently impossible to lay 
 down a mathematical rule. Besides, a list of prices must 
 always be incomplete, and it is impossible to aggregate 
 prices of everything that is paid in money. Wholesale 
 prices are the most important, but they can only give a 
 rough idea of the movements. To maintain prices to a 
 constant level is impracticable. I remain. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 A. Sauerbeck. 
 
 To show further the actual condition of the 
 New England manufacturing interests as they 
 exist to-day, after over thirty years of falling 
 prices, — a fall of 91 per cent, from 1865 to 1898, 
 — I will quote from an editorial from the Daily 
 Dry Goods Recordy of New York, of March 29, 
 1898, which reads as follows : 
 
 For nearly, if not quite two yeans, the cotton industries 
 have struggled against impossibilities, while the results
 
 REVIEW OF OVERPRODUCTION. 1 95 
 
 attending their best endeavors have gone from bad to worse. 
 There are few, if any, exceptions to the rule, while the losses 
 have reached fabulous figures, — figures which all would 
 have declared as ruinous and certain to involve the industry 
 in bankruptcy, if two years ago the manufacturers could 
 have seen such a handwriting on the wall. The sales of 
 manufacturing stocks at Boston every week tell the story of 
 steady losses and no dividends, and will continue to reflect 
 them while the mills continue to pursue the policy of 
 " After me the Deluge." 
 
 As it is ours, so it should be the sole efforts of the mills 
 to recover the market for goods from the slough of profit- 
 less prices into which it has floundered so long, and into 
 which it has sunken deeper witii every endeavor to extricate- 
 itself. To say the least, it is an unfortunate condition for 
 many reasons, not the least of which is that the mills are 
 not in business to continue losing money as they have done 
 for two years. It is frequently charged that if the export 
 trade was of usual proportions, the mills' business would be 
 better. In the matter of quantity or yards of goods, the 
 export shipments show a fair gain over last year, when 
 there was a sharp increase on those for the previous year. 
 
 The root of the evil lies deeper. It is from the over- 
 production of last year, when tlie masses were not equipped 
 to provide their necessities, because of an old indebtedness 
 having drawn so heavily upon their earnings. 
 
 If the above is a correct .statement of ])resent 
 conditions in the trade, and this after the country 
 granted all the legi.slation asked for to help New 
 England industries, how long, I ask, will it be 
 before the business man will be forced to ac- 
 knowledge the mistake made by the legislation 
 of 1866, for the purpose of reducing prices, in
 
 196 FALLING rRICES. 
 
 order to produce better times ? Does it not re- 
 mind one of the epitaph on a gravestone, which 
 reads, " I was well ; I took physic to get better ; 
 and here I lie ? " Though we have degenerated 
 so far from those times when mills were building 
 everywhere, and paying dividends of from ten to 
 twenty per cent., and though we have been per- 
 sisting for thirty years in the direction of lower 
 prices, until conditions described in the above 
 editorial have been realized, we still find no move 
 made to reverse the system which has resulted so 
 disastrously to all, except to those who were 
 instrumental in forcing that system on the coun- 
 try. How long must these conditions continue, 
 and how much lower must prices go, before some 
 clear-headed and courageous man will demand a 
 halt in our downward course, and a vigorous effort 
 to restore values to the property and products of 
 the mills .'' 
 
 Note. — The table on page 188 is my own; while that on 
 pages 189 and 190 is the one sent out by Williams, Yerkes 
 & Co. The former shows an average decline of twenty-seven 
 per cent, since Williams, Yerkes & Co. of Philadelphia so con- 
 fidetiily looked fonuard to an early improvement ; and the Author 
 extends his sympathies to their successors, Messrs. Yerkes Bros. 
 &Co.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMARY CONTINUED. 
 
 Bimetallism. 
 
 Bimetallism versus Monometallism is likely to 
 be a question over which the conflicting interests 
 of nations will contend for many years. It is 
 more than a national question ; it is a world ques- 
 tion, because the contending forces that are trying 
 to settle it belong to no one nation, but are found 
 everywhere, — namely, producers and non-produc- 
 ens, the struggling poor and the grasping rich. As 
 the producing classes feel the merciless iron hand 
 of the money-power griping them tighter and 
 tighter, they very naturally begin to look into the 
 methods of that power, and inquire by what means 
 it is increased and perpetuated. Its chief method 
 of self-increase and perpetuation is a shrewd ma- 
 nipulation of the world's money. In all civilized 
 countries two metals have been recognized as 
 money, — gold and silver. As one of these metals 
 has been dropped by certain monarchies aiul des- 
 potisms, — nations in which the i^rodiuing classes 
 have no voice, — and as in this republic the same 
 thing has been done by fraud and trickery, before 
 
 •97
 
 I9S FALLING PRICES. 
 
 tlic masses knew anything about it ; and as this 
 disuse of one metal has been followed by results 
 ruinous to the value of all property in the hands 
 of the producers in every nation where silver has 
 been demonetized, while the few nations which still 
 retain the white metal are to-day undisturbed by 
 falling prices or business distress, — it is natural, 
 and seems reasonable, to conclude that the demone- 
 tization of silver has brought upon the workers of 
 the world the burdens which are now pressing 
 them to the earth, and that only by the remone- 
 tization of silver will those burdens be removed. 
 There is much to sustain this conclusion, and 
 many facts may be brought forward to confirm 
 it. 
 
 We have only to cite Mexico, which in 1873 had 
 the same measurements upon commodities that we 
 had in the United States. To-day our prices are 
 not one-half, and on many commodities not one- 
 third, as high as those prevailing in that country. 
 In 1873 the cotton-growers in the South received 
 fifteen cents a pound for cotton, and the price was 
 the same in Mexico; but in 1895 the Southern 
 cotton-growers received but five cents, while in 
 Mexico no change in price had taken place. The 
 same prices ruled alike in both countries in regard 
 to wheat, which was about $1.50 per bushel in 
 1873. But in 1895, while there had been no fall 
 in price in Mexico, the price in the United States 
 had fallen to forty-five cents. Tliese facts are
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMARY CONTINUED. 199 
 
 startling and significant, and not to be over- 
 looked. 
 
 It is the general opinion of men of large finan- 
 cial transactions that the property and commodities 
 of this nation will not pay the obligations against 
 it. In 1892 the estimated wealth of the nation 
 was $70,000,000,000. In 1894 the different au- 
 thorities, in estimating the indebtedness of every 
 existing form in the nation, varied from $28,000,- 
 000,000 to $34,000,000,000, — making an average 
 of $31,000,000,000. In one year, 1893, values 
 fell fifty per cent, on an average ; some fell a great 
 deal more than that. Cotton fell from 12 cents to 
 51^ cents a pound. Beeves from 8 cents to 3^ 
 cents, and wheat from 95 cents to 35 cents. In 
 regard to property in 1893 and 1894 there was no 
 fi.xing the amount of fall, as the encumbrances on 
 it, no matter how small, in nearly every instance 
 took the property ; and all commodities which 
 were not artificially bolstered by patents, combina- 
 tions, trusts, or syndicates, tumbled one-half. To 
 select a few articles like oil or sugar, bolstered by 
 the trust and trust legislation ; or wool, the price 
 of which has since been lifted higher by legislative 
 prop])ing, — is not worthy of argument. Take 
 away the extraneous props, and lei these articles 
 come down with (jther things until they rist on 
 the single-metal basis of measurement, then be 
 weighed in the same scales where the farmer and 
 laborer have been fi^rced to weigh the values of
 
 200 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 their products, and it will be found that the claim 
 of a fifty per cent, fall is not an exaggerated state- 
 ment. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that if the debts of the 
 nation were one-half of the valuation of its wealth 
 in 1892, and the prices of the material wealth have 
 fallen one-half, the creditor class now own the 
 property and commodities of the country. There- 
 fore it will be seen that the first thing to be con- 
 sidered, in changing the measurement of value 
 upon property through financial legislation, is to 
 find out if there is any outstanding indebtedness 
 in a nation. 
 
 Perhaps I cannot show this better than by 
 returning to the contrast in prices existing in 
 Mexico and the United States at the time silver 
 was demonetized in 1873 with those of twenty 
 years later. Let us take two ten-thousand-dollar 
 neighboring farms, in 1873, with only the Mexican 
 line dividing the same, on which each owner had 
 placed a five-thousand-dollar mortgage running 
 twenty years, with bankers in their respective 
 countries, at six per cent, interest. It will be 
 seen that it will take the value of two hundred 
 bushels of wheat from both the Mexican and 
 American farmer, the first year, to pay the inter- 
 est. It will also be seen that while the Mexican 
 farmer has continued to pay and is still paying his 
 interest with the value of two hundred bushels, the 
 American farmer, under the change of our financial
 
 HE VIEW AND SUMMARY CONTINUED. 201 
 
 system in measuring values by demonetizing silver, 
 is now and has for some time been forced to pay 
 his interest with the value of 666^^, bushels, — 
 thus having been the loser of the difference in 
 value of his crop compared with that of his neigh- 
 bor ; but this is not all of his loss. A farm is 
 worth only that which it can pay in interest upon 
 investment, and as a natural consequence the 
 value of a farm falls in exact ratio with the fall in 
 price of its products. Thus while the Mexican 
 crop-prices have been sustained for twenty years, 
 and the Mexican farm still remains at its 1873 
 value when mortgaged, the value of the American 
 farm and its crop has shrunken. It will be unnec- 
 essary to add that under such terrible odds the 
 red flag, not of the anarchist, but of the sheriff 
 employed by the mortgage-holder, has put the 
 American farmer and his family out in the road ; 
 while all this time the Mexican farmer has been 
 living in comfort and luxury. All this time, how- 
 ever, the New York City bank papers have been 
 telling their gullible readers how dear everything 
 was in Mexico, a nation of cheap silver dollars ; 
 and also how much better off the people are in 
 this country, where things are cheap, and money 
 has great purchasing power. Yet no (loul)t the 
 American farmer is still wondering how il was 
 that he lost his farm, when he grew just as much 
 wheat and lived just as economically as did his 
 .still well-to-do Mexican neighbor. To he sure, he
 
 202 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 did not receive as high a price for his wheat ; but 
 every banker, broker, and bondholder tokl him 
 that the money he received woukl buy double as 
 much as the Mexican silver dollar paid to the 
 Mexican farmer, and, unless the farmer has studied 
 finance for himself, he probably is to-day still try- 
 ing to solve the problem. 
 
 The manufacturers of the East have suffered 
 greatly from the loss of the protective principle 
 in having the silver dollar legislated out of their 
 coinage ; for while it has caused a shrinkage of 
 one-half the value upon their mills and machinery, 
 and kept up a constant fall in the value of stock, 
 carried in the mills and in the hands of merchants 
 and warehouses, it has at the same time shut the 
 gates of protection. The manufacturer has got 
 to learn that the better our money becomes, the 
 more really " honest " it is, the more inducement 
 the foreign manufacturer has to bring his goods 
 here to get it. 
 
 Let us put the gold-standard manufacturer on 
 the witness-stand. He will tell us that our silver 
 dollar is worth only fifty cents, and that to have the 
 free coinage of such dollars would require double 
 the number with which to buy from Europe. 
 Grant it. But now let us see how, on this new 
 basis, the foreign manufacturer selling in this 
 country will come out. He ships over ^i,ooo 
 worth of goods, and sells at the same price that 
 the American manufacturer gets. The American
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMARY CONTINUED. 203 
 
 manufacturer goes home and pays a thousand 
 dollars of debts for material and wages. How 
 about the foreign manufacturer ? Does he go 
 back and pay a thousand dollars of debt with his 
 $1,000? Oh, no! he goes to a broker and buys 
 exchange, and gets British gold ; and he will 
 receive (taking the statement of our gold-standard 
 manufacturer) just $500 in gold, and he will pay 
 just $500 in debts ; and his experience in his first 
 shipment of goods, after we have the free and 
 unlimited coinage of silver, will teach him that we 
 have more than one way to add 100 per cent, tariff 
 to protect our manufacturers. Our manufacturers 
 don't understand this, but the free-trade importer 
 does ; consequently he is intensely bitter against 
 the free coinage of silver in this country. 
 
 The New England people have had the idea 
 whispered into their ears that while the West and 
 South would be injured by the gold standard, llic 
 manufacturers of the East would be benefited. 
 The reason laid down to substantiate the claim is 
 that gold measurement on Western and Southern 
 products would force prices down from a silver 
 standard to a gold standard, which means a drop 
 of one-half their value ; while the h^asl, being a 
 raw-material using section, would be able to buy 
 for one-half the former i)riccs. 
 
 Now, this is the truth; but wherein has it 
 benefited the luist .' 'ihc l-^ast once paid forty 
 cents for cotton before silver was dropped out of
 
 204 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 our coinage ; to-day cotton can be bought for five 
 cents. It has ruined the South, and it has not 
 benefited the East. The cotton industries of New 
 England are paralyzed, and the mill property has 
 shrunken in value with the price of cotton goods, 
 which have touched 21^ cents to-day; while the 
 operatives have been brought down to the verge of 
 want. The Boston papers made an investigation 
 into the conditions of the New Bedford workers, 
 and brought to light a condition of things which, 
 so far as want of food and fuel is concerned, the 
 Southern slaves never knew. As the Spanish 
 forces in Cuba conducted their campaign by the 
 method of starving the inhabitants into a surren- 
 der, so the mill operators in New England are 
 determined to keep their mills closed until their 
 workmen are compelled by absolute hunger to 
 return on reduced wages. This brutality is the 
 outgrowth of legislation which received the solid 
 support in Congress of the Republican New Eng- 
 land delegation, while in effect upon our industries 
 it was a Democratic free-trade measure. A gold 
 standard means free trade, and free trade means a 
 gold standard. To talk of protection and a gold 
 standard is like talking of a white blackbird. Yet 
 New England is not alone in this dense ignorance, 
 for it is a common thing to hear leading Western 
 and Southern men declaring for free trade and 
 free coinage. These men simultaneously want 
 free trade to reduce prices and free silver to raise
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMARY CONTINUED. 20$ 
 
 them ; which is like trying to open and shut a 
 door at the same time. One thing is certain 
 regarding this question of free trade and a gold 
 basis, and that is that England is frantic to get 
 the United States to adopt both. She wants a 
 gold standard, to reduce the prices on all our raw 
 material and food, upon which she depends for her 
 mills and operatives ; and she wants free trade, to 
 enable her to sail her ships into our ports with her 
 manufactured goods (made of our raw material) 
 without any customs charge upon them whatever. 
 This policy would result in reducing our farmers 
 into tenants and our workmen into tramps. The 
 reverse of this policy would be to reestablish the 
 free coinage of silver, thus raising the price of all 
 raw material and thereby protecting the farmer and 
 cotton-grower ; to keep out all goods which take 
 work from our workmen, thus protecting factory 
 and farm alike ; and then to give all Iiritish-paid 
 political economists in this country, whose whole 
 aim is to pit the East against the West, by teach- 
 ing the West free-trade and the East gold-standard 
 doctrines, a free pas.sage to luirope, with the com- 
 mand never to set foot on our soil again. These 
 British emissaries attend all our national conven- 
 tions, with Wall Street's endorsement ; and if a 
 Democrat is nominated he must be a Free Trader, 
 or if a Republican is nominated he must be a gold- 
 standard man. ICngland has kcjit this uji lor 
 twelve years, and in consequence our country has
 
 2o6 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 been ruined in both the farming and manufacturing 
 sections. 
 
 Is it not time for Americans to unite and stand 
 up for Americanism ? It will be impossible in the 
 very near future to find men in power in this 
 country, who favor a gold standard on the one 
 hand, or free trade on the other, whom we could 
 trust in case of war with any European power, 
 especially with England. This is self-evident, so 
 long as they continue to get support from English 
 editorials and English donations to carry their 
 elections. Men so elected would, of course, favor 
 England. To-day, whether a President is for free 
 trade or for a British gold system, he and his sup- 
 porters stand together for the adoption of British- 
 American treaties, drawn up in England, while all 
 the British press of this country unite in extolling 
 the advantages of such treaties to America. What 
 would be thought of a treaty drawn up out West 
 by wheat-growers, or in the South by cotton- 
 growers, and sent to the House of Lords for their 
 signatures without alteration 1 It would be con- 
 sidered an insult by the very British-American 
 papers which so highly commend the British 
 treaties sent here. Therefore unless we assert 
 ourselves as Americans, ajid establish an Ameri- 
 can system in money and trade which will give 
 greater protection in values to farmers of the 
 West and to the workers of the East, we may 
 yet see British fleets over here demanding pay-
 
 REVIEW A XV SUMMARY CONTINUED. 20/ 
 
 ment of debts to them in the kind of money dic- 
 tated by England and Germany ; and with a 
 President in the White House controlHng our 
 army and navy, and in sympathy with a British 
 free-trade system or a British gold-money system, 
 the people of America might find themselves in 
 an awkward position, for with the banks and met- 
 ropolitan press against the protesting people, it 
 would not be easy to get our government to de- 
 fend vigorously American interests. We must 
 bear in mind that our hard times have come upon 
 us during an uninterrupted period of thirty years 
 of great crops, and that during all this time our 
 nation has been in peace with all other nations. 
 This fact, taken in connection with this other fact 
 that during all this time we have had parties in 
 power who were strongly committed to the sys- 
 tems which have wrought this ruin upon us, and 
 that we have had in our midst millionaire politi- 
 cians denouncing vehemently all attempts on the 
 part of the people to change these systems, shows 
 what a hold the money-power has over us already ; 
 and unless this power is brought down under the 
 control of the masses, the time is not far distant 
 when it will attempt a move for an oligarchy sim- 
 ilar to that undertaken by the .slaveholders. Cer- 
 tainly it has gone far enough in this direction 
 already to cause widespread alarm among the 
 working and farming classes of the land. The 
 moneyed aristocracy of ICngland care nothing for
 
 208 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 their tillers of the soil or for the workers in their 
 mills ; they are for the throne and the lords and 
 gentry every time. So the same aristocracy in 
 this country are indifferent to the interests of the 
 toiling masses, and mean to perpetuate their own 
 at all costs to the people. 
 
 To show that silver is as helpful in other coun- 
 tries in raising prices as it is claimed it would be 
 here, I will quote from Moreton Frewen, of Eng- 
 land, who said : 
 
 The most startling economic phenomena in the history of 
 the world's progress occurred during the first half of the sev- 
 enteenth century, when the value of land in England rose 
 from five pounds an acre to twenty-five pounds, when wages 
 rose from two shillings a week to twelve, when wheat 
 rose from a shilling a bushel to four shillings, when all 
 prices of whatever commodities rose in the short period of 
 thirty-five years from three to six hundred per cent. Now, 
 no writer has ever questioned that this phenomenal rise of 
 all prices was caused by that vast mass of silver from 
 Potosi which, flowing into Europe in the hold of every 
 Spanish galleon, was admitted to free coinage at all the 
 leading mints in Europe. And if, as Adam Smith, Mill, 
 and every eminent writer has expressly admitted, that 
 great rise of prices was caused by the free coinage of the 
 silver of Potosi, does any one question that had all that 
 silver been suddenly demonetized and deprived of its legal- 
 tender value, after prices had been thus elevated, all prices 
 must have fallen again just as rapidly as they rose? and 
 where then would have been the property of the honest in- 
 vestor who had bought his land for twenty-five pounds per 
 acre, leaving, say, one-half of the purchase money secured 
 by a mortgage on that acre, if the acre had fallen in value
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMARY CONTINUED. 209 
 
 to five pounds because of this tampering with the currency ? 
 And it is this confiscation of property, — of vested rights, — 
 by the manipulation and contraction of the Western cur- 
 rencies, which forms to-day what we call the Silver Ques- 
 tion ; and seeing that for all the world the silver question 
 was cradled in America, America is bound to exert herself 
 and help us all out. 
 
 It will be seen by the above quotation that the 
 influx of silver from the mines of Potosi, and its 
 free coinage, gave new life to all the nations of 
 Europe, and that prices advanced from three 
 hundred to four hundred per cent. 
 
 The silver men understand this principle in 
 finance to-day thoroughly. They arc well-read 
 upon the effects it has upon prices and business 
 to coin silver freely in any nation, at any time and 
 under all conditions. They know it is beneficial 
 to the masses ; and they know therefore that a 
 voter who once becomes a convert to free silver 
 will remain one, notwithstanding that by some 
 powerful political influence or pecuniary induce- 
 ment he may change his vote to the gold side. 
 Hence this question of the free coinage of silver, 
 as a party issue, is sure to overshadow all others 
 until it is solved in some manner which will give 
 the people a living chance in llic woiid. Should, 
 however, prices advance two hundied per cent, on 
 labor and commodities as a result of the free 
 coinage of silver, it would tiikc the masses ten 
 years to regain the positions they held in relation
 
 2 10 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 to the investing classes five or six years ago, and 
 it would take twenty years under it to get back to 
 the relative position held thirty years ago. The 
 silver men understand the motives and spirit of 
 the rich in regard to the reduced conditions forced 
 upon the people. The money-powers intend, if 
 they can, to keep the people just where they are ; 
 and, if they will submit to it, to reduce them to a 
 still lower condition. The silver men know that 
 the only way the rich can do this is by making the 
 gold basis permanent, and by destroying all legal- 
 tender money outside of gold. But the silver men 
 also know that the gold men will have troubles of 
 their own, very soon, resulting from their gold 
 system. It will not be long before if will become 
 evident that only the richest among the rich are 
 gainers by the constant fall in prices, and that the 
 state of things developing from their system will 
 not only make values, but life itself, insecure. It 
 is such a state of things to which the silver men 
 look ahead in basing their calculations for the 
 final and complete success of their cause. 
 
 The bimetallists have the advantage in the 
 coming struggle, from the fact that they are a 
 unit on one point ; that is, that the withdrawal of 
 one of the money metals has created a fall in 
 prices, and a general disturbance in business 
 throughout the whole world, and that business can 
 never be restored until prices rise to the normal 
 level existing before silver was conspired against
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMARY CONTINUED. 211 
 
 by the legislation of the world. This unity of 
 sentiment in the silver ranks contrasts strongly 
 with the mixed up, conflicting, and multiplied 
 opinions put forth by the gold advocates. In fact, 
 the gold men do not hold out any plea to stop or 
 cure falling prices and hard times, but arc inclined 
 to think that it is none of their business and 
 belongs to the realm of an international bank 
 oligarchy. Many of them claim that they know 
 nothing about the question at all, but leave it to 
 the bankers ; and, in turn, the bankers leave it to 
 Europe to settle for us. These gold men have 
 been told by the bankers that the investments of 
 the multi-millionaires must be paid in gold at the 
 time of maturity, regardless of the kind of money 
 they paid when investing, in order to maintain the 
 honor and credit of the government ; and here 
 they close the argument on finance, and branch 
 off on some one of the many superficial notions 
 growing out of the hard times which are seriously 
 effecting their personal calling and interests in 
 life. Hence it is that we see fine-looking, well- 
 bred, and well-educated men in the gold ranks 
 contending with one another, — some claiming it 
 is "overproduction," others "free trade," while 
 many assert it is "lack of confidence," etc. 
 
 There is, however, one very significant difference 
 between all silver men and gold men ; the former 
 arc all in favor of good times, while many of the 
 latter arc satisfied with the present times, and can-
 
 212 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 not see that anything is the matter. The silver 
 men are all in sympathy with the toiling millions ; 
 and they always hope for the success of the cause 
 of the laborers when they engage in their unequal 
 conflicts to prevent further oppression on the part 
 of capital. They sympathize indeed with the 
 oppressed of all nations, as illustrated in their at- 
 titude in Congress regarding Cuba. They are 
 thoroughly American in sentiment, and loyal and 
 patriotic as citizens ; they do not toady to Wall 
 Street, nor to foreign nations or foreign systems ; 
 they are opposed to creating bonds for the pur- 
 pose of sheltering the rich from taxation, and are 
 against granting enormous tracts of American soil 
 to foreign syndicates, or entering into entangling 
 alliances with European nations. On the other 
 hand, we find the advocates of the gold standard 
 in the closest touch with Lombard Street inves- 
 tors ; in fact, the gold men have surrendered all 
 our financial legislation to the banks, and are 
 wholly guided in formulating an opinion by the 
 press editorials of Wall Street. You can scarcely 
 find a gold man who expresses a desire to see 
 strikers win ; they have little or no sympathy with 
 the producing or laboring class. There is no bond 
 issue, no contraction scheme, no foreign policy 
 proposed by their party now in power that they 
 do not approve ; and while they assert that the 
 financial question is not a party question, they are 
 always ready to betray or desert their party unless
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMARY CONTINUED. 2\% 
 
 it inserts their gold doctrines in its platform. It 
 is this spirit on the part of the advocates of the 
 gold standard which drives all factions of opposi- 
 tion into one party. The lines are already drawn 
 between the producing and non-producing classes ; 
 and it has come to be a question between those 
 who pay taxes and those who receive these taxes 
 in interest money. There is something more than 
 the question of metal in the, dollar at stake on the 
 part of the monometallists. They want strong 
 government and class privileges ; they are in favor 
 of long terms of office, of biennial sessions of 
 legislatures, and of denying all rights of labor 
 which capital is bound to respect. 
 
 While, however, the silver men to-day as a body 
 are conservative, and believe that the restoration 
 of silver to its former position (one which it has 
 held from the establishment of our government) 
 would satisfy a large majority, in the present dis- 
 tress it is not safe to dejicnd upon it for permanent 
 relief. Had the free coinage of silver been accom- 
 plished in the last election, it would have closed 
 for a long time all financial agitation ; but not so 
 to-day. Nothing short of the elimination of the 
 redemption jirinciple in our money will satisfy at 
 least five millions of voters in this country. The 
 Populists have cast over two millions of votes, and 
 arc a unit upon the theory of ]>a]icr as primary 
 money ; and at least one-half of the men who 
 voted for silver in 1.S96 can be counted upon
 
 214 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 as advanced beyond the money principle of mon- 
 archists and despots. This party for an American 
 money will hold a balance of power even after the 
 free coinage of silver has been gained, and agita- 
 tion of the money system will be continued until 
 the social conditions respond in full measure to 
 the advanced mental state of the people. To-day 
 many of the best minds of the country believe 
 that the rich of the world have made the mistake 
 of their lives in attempting covertly to drop silver 
 from the world's money in order to double the 
 values of their holdings ; for they will not only 
 fail in this attempt, but they have started an 
 agitation which will end but in the extinction 
 of both gold and silver as money, except with 
 a few small nations which have no standing com- 
 mercially, and are not much higher in civilization 
 than the pirates of old. 
 
 Immigratiott. 
 
 While the laboring classes are complaining of 
 immigration working an injury to their interest 
 (and probably no one can be found who will deny 
 it), they are brought face to face with the fact 
 that wages are getting so low, and so many are 
 out of employment, that their argument will soon 
 fall to the ground on one essential fact, — that is, 
 that there will be no longer any immigration to 
 this country. If our present systems continue, 
 we shall have to complain of emigration instead
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMARY CONTINUED. 21 5 
 
 of immigration. With a monetary system ad- 
 justed to the interests of the many instead of 
 the few, our country cannot have too many men 
 who are strong, healthy, and brainy, as every such 
 man will add to our wealth-creating power, and, at 
 the same time, consume more than he produces ; 
 instead of adding to our accumulated goods, he 
 would help reduce the supply on hand, thus mak- 
 ing work for others in replenishing the same. 
 Let us have a volume of money sufficiently 
 large to force up wages until these men can 
 afford to get married, to build a home, and fill 
 it with furniture, and be enabled with their fam- 
 ilies to live as self-respecting beings should live, 
 and then we shall have an insufficiency of labor. 
 Men do not work overtime for the love of work. 
 Give them pay which will allow of their living 
 comfortably on eight hours for a day's work, and 
 we shall soon find more work than men to do it. 
 Then prices for labor will go up another notch, 
 and the man will be enabled to increase his con- 
 suming power, while his producing power will 
 remain the same. We must keep this fact con- 
 stantly in mind, that the way to reduce accumu- 
 lated stocks is to give that remuneration to labor 
 which will enable it to consume more than it can 
 produce. Under this princii)le our markets will 
 always be short ui goods, and wages will con- 
 stantly increase. This, however, it is impossible 
 to do if our volume of money is so small that fall-
 
 2l6 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 ing prices force the employer to stop work, close 
 his mill, and discharge his help. It is this power 
 which the volume of money exerts over everything 
 which controls the destiny of the world ; and that 
 is the reason why the rich keep control of the 
 money-issuing power, and will fight before they 
 will permit the workers to increase its volume to 
 that extent where a rise in the price of labor and 
 commodities will be the result. The rich produce 
 nothing, so to speak ; consequently they would re- 
 ceive no benefit from a rise on the price of things, 
 while, on the other hand, they would be compelled 
 to pay that risen price. 
 
 Trusts and Department Stores. 
 
 The trust is the modern iconoclast which has 
 come to break in pieces all established systems of 
 trade and commerce. Individualism cannot stand 
 a day's conflict against collectivism. The trust 
 has every essential feature of monarchy and des- 
 potism, in centralized influence and capital, to 
 back its demands upon government and markets. 
 It is, by its very nature, the ally of corporations. 
 It has corruption for its corner-stone, and tribute 
 for its capstone. It preys upon all smaller com- 
 petitors, first assailing and then destroying them. 
 It is the ideal system of the investing and moneyed 
 classes ; but it is the terror of the helpless masses, 
 who are constantly being levied upon for greater 
 tribute in their every purchase. Its influence at
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMARY CONTINUED. 21/ 
 
 the bank is such as financially to crush any com- 
 petitor. The favors granted to it by the railroads 
 in discriminations on freight will enable it to ex- 
 tend its power and to control trade all over the 
 land. It has but one buyer, and he becomes 
 dictator. The banks work with him, in squeez- 
 ing the holders of crops and merchandise during 
 the selling season, thus forcing them to sell at 
 the trust's figure. 
 
 Under this trust system, I repeat, the people are 
 powerless, as the trust heads them off through brib- 
 ery, in every attempt made to protect themselves ; 
 whether in the courts or in legislatures, the trust's 
 attorney, like the city detective, keeps the people 
 under surveillance. If competitors are obstinate 
 and troublesome, the trust does not scruple to 
 trump up some criminal charge against them, thus 
 involving them in ruinous expense ; and with the 
 judge on the bench, who is often a heavy holder of 
 trust stocks, any appeal only carries the victim to 
 a surer fate in the higher courts, where aj^poiut- 
 ments are not seldom made in recognition ol trust 
 contributions during election. The trust is the 
 monster which the rich love and the i)Cople hate. 
 Its power over local merchant -mmX producer, and 
 over its hirelings in government, who refer to it 
 as being a " blessing to the people," shows how 
 far-reaching and to what dangerous proportions 
 this octopus of greed has already attained. The 
 trust is the handwriting on the wall, foretelling
 
 2l8 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 the bankruptcy of the merchants and jobbers of 
 our land. It designs curtaihiient in the creation 
 of wealth on the one hand, and extortion from the 
 people on the other. No nation can stand when 
 its rulers join hands with such a monstrosity. 
 The rulers, allotted a share in its profits, allow 
 the trust to take the people by the throat while 
 it rifles their pockets. 
 
 The department-store system bears the same 
 relation to the cities and towns as the trust does 
 to the whole country. While in some things the 
 department stores and trusts are rivals, on the whole 
 they are allies. If the trust completely controls 
 an article and fixes its price for the whole nation, 
 the department store will use that article and join 
 with the trust in protecting its price ; and, in con- 
 sideration of this, the trust forces the small dealers 
 out of handling the article by giving the depart- 
 ment store a rebate amounting to a profit. It 
 is no uncommon remark to hear retailers in 
 special lines say that they cannot buy at wholesale 
 as low as the department store retails the same 
 goods. Under such combinations there is not a 
 spark of hope left for the future of small re- 
 tailers. The only hope is that some day the 
 American people will be so stirred by the monopo- 
 lizinof greed of their inhuman and brutal masters 
 and tormenters, that, in their terribly distressed 
 condition, — a condition forced upon them by, and 
 growing out of the combination of capital, aided by
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMARY CONTINUED. 219 
 
 political parties and bosses, — they will rise up as a 
 man and vote their oppressors, root and branch, out 
 power, and put men like Andrew Jackson in their 
 places. Yes, the American people must find a 
 man with the patriotism of a Washington, the 
 nerve and courage of a Jackson, the intelligence 
 of a Jefferson, and the honesty of a Lincoln, before 
 this terrible power can be dethroned. Such a 
 man will not be found in Wall Street, nor will he 
 receive Wall Street's endorsement, nor be elected 
 by the aid of its pooled millions. Once elected, 
 however, such a man will meet the bank kings, the 
 trust promoters, the syndicate barons and rail- 
 road magnates, as President Jackson met Nicholas 
 Biddle, the old government bank king ; and when 
 these Wall Street multi-millionaires present them- 
 selves at the White House and make their de- 
 mands, first using bribes and afterwards threats, 
 this man will answer them as President Jackson 
 answered Biddle's hirelings : " Do you men come 
 here to threaten me.-* If you dare to put any of 
 your threats into execution, by the Great Internal, 
 I will hang you as high as Ilaman ! " This nation 
 has some such experience as this to pass through 
 before the fall in prices can be stopped ; before 
 we can have a peo|)lc's money ; before we can put 
 the people to work ; aiifl l)eforc a lasting pros- 
 perity cin be restored to the country.
 
 2 20 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 Ove rprodnction. 
 When markets become choked up with goods, 
 and there is no demand, the cry goes out from 
 the merchants to mills and farms to stop ship- 
 ment, because the country has overproduced ! 
 This looks so self-evident to the men whose 
 stores are piled up with goods that, when taken 
 into consideration with another fact, — that every 
 country buyer says that his store is filled up with 
 goods sufficient to last him a year, — one cannot 
 wonder how general and popular the cry of " over- 
 production " becomes. It is evident, however, 
 that these men do not look beyond their nose, 
 which is kept right down to their sale-book and 
 stock-book. They find the pages of the latter 
 covered with invoices of goods received, while the 
 former records but few or no sales. Inquiry among 
 the dealers reveals the fact of this condition of 
 trade being general, and as a conclusion the so- 
 called "practical business man," in the most 
 positive and dogmatic manner, asserts " overpro- 
 duction " to be a glaring fact, and " has no time 
 to talk with theorists in discussing the matter." 
 The thought does not glimmer in his mind that 
 national laws are never suspended ; that Nature 
 is always acting, always creating, and always util- 
 izing. These men are like the farmers located on 
 farms on the rich river bottom of the Mississippi, 
 covering a thousand miles, but depending upon
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMARY CONTINUED. 221 
 
 irrigation, who, when a landslide takes place, com- 
 pletely damming up the waters, and causing the 
 crops of the country above the dam to become 
 submerged, and those below to become dried up, 
 never go off of their farms to look for the cause, 
 or give any time to reasoning about the matter; 
 but all above the dam have a very positive opinion 
 that there is an overproduction of water, while 
 those below the dam are just as positive that there 
 is an undcrsupply of it. From the narrow stand- 
 point of personal experience they are both right ; 
 but from the broader standpoint of one who always 
 traces effect back to cause, they are both wrong. 
 By opening a channel in the obstruction in the 
 river, and reestablishing the normal flow of its 
 circulation, these farmers would find that the too 
 much water in the one case, and the too little 
 water in the other, would quickly be restored to 
 an equilibrium. 
 
 This is precisely the case of overproduction, or 
 the opposite cry of underconsumption. I'^om a 
 limited view the fact is only too obvious; but 
 a broader view i.<> obtained when we follow effect 
 back to cause for this unnatural condition of af- 
 fairs. Let the merchants go to the mills and 
 factories, and see if they have been doubling their 
 output ; that is to say, if stocks have doubled on 
 the market. If the investigation shows no increase 
 of output, then let them go among the consumers, 
 and ascertain, first, if they have all the supplies
 
 222 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 they need ; and, second, if they have all the money 
 they need with which to purchase them. By so 
 doing, one will soon locate or fix upon the cause. 
 If it should be found that the people need the 
 supplies, but are without the money to purchase 
 them, then it will not be the oversupply of goods, 
 but rather the undersupply of money which causes 
 the trouble ; and by correcting the money-supply, 
 by opening the channel of circulation of money, the 
 accumulated goods — like the accumulated water 
 above the dam — will soon be reduced, and flow into 
 the hands where they are so much needed. Be sure 
 and watch the interests of your workers, see that 
 they receive sufificient remuneration to enable 
 them to consume to the extent of their real wants, 
 and then no accumulation of goods can take 
 place. ' 
 
 Supply and Demand. 
 
 Connected with the cry of " overproduction " 
 is that one of " supply and demand." Just as 
 a man's belief in certain religious systems is a 
 barometer of his spiritual unfoldment and un- 
 derstanding, so his belief in regard to certain 
 social-economical questions shows the degree of 
 knowledge to which he has attained concerning 
 the world's systems of money, and the understand- 
 
 ' See Chapter VI., for a monetary system which will restore 
 prosperity.
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMA/iY CONTINUED. 223 
 
 ing of their effect upon the law of demand and 
 supply of things, including money itself. 
 
 An overdemand for goods means an under- 
 supply, as much as an oversupply means an 
 underdemand ; and a regulator by which the 
 law of demand and supply can establish an equi- 
 librium is of all things the one most needed. 
 That such a regulator exists in the volume of the 
 medium of exchange, every financial authority of 
 any repute fully understands. Here, however, the 
 selfishness of man interferes. All excesses must 
 pay a penalty. If men with tremendous capital 
 and irrisistible influence control the making and 
 execution of the nation's laws in their own inter- 
 est, robbing the many to enrich the few, congest- 
 ing instead of distributing the productions of labor, 
 we must expect that the penalty will come in the 
 shape of disturbance of the equilibrium between 
 supply and demand. This penalty will bring to 
 the merchant accumulated and perishable stocks, 
 to the needy community a deprivation of the 
 same, and to labor a great loss. All this, as a 
 result of the avarice and cunning of a few men 
 who have acquired political power, will continue 
 until through suffering the people arouse them- 
 selves to action, and take the government out of 
 the hands of those who legislate for corporations, 
 banks, railroad.s, and trusts, and place it in the 
 hands of those who will legislate in the interests 
 of all. S(j long as this result is delayed, over-
 
 224 FALLING I'AVCES. 
 
 production and underconsumption, and the dis- 
 arrangement between demand and supply will not 
 only continue but be intensified. 
 
 Machinejy. 
 
 To ignore the great first cause which has dis- 
 turbed and thrown our whole social system into 
 disorder keeps us constantly dwelling on mere 
 effects, and exalting these into causes. Thus we 
 find men accounting for overproduction by attrib- 
 uting it to machinery. In the factory and on tlie 
 farm, in the markets full of farm-produce and in 
 the stores filled with fabrics of the loom, the gen- 
 eral complaint is that with the aid of machinery 
 the workers can produce double the amount of 
 products needed by the people. 
 
 The reader will here notice the difference be- 
 tween saying that more goods can be produced by 
 machinery than the trade demands, and the saying 
 that more can be so produced than ihepeople need. 
 The deception lies in the use of the terms "trade" 
 and "people." The rich buy always; they may 
 vary in quality, but not in quantity, as the times 
 change. The poor, however, can buy only when 
 they have work and wages. It is not in the power 
 of the people, even with the aid of the most im- 
 proved machinery, to overproduce so far as the 
 real wants of the entire community are concerned ; 
 but when a part of the community have lost the 
 power to buy, and are no longer able to consume
 
 REVIEW AND SUMMARY CONTINUED. 225 
 
 to the extent of their needs, then trade is stag- 
 nated by overproduction, although the needs of 
 the people are by no means supplied. To correct 
 this condition, the one great first cause of it must 
 be removed ; that is, money enough must be sup- 
 plied the nation — not in the kind of material, but 
 in volume — to raise prices to that extent which 
 wUl give to those who work sufficient compensa- 
 tion to enable them, as well as the rich, to be uni- 
 versally and always consumers. Then, instead of 
 condemning machinery, the demands of trade will 
 continually call for more and better machinery.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 In conclusion, I claim to have made clear, and 
 also to have substantiated, the following facts : 
 
 First, that from 1865 until 1872 no nation had 
 ever experienced greater prosperity in every de- 
 partment of commerce and trade, in agriculture 
 and manufactures, than the United States during 
 that period. 
 
 Second, that during this time our nation enjoyed 
 the benefits of the largest circulating medium ($65 
 per capita) of any period in its history. 
 
 Third, that in these years the producing and 
 mercantile classes retained a larger percentage 
 of the products they created than at any other 
 given period in their experience. 
 
 Fourth, that the common people were then buy- 
 ing homes and furnishing them, were buying farms 
 and paying for them, with the ready cash in hand, 
 as the result of high wages paid for labor at that 
 time. 
 
 Fifth, that the producing classes were then com- 
 paratively out of debt, and had money enough to 
 keep the markets bare of goods, — a statement 
 for which I will give authority a little farther on. 
 
 226
 
 CONCLUSION. 227 
 
 Sixth, that in exact proportion to the amount of 
 money the nation at the close of that period called 
 in and took out of circulation by converting it into 
 bonds, prices fell, and times grew hard, causing 
 prosperity to be succeeded by depression. 
 
 Seventh, that prices were the highest when our 
 volume of money was the greatest. Secretary 
 McCuUough, in his report for December, 1865, 
 said, " We now have about $2,000,000,000, nearly 
 all in circulation among the people;" while in 
 1874, nine years later. General Logan said, "Con- 
 traction has gone on, until the whole amount of 
 currency of every kind now outstanding is only 
 $742,000,000." But Wall Street financiers were 
 not satisfied with contracting our volume of money 
 from $2,000,000,000 in 1865, to $742,000,000 in 
 1874, but clandestinely demonetized silver; and 
 the silver dollar was not a " fifty-cent dollar " then, 
 but a one-hundrcd-ccnt dollar, while the gold dol- 
 lar, which was unmolested, was in comparison but 
 a ninety-seven-cent dollar. Now, what effect did 
 this contraction have upon prices and business .-* ' 
 We will let Senator Logan tell what kind of times 
 we had in 1865, when McCullough, a tool of Wall 
 Street, began to contract our volume f)l money. 
 General Logan then snid : " It was the contraction 
 and increased want of currency, and not the su- 
 perabundance, which produced tlic necessity for 
 
 ' See the fall of prices, as ^iveii on page 7, from llie Trih- 
 uiif Tables, from 1865 to 1875.
 
 228 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 running in debt, of which there is so much said on 
 this floor. Why, sir, the people were never freer 
 from debt, in proportion to the business done, 
 than in 1865, at the close of the war, when Mr. 
 McCullough began his system of contraction, at 
 the very time eleven millions more people were 
 to be supplied." Such were the times in 1865, 
 before contraction, as described by Senator Logan. 
 It would be useless to picture the times in 1873 
 and 1874, after contraction's work had been ac- 
 complished, as every reader of middle age can 
 remember the wild scenes which then took place 
 from Maine to California. Nearly every financial 
 institution in the land was shaken to its founda- 
 tion. Stocks of goods were thrown on the mar- 
 ket to raise money with which to pay notes, 
 regardless of price, as a deck-load would be 
 dumped overboard to save a ship from sinking ; 
 and this condition prevailed until 1878, when a 
 relief measure was adopted which restored silver 
 dollars to our currency. The United States Mon- 
 etary Commission of 1876 reported three millions 
 of people out of employment at that time, and 
 partial relief only was perceptible as the silver 
 dollars were coined and added to our volume of 
 currency. Bread-riots and strikes prevailed all 
 over the land, while in 1876 and 1877 eighty-six 
 railroads, covering fourteen thousand, one hundred 
 and seventy-nine miles, with an invested capital of 
 $912,509,000, went into the sheriff's hands.
 
 CONCLUSION. 229 
 
 Eighth, that falling prices have continued until 
 to-day, and are still falling ; that every effort is 
 being made by the money-power to stop the coin- 
 age of silver dollars, and to destroy all our present 
 outstanding dollars (except the gold dollar), con- 
 stantly aggravating the cause of the downward 
 course of prices, of depression in trade, and in- 
 tensifying the terrible condition of want and 
 suffering in the ranks of the working-classes. 
 
 To show still more impressively the extent of 
 contraction from 1865 to 1890, I will quote the 
 statement of Mr. J. K. Hudson, a leading Repub- 
 lican editor, in April, 1890, who estimated the 
 amount of currency at the close of the war in 
 1865 at $2,242,576,028.41, — a circulation per 
 capita of $64. The amount of circulation in 1890, 
 according to reliable authority, was as follows : 
 " If I were deciding this case upon what I con- 
 sider the best evidence, I should be bound to say 
 that I believed the money in actual circulation did 
 not much, if at all, exceed 5500,000,000, — or a 
 trifle over S8 per capita." ' 
 
 When we had about $64 in circulation per 
 capita in 1865, print-cloths sold at 38^^ cents; 
 while to-day, when we have a still smaller \olumc 
 of money in circulation per ca])ita than in i8()0 
 (since for fuc years coinage of silver h;is been 
 stopped, while commodities and |)opulation have 
 
 '.Speech of I'. I'.. I'lnmli, in the Unitejl .Stales .Senate, June, 
 1S90.
 
 230 FALLING PRICES. 
 
 been constantly increasing), print-cloth is selling 
 for 2yi cents. I can, moreover, say, without fear 
 of contradiction, that not an article can be men- 
 tioned which has not fallen in price to conform 
 with this contraction of currency, except those 
 protected by a patent, a trust, or a monopoly, or 
 the price of which has been enhanced by flood, 
 fire, or drought. Therefore I affirm that to at- 
 tribute, as so many do, the terrible destruction of 
 values on farm and plantation, in store and mill, 
 and the wiping out of railroad properties, to 
 " machinery," or " immigration," or " loss of con- 
 fidence," or "overproduction," is simply to put 
 effect in the place of cause. The great prime 
 cause, as I have so repeatedly said and (I believe) 
 shown, is that subtle movement inaugurated by 
 the money -power to contract our currency, and 
 bring it to a gold basis. 
 
 Thus, after a careful and studious investigation, 
 — prompted thereto both by self-interest and an 
 interest in behalf of my fellow men, — I have 
 reached the conclusion that the great and per- 
 sistent fall in prices which has taken place in the 
 last thirty years is owing to that contraction of 
 our money volume which began in 1865, and 
 which has been steadily progressing ever since. 
 I also believe that we are destined to have a still 
 greater depression in business, and a correspond- 
 ing increase of hard times and general suffering,
 
 CONCLUSION. 23 I 
 
 unless the present scheme of the money-power to 
 destroy all forms of legal-tender paper currency is 
 defeated. Firmly believing in the soundness of my 
 diagnosis and in the remedy herein advocated, I 
 send forth my little book hoping it will convince 
 others, and so contribute to a restoration of good 
 times for all. 
 
 THE END.
 
 Interviews with Leading Business Men 
 
 What They Think Will Bring Prosperity 
 
 By L. F. GEORGE. 
 
 This book is now in press and was written by the author 
 of " Falling Prices and the Remedy." 
 
 Mr. George gives in this new work many of the inter- 
 views he had with prominent business men in securing their 
 subscriptions to his first book. 
 
 When one considers the masterly manner in which he 
 has handled the subject of " Falling Prices," and the clear 
 and condensed style in which he has treated the panaceas 
 and quack cures prescribed by each man, it is certain that 
 these interviews svill prove most interesting reading. In 
 many cases Mr. George solicited his subscriptions with the 
 sole purpose of ascertaining the profundity of knowledge 
 enjoyed by many of Boston's leading financiers and busi- 
 ness men. In most cases he met gentlemen; but in other 
 instances he found himself involved in arguments with 
 ignorant though wealthy boors, and it is safe to say that Mr. 
 George, with his finely organized and sensitive mind and 
 highly proud spirit, together with his illimitable resources 
 in powers of graphic description of situation, has been able 
 to picture these discourteous persons in a true though ludi- 
 crous and most unenvialjle light. Those who know Mr. 
 George claim he will write the arguments exactly as they 
 took place without fear or favor. 
 
 Mr. (Jeorge secured something like eight hundred ad- 
 vance subscriptions for " Falling Prices." These sub- 
 .scrii>ers were not asked to endorse the .sentiments of the 
 book, but the possession of bona Jide signatures will go a 
 great way towards proving the genuineness of the inter- 
 views. If the author had called this latest work the 
 "Mysteries of Finance Unravelled " or " ICconomic Soph- 
 istries K.xposed " or " Pearls of Kconomic Fallacy from 
 the ' Wise Men of the Fast,' " he would have kept well 
 within the s|)irit of his text. 
 
 Price, bound in Cloth, $1.00. Postajce prepaid. 
 
 Liberal dlacountii to the trade. 
 
 GEORGE BOOK PUBLISHING CO., 
 
 BOSTON, MASS.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
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