ILLINOIS

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

PRODUCTION NOTE

University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign Library
Brittle Books Project, 2015.COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION

In Public Domain.
Published prior to 1923.

This digital copy was made from the printed version held
by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
It was made in compliance with copyright law.

Prepared for the Brittle Books Project, Main Library,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
by

Northern Micrographics
Brookhaven Bindery
La Crosse, Wisconsin

2015■ , w • ■ vy/' 4 • . f. * k ' I

<+ ■ ■ + ,f. ^ ^ ^ ; 4- * *

^ ^ ■ a^:'"- * ', ^ 4 4 ;;-:^;v;,,^-r • ^
'* * * * <■*> * . * ' ' 4 ,-4* *%..- ^ ',

* ^ T" #* \ ' ■ 4> 4' *fc -f ■ 4 ' '•. ^ ' 4"

f ^ * -*- !*■■■ ,■■■*-■ -4- .4. #; '#■ 4., ';;

',■ * * * * i f 4 ' 4 4 " ' -f #

*£ 4 *• 4

'4 . 4: ^

*:; ■,*<
4 * 4 IK- 4"

f- : +■ . 4- ■#' 4- .:=4 4' ' #:.

* *-■■■ ^ ■ * ;t * ■* 'f ♦ ^ rf,;
* *; *• 4 f . f .. 4 4 4= :':4'

* t" 4' _ 4 ! ^- "f 4"- ' 4- .4 " ,^.--

'# . 4 * T - * # 4" ' •#,- / 4* \

-4 "4" * ■•?- ,4.,.-

:^4 ' ai£r. -*■ - •' '

- 4 : ^ j

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

LIBRARY

*:;■ #■:

•f- . 4' *

f" , ; 0

4 #--. ■ ^ Class ---- ,

* . ^ V\XS"7d

4- ; 4* ^

+- ' *

Ja 09-20M

-*#«

' 4 "%y:. ; 4;-\

*4; 4-:' ;

: ■ ^ ' 'f'

* , 4

: ' : ' ■ # ■

Book , Volume ^ ^

: 4 ■«*■-

— 4 ' IK ' '
_

r-- 4 -#• ■' ,

-# ^ 1- * * ■ §. ^ ^-::^

'- * * 4. -4, 4:

f " . ^ ' -f' ^ .4 ' 4. : 4^,

^ f-' f ■*-• :-|^-
#■ if* ' # 4,:.. ;U

^ * . "■*"• T- . ' .■'.; ^■■"' .. ^jlk- '"Hjfe-..-

* # 4 4 -4- 4

14 ; . 4 . 4 4 ■; 4 ' -4;; -.: 4. _ ' .4

^ ' ^ f 4 ■ - 4 4, - 4 •■

+ ; * \* '' 4 4 -f .'■" ^ ^

4 4 ^-' 4 4 4;_^ 4:;. ''■*::_ ;4;. 'Cf%'v

4 * # . 4;- 4-' ♦ > 4- 4-.- •- -1^:;,,,
■ 4... -4 ^- " 4 4-4 4, 4-; &kL;<"vCji£|

^ "** ^ ^ ^ 4' -.4 ^ 4r=-

• *•'•'*_-*• ■* *■ ' JL -Jte ■ -'J. ' Jt- '"'J-

' /'/ ,- - :VTHE DOLLAR CROP.ARITHMETICAL
PROGRESSION.

If you would do your share in this
work, you must organize and act.

F6r One Dollar, we will mail (prepaid)
a copy of this book to any eight names
in the United States that you furnish.

Four copies for Fifty Cents.

Two copies for Twenty-five Cents*

Avail yourself of this opportunity
and instruct your friends so receiving
it to do likewise.

Let the furrow be wide as well as
deep. Don't delay.

FRUIT WORLD

PUBLISHING COMPANY.

Sacramento, California.DOLLAR CROP l

AND THE HISTORY OF ITS MANIPULATION BY THE CORPORATE
MONEY POWER IN CONSPIRACY AGAINST
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

MARSHALL V. HARTRANFT.

Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.

—Proverbs xxxi: 9.

FRUIT WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA.

1896. o."2

'J w C..A, - \

\ V ^ r* *

V\ vo^>

Fruit World Publishing Company.

PRESS OF THE PACIFIC PRINTING HOUSE
CARRINGTON & ANDERSON

912 FIFTH STREET
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA.CONTENTS.

There He Lies, Sir, Your Typical American Tramp! pa*«

Over-Production or Under-Consumption? . .1

An Evening's Talk.

The Wheat Crop—The Dollar Crop and the Hungry Stomachs. 12

Retiring the Greenbacks.

When and How the Dollar Crop Was Destroyed One-Half—The

Peculiar Reason Given—The Old Man and His Conscience. . 22

The Demonetization of Silver.

The Scheme Adopted by Shylock to Prevent the Dollar Crop From
Increasing While the Population Multiplies—The Hazzard Cir-
culars—The American Bankers' Association—The Briberies. . 31

Honest (?) Money Arguments.

The Dumping Scarecrow—The Mint Revision Act of 1873—Why

Silver Dollars Pass for a Dollar? . . 43

Bugbear of the Gold Bugs.

" Beware of Fifty-Cent Dollars ! " Yes, Beware!—The Sham Trade
Dollar—The War Greenbacks. . . ... 58

The Policy Invented by Peel.

Leading English Authorities—International Bye-and-Bye Bimet-

alism. . . . , . . .74

The National Banking System.

Shylock's Facilities for Maintaining, Continuing and Extending the

Policy Invented by Peel—Interest-bearing Dollars. , , 79CONTENTS—Continued

The Wild Panic of 1893.

History of the Conspiracy—The Secret Meetings—The Panic Cir-
cular. . . . . .... 87

Advocating Crime.

The Greenbacks Must Go—Logan's Speech—Cleveland, Sherman

and Carlisle Convinced— By Whom? . . . .105

What "Gold Basis " Means.

New York Journal of Commerce Speaks—" More Contraction Nec-
essary n—Dr. John Sherman's Famous Leather Pants. . 112

A Question Answered.

.'' The Mortgage on My Place Stipulates Payment in Gold Coin. How

Will Silver Coinage Benefit Me! " .... 117

Extortion or Repudiation.

Sherman versus Sherman—A Foul Record. . . .122

Bourke Cochran's Wage Earner.

The Twin Editorials of the Baltimore Sun—The Farmer and the

Crisis. ........ 135

"Who Make Lies Their Refuge. ''

Checks, Not Money—Major McKinley's Confusion—The Insur-
ance Policy—Bald Contradictions. .... 139

"Dinna Ye Hear the Slogan."

Lincoln's Warning Against the Money Power—The Bankers'

Rebellion—The Clews'Circular. . . . . 148PREFACE.

THE people of the United States are engaged in the solution
of the money problem. The whole question is one of price,
and for its proper solution students must first comprehend
the quantitative law which governs the purchasing value of the
monetary unit.

This one principle, if held steadfastly in view, constitutes
an unerring guide through what must otherwise be a path of
difficulty. It is the key to the financial situation in the United
States; in fact, it is the key to the financial situation in every
land. Without this key it is vain to attempt to unlock the doors
of monetary science.

The main object the author has in view is to present the
quantitative law in language suited for the easy comprehension
of all men.

Understanding this great principle, it is not difficult to trace
the outlines of the conspiracy of the corporate money power
to secure absolute control over the volume of circulating medium.

That such a conspiracy has been nearly carried to a success-
ful end is none the less true, because men who pride themselves
upon their conservatism (?) have not investigated the case. The
records of such a conspiracy are complete. The evidence has been
submitted before both Houses of Congress, and is duly on record
there. The secret history of that infamous warfare upon com-
merce and industry, by banking operations, known as the Panic
of 1893, has been duly recorded in debates in the halls of Con-
gress, when the "Panic Circular," sent out by the American
Bankers' Association, was discussed. No denial was ever made.
The leaders of that organization seem to have had sublime faith
in the apathy of the American people. But they are awakening
from their error.Clustered around the American Bankers' Association are
hundreds of institutions managed by honorable men, which, in
their individual capacity, render valued service to commerce and
industry, under the existing monetary system. But collectively,
the organization stands in defiance of all that is right and just in a
free Republic, and the continuation of their control over the execu-
tive and legislative branches of this Government can only result
in its downfall. M. V. H.

Sacramento, California, August, 1896.CHAPTER I.

THERE HE LIES, SIR!

A Victim of Falling Prices< Your Typical American
Tramp.

The roads were dusty, the mn biasing hot; shad flibs were dis-
tressing the horses, and our journey across Kent County, Dela-
ware, was far from pleasant. My comrauloa: was familiarly
known as Bill Grace of Magnoly. l>ill was a tall muscularly
built man of perhaps forty years, with a high forehead denoting
keen intellect. He was the proprietor of a pretentious general
merchandising store in the village of Magnolia, Delaware. He
was a man well known for his prominent part in politics, and
happened to be driving with me upon this particular day from
the village of Magnolia to Woodside.

" Who is the owner of this well kept and prosperous look-
ing farm, Mr. Grace?" I asked, referring to a place we were
passing, which for tidiness and general appearance surpassed
anything I had observed in many years.

" Why, that belongs to Jim Reid, one of the most industrious
farmers in this vicinity; a mighty fine fellow, 'cept he's a Demo-
crat—and these Democratic hard times has nearly ruined him.
He'll likely lose that farm this fall, for his crops ain't sold for
enough for three years to much more'n pay his living expenses
and taxes; and his interest is behind two years. Then the way
crops sold this year looks like his place '11 sure enough be fore-
closed this fall; and don't you know, sir, he's such a prejudiced
democrat that he can't see far enough into politics to vote the
Republican ticket."

" Why, I don't see myself how that could relieve him."

" Well, an intelligent looking feller like you can't be a Demo-
crat, a free silver anarchist, be you?"

" Not an anarchist, Mr. Grace, but a very honest believer in
the justice of reopening our mints to the coinage of silver."

" What else can we call you fellers; don't you want to2

THE DOLLAR CROP

repudiate the debts both national and private; don't you want to
pay with fifty cent dollars and bring discredit and dishonor upon
the nation?"

"Not at all, Mr. Grace; quite the contrary. We only de-
mand equity between men, and insist upon protection to the man
that is industrious and frugal to insure that proper share of the
wealth he does create is reserved to him for his own use and com-
fort; that one class, by a surreptitious control of the currency
volume, shall not exact from another, more than was agreed to
be given; that the money lenders, who virtually toil not, shall not
absorb the wealth of him whe creates it in the sweat of his face."

" Huh! "that sounds nice."

" Yes, it is perhaps of vague meaning to you, but just such
inequity exists. Just such an absorption has been going on for
many years, and its effects can be seen everywhere. Take the
case of Jim Reid back there. You said he was one of the most
industrious farmers in this county, did you not?"

" He is, 'cept he's a democrat."

" You also said that he will likely lose his farm by mortgage
foreclosure in the fall?"

"Oh, yes; that's a settled fact, now, I guess."

"Well, what is the amount of that mortgage?"

"It was an even $10,000, but there are back interest charges as
well, and I don't think the place will bring that amount under
the Sheriff's hammer."

"When he negotiated that mortgage his place was worth prob-
ably double that, say $20,000, was it not?"

"Fully that; property has fallen fearfully in this section; fear-
fully, fearfully."

"Yes; and in all other sections as well, Mr. Grace. The fall in
general prices^ is just where the absorption takes place. There
was Jim Reid's farm and home in which he had an equity of
$10,000, the mortgage upon it only representing one-half interest
in his place. To-day the mortgage covers it all. The money-
lender has absorbed all of Mr. Reid's title and interest in the
place. The mortgage only calls for the same number of dollars,
but each one of the dollars have grown in value. They com-THE DOLLAR CHOP

mand more property than the dollars that were loaned. This
fall in prices must be arrested. It is not local, but is general. I
might ask what will become of Mr. Reid after the foreclosure.
Can he find employment, or will he become a vagrant? What
of his family and children? Ah, Mr. Grace, some very sad cases
of this nature have come under my observation-"

"Falling prices do work hardships. But I interrupted you."

"I was thinking of a friend of mine in Western New York.
His case was so much like the one we were talking of. Several
years ago he bought a fine hop farm in Western New York. He
paid $9,000 down and negotiated a mortgage with a bank in an
adjacent town for the remaining $10,000, the purchase price hav-
ing been $19,000. He took his young wife and started on the
farm with vigor and hope. The first year, despite many inci-
dental expenses, he cleared $2,000 profit after paying interest,
taxes and all living expenses. He said to me once that he did
not believe there was a happier man in America than he on the
day in which he drove to town with his wife and baby in the
carriage, the money in his pocket, and walking into the bank
paid $2,000 on that mortgage, leaving only $8,000 against the
place.

"The second year his hops sold lower, but notwithstanding
that he cleared $1,000 above all expenses and again hurried
down to the bank, reducing the mortgage against his home to
$7,000. During the third year, however, much lower prices were
realized, and he barely met expenses; then several years of fall-
ing prices and he had to abandon hops and plant grape vine-
yards. He did not have one fair season with grapes, when the
demoralized markets on those goods forced him to abandon
grapes for potatoes; but all farm products were selling so low
that potatoes did not yield him enough revenue to meet taxes
and interest, and for two years he borrowed money to pay his in-
terest.

"Then in the panic year of 1893 he had good crops, but they
sold so very low as to make it impossible to pay the interest; he
defaulted payment. The mortgage was foreclosed, the farm sold
under the Sheriff's hammer for $7,500, which the mortgage, back
interest and court expenses absorbed, leaving Mr. Adams and his4

THE DOLLAR CR9P

family homeless paupers as a reward for many years of unre-
mitting toil and frugal living."

"That, Mr. Grace, is another case where the wealth created
each year by a toiler was absorbed by one who toiled not."

Each year, owing to steadily falling prices, that farmer found
it necessary to surrender more and more of his products to secure
the money to pay his interest, and any financial system which
produces such results is vicious and inimical to the welfare of
the nation. You know, probably as well as I, that the farmers
of this whole land are bankrupt and being turned out of their
homes by the thousands every day, with a consequent stagnation
of trade in all its branches, other than the gambling in money.

The danger of these conditions to you and me are not only
that our business is embarrassed, but that our Government can-
not long exist if such things continue, for the reason that these
oppressed outcasts in time become a dangerous element in our
society. The history of Adams was particularly sad to me. He
borrowed enough money to get his wife and children to Chicago
to find employment, and he did succeed in getting his two girls
positions behind counters in a large retail establishment at very
small wages, but his wife, broken in health by the last few oppres-
sive years on the farm, could do nothing, and he himself tramped
the streets for days and weeks in search of employment. But
you know how it was and has been since 1893. One day he
picked up a Chicago Tribune, and noticing some editorial com-
ments upon the cause of dissatisfaction existing throughout the
nation, he read:

"The reason times are hard in the cities is because too many
people crowd in from the rural districts. More people should
\ I till the soil."

This set him to thinking, and he wondered whether he had
made a mistake in coming to the city; but, think hard as he
might, he could not, with his experience, understand how he could
do anything back in the rural districts, where he had left his
neighbors in nearly as bad condition as his own. However, he
read the papers carefully, but was disgusted with their contra-
dictory advice, when he read in the Inter Ocean the same month,
as follows:THE DOLLAR CROP

"The reason farm products are so low is because there is
over-production. There are too many people engaged in farm-
ing."

He wisely concluded that those editors either knew very lit-
tle or were concealing something.

Circumstances began to get serious with him. A family of
four were not able to keep body and soul together on the meagre
earnings of the two girls, so one day he bade them good bye to
walk back to Utica, New York, to seek help and employment
among friends there. One night, while sleeping in an abandoned
building near Fort Wayne, Indiana, for he had no money for
lodging, he was arrested as a vagrant and committed to jail for
three months on the charge of vagrancy. It is irreconcilable to
my sense of justice for our nation to legislate that poverty is a
crime; however, Adams, broken hearted and frantic, lay and
tossed in the prison cell. Weeks rolled by and months, but he
he never wrote a line to the half starving family, for he well
knew that the news of his imprisonment would drive them wild
with grief. His term expired. He determined to work his way
back to Chicago, for he wanted to see his family. After long
hours of dismal traveling, the black city was dimly outlined
against the sky. His mind was filled with vengeful thoughts
how he had worked and toiled and now a hungry pauper, while
the one wTho had never labored had absorbed his all. How he
had been sober all his life, true to his country, his family and
his God, yet everything had been taken from him.

The wind was penetrating and chill as he passed in through the
outskirts of the city. Down State Street he walked faster and
faster, into a cross street, down an alley—up the creaky stairs to
the little room, where he had left his family six months before.
A strange face at the door startled him.

"Great God, woman, where's my wife—my babies?"

"Who, man, the woman and two girruls as lived here afore?"

"Yes, my wife, my children."

"Why man, Missus Adams read in the paper as how a strange
man o' your deescription were killed a-ridin' on a freight train
near Utikee, New York, she took sick an' died, just worried to
death. The two girruls come home as usual at dark and carried6

THE DOLLAR CROP

on so they did—why, mister, don't cry—" For the strong man
was convulsed in tears.

"But where are my girls—my babies?" moaned the helpless
man.

"Ah, mister, the Mother of Jesus only knows. They was three
days gone from their work when their mother died, and when they
went back their places had been filled. God knows, mister, that
I haven't been able to get enough bread for my own little ones,
but when your biggest girl came back and told me about it, I
gave her the last pennies we had and they started out, promising
to come back occasionally. That was eight weeks ago, and we
have not heard of them since."

The poor fellow could stand no more. He glanced about the
room, said "Good-bye, God bless you, woman," and started—

For where? To tramp !

Out through the gaily thronged streets he passed. On into the
country. Night comes on, the sun sinks in the west, and he lays
himself down in an old building to rest. From his pocket he
pulls a newspaper picked up at the roadside, and to divert his
mind he reads. At the foot of one column Itts eye alights upon
a statistical array of figures, quoted from the sermon of a great
New York preacher:

"There are 30,000 millionaires in the United States.

"Seventy persons in the United States are worth $2,700,000,000.

"Thirty-one thousand own over one-half the entire wealth of
the country.

"Ten thousand children die annually in the United States from
insufficient food or clothing.

"In New York City 40,000 working women are so poorly paid
that they must accept charity, SELL THEIR BODIES or
starve."

The poor man could read no further. Blinded with passion,
he rises to strike back. At what? At whom? Ah! He is a
man still, and will not wrong the innocent. On the hay stack
he again reclines and sobs sad, heart-broken moans—a tramp—a
vagabond. Pulling the hay about him he doses away in peace-
ful slumber, the worn body and distracted mind are at rest.

He is dreaming of the little brown farmhouse among the wil-
low trees; he is following again his sturdy team behind the plow.THE DOLLAR CROP

He milks the cows, and in his dream is sitting around his frugal
table with his wife and darlings.

There he lies, sir, in peaceful slumber. An outcast from so-
ciet}r, a victim of falling prices—

Your Typical American Tramp!

We have millions of them in this country to-day, Mr. Grace,
for the process that makes one farmer a pauper will consign sev-
eral factory hands to vagrancy.

" How do you figure that ?"

For the reason that during a period of continuously falling
prices, the farmer has no profit, but manages to scrape along.
Having no profit he can buy no manufactured goods. The man-
ufacturer losing such customers can only employ less labor. The
factory closing and the vigorous mechanic of yesterday is to-day
a tramp.

At nightfall you see them scattered along this road—asleep.
What about the hour of awakening, when, with the pangs of hun-
ger, they rise to strike back ? Whom will they strike ? The peo-
ple who, benefited by absorbing the wealth these outcasts once pro-
duced but could not retain ? Or is it to be a repetition of the Paris
Commune, which is inevitable, if prices decline much further,
so that your wife and babies are to suffer ?

" But," said Mr. Grace, " you know tramps won't work."

Won't work ? How can you expect them to work ? Their
homes are gone, their families scattered. They have been forced
to beg and their manhood is gone. They have dark reflections
behind them and darker nothingness ahead of them. What in-
centive is there for them to work ? What impels you to drive in
this hot sun with me ? Why, sir; it is to provide for the home.
Ah, the home. The bulwark of the nation. Thousands of them
are annually broken up, their titles swept away by the continu-
ally falling prices.

It is a serious matter with us at this very moment. Here is a
clipping I cut from your Milford (Del.) Chronicle, August 10,
1895:

"A week ago this town was over-run with tramps. They were
an unusually impudent crowd, and our towns people became8

THE DOLLAR CROP

tired of giving them food, and, as a result the colony has been
reduced by at least one half. It was a common occurrence for
half dozen to call for a single meal at one house, and the expense
was more than many could afford, so they were refused so often
as to begin to look for more congenial surroundings."

We have little or no work to offer them. What are we to do
with them ? Amidst all the threatening trouble what are the
authorities doing to ameliorate conditions ? The only thing
I have noticed recently is from the Philadelphia Record, August
20, 1895, which says:

" Georgetown, Delaware, Commissioners enacted an ordinance
directing the immediate arrest and imprisonment of all tramps
found within the town limits, and tramps immediately gave the
town a wide birth."

Do you suppose for a moment that we can drive them into the
sea and drown them ? Supposing every city, burrough and vil-
lage in this country took the same action as your officials down
here at Georgetown, would that solve the problem ?

Considered in individual cases without regard to the causes
which produce a standing army of unemployed labor, they are
indeed great nuisances. When given work they are unsteady
and unreliable. But knowing the causes which have brought
about such results, I cannot curse them. I pity them. They
are victims of existing conditions. Without home, without
friends, I doubt if either you or I would be any more steady at
labor. Ah, sir; they are here in our midst, the weakest members
of society, the natural effects of unjust laws, and I sympathize
with them as they are driven from pillar to post.

OVER-PRODUCTION OR UNDER-CONSUMPTION f

Lower prices on farm products than those prevailing now
were never known before in the history of this country. This
means more foreclosures this fall; more homeless wanderers;
more hungry stomachs in the midst of plenty. What are we to

The historian, David Hume speaks of falling prices thus:

41 Falling: prices and misery and destitution are inseparable companions. The disasters of the
dark ages were caused by decreasing money and falling prices. With the increase of tnoney,
labor and industry gain new life,"THE DOLLAR CROP

do with them? Hungry stomachs are a very dangerous founda-
tion for a government.

These conditions are not local. They are the general con-
ditions of farmers throughout this country. Look at this sug-
gestive item from the Los Angeles (Cal.) Times of January 30th,
1896:

" It is truly a sad story which comes from San Bernardino
regarding the prospects of 200 families on the Semi-Tropic tract
about Rialto, losing their homes through the foreclosure of
a blanket mortgage. These people have struggled manfully to
build a prosperous community, and their misfortune must enlist
the sympathy of all Southern California."

Contrast the subject of our illustration, Mr. Adams, with the
holder of the mortgage, and don't you see the injustice caused by
constantly falling prices? There was Adams working and toiling,
bringing food products from the earth, owing each year $600 in-
terest to the banker, and every year finding it took more of his
products to get that same amount of money, and eventually the
banker, sitting in comparative idleness, secures title to the whole
farm, whereas originally he held an obligation which only cov-
ered half of it. Is that just?

Why, of course not, answered Mr. Grace, but when we have
an over-production like exists now, with more food products grow-
ing than the people can eat, how are you going to prevent prices
falling?

We contend that there is no over-production, Mr. Grace.
Such an explanation of affairs is absurd, and you would so
pronounce it after looking into the matter. When food products
are begging for a market, and millions of our people begging for
food, can it be over-production?

Look at the hungry stomachs who want to work and cannot
have the opportunity, and consequently cannot eat. When you
think of the alleged over-production of wheat just recall to your
mind the millions who are hungry for it. Is there an over-pro-
duction of shoes just because there were hundreds of bare feet
treading the icy pavements of our cities last winter begging for
bread? Is there an over-production of clothing when millions
of our people were illy clad and half-frozen by the blasts of lastIO

THE DOLLAR CROP

February? Is that over-production? No; in the eyes of God
and nature it is false. It is under-consumption.

Not until everybody that is willing to work is warmly clad,
and every hungry stomach filled can the over-production theory
stand. Men reveling in wealth, conscious of their great advan-
tage by a constant lowering of the general range of prices on
commodities are blind to the fearful conditions existing.

"But don't you think the decline in prices is sometimes from
other causes?" said Mr. Grace. "Has not the use of electricity
and the bicycle been the great cause of the decline in the price of
horses and mules?"

Electricity and the bicycle may have had some influence, but
the influence is scarcely perceptible. The decline in the price of
horses and mules has not been greater than the decline in price
on other commodities that could not possibly have been effected
from these causes. The decline in the price of cows has been as
great as that of horses and greater than that of mules, has it
not? I think you will concede that cows were never used to any
great extent to draw street cars or for driving purposes.

I am firmly convinced that the existing low prices have been
artificially produced for the benefit of a particular class, and
that is money-lenders in general. By controlling the money
volume in this country they control all industry and wealth. I
ascribe the real cause of our trouble to the vicious financial legis-
lation which has been enacted since the war. No tariff schedule
ever influenced to any considerable extent the general range of
prices on commodities in any country; while, on the other hand,
all political economists agree, and the proof is written on the
pages of history, that the volume of money in a country is the
most important factor in determining the money prices of com-
modities.

The influences that are behind the Protective Tariff are the
very interests which are reaping the advantage from the existing
general low prices, and their utterances upon the money question
show clearly that they do not favor the advent of higher prices
on commodities, and for that reason, Mr. Grace, I count myselfTHE DOLLAR CROP

within the ranks of the New Democracy. Did you ever give the
money question any serious, candid investigation?

Very little sir, other than observing the discussion in the news-
papers, but I would like to hear your side of the case. When are you
coming back our way? I'd like to have you talk to the boys at
the store, we'll give you a good crowd.

Wouldn't mind doing so. at all, sir, but I can hardly be around
by Magnolia before the middle of next month. It is necessary
for me to be in Milford to-morrow.

"Well, I can put you in Milford early in the morning, it is but a
short drive, can't you come back with me to-night? Lots of us
over there would like to hear your side. Things are in a desper-
ate condition in this county, just as you state it, and
no one knows to-day where they stand politically, for we are all
at sea as to what this money question means. If you will come
back to-night, I'll drive you to Milford in the morning. Can't
you do it?

"Well, I believe I will, Mr. Grace, believe I will. Let us put
up for dinner, and I will not be long in accomplishing my errand
here, and will return."CHAPTER II.

AN EVENING'S TALK.

The Wheat Crop—The Dollar Crop and the Hungry
Stomachs.

Men of Magnolia: You have assembled to give considera-
tion to the money question, which, during the next few months,
will be before the American people for discussion, and upon the
settlement thereof hinges the welfare, happiness and liberty of
seventy millions of the most enlightened people ever joined in
one nation and under one flag. The monetary question in its
entirety is a question of prices. The misery and degradation of
the people, the waning of patriotism, following an era of falling
prices, are so apparent as barely to need mention. Falling
prices—and the farmer has no surplus to buy manufactured
goods. Falling prices—and the manufacturer cannot employ la-
bor. Falling prices—and the farmer cannot meet his interest and
taxes. Falling prices—and the vigorous mechanic and sturdy
yeoman of yesterday is to-day a tramp. Wealth producers and
patriots, transformed into a band of idlers, are a constant men-
ace to our civil and commercial institutions—all produced by
falling prices.

In a recent issue of a leading New York trade journal I
noticed the following squib:

"A LeRoy, New York, firm advertises one bushel of pota-
toes, one pound of butter and one dozen of eggs, 'all for twenty-
five cents.' Truly, these are cheap times."

Verily, my friends, these are frightfully cheap times. You
all know too well what that means to the producers of those ar-
ticles. It is true that all other commodities have fallen in like
proportion with the prices of the mentioned articles, but it is
not true that the mortgages, principal and interest, and all the
vast industrial and National indebtedness has been scaled down
in like proportion.THE DOLLAR CROP

With fixed interest charges and principal of the mortgages
remaining the same during a period of falling prices, you have
seen the direful results. The property of the country is fast
passing into the hands of creditors. Industrious tillers of the
soil are being thrown upon society as homeless paupers, all the
wealth created by them being swept into the laps of a class of
comparative idlers who toil not; and with their ruin, commerce
stops, the wage earner is denied the privilege of earning his
daily bread in the sweat of his face, and eventually comes the
undermining and general wreckage of the strongest commercial
institutions.

So indirect is the method of this operation that many of
those who are benefited by it are unaware of the perpetration of
any wrong. So subtle is the process that the change seems to be
only a change in the price of commodities, and thousands of
men who would scorn consciously to exact from any one more
than a just return for money loaned are beneficiaries of this
vicious and ruinous system.

With regard to the great body of wage earners, you are told
that you have no cause for complaint in cheap prices, and that
your condition now is better than ever before. Through trade
organizations, workingmen in many branches have kept wages
from sinking proportionately to the decline in prices of commodi-
ties ; but, during the period of falling prices, what is gained in
this way by those who are kept at work is lost to the working
classes as a whole, by the enforced idleness of a great part of
their number.

In speaking of this era of falling prices, it cannot be said to
refer to the precipitate decline during and since the panic of 1893.
We had a panic in 1873, and have had a steady fall of prices
from that day to this, with the usual variations in given cases.
It can be charged to no particular tariff schedule, as we have had
falling prices and panics equally as destructive under vastly
differing schedules.

Financial panics are the result of a vicious financial system,
in the workings of which the producing, manufacturing and
mercantile classes are filched of their honest earnings. A New14

THE DOLLAR CROP

New York Tribune editorial recently estimated that the Ameri-
can people had lost $6,000,000,000 by the panic of 1893. Was
this vast wealth actually destroyed ? Was it burnt up or thrown
into the sea ? If not, who has it ? Ah, yes, who has it ? Why,
sirs, this great loss of the American people from which they can
not recover in many years is merely that much wealth swept
into the laps of the money kings of Lombard and Wall Streets.
The banker who held a mortgage against your farm prior to the
panic, before the precipitate decline in prices, really only held
half an interest in your place. Since the decline your place will
barely bring enough on the market to pay the mortgage, and the
banker owns it all. By the fall in prices, you are surrendering
two bushels of wheat where you formerly gave one bushel to set-
tle one dollar of your annual interest, the banker only receiving
the number of dollars, but each one of them twice as valuable.
It is exactly so with our National and industrial obligations, and
it is in this way that the creditor class profits by panics ; and
more frequently than you may be willing to believe now, you
will find that these financial storms are the direct result of delib-
erate schemes of unprincipled men engaged in that business. So
obvious is this fact, that Daniel Webster, in debate in the Senate,
was impelled to denounce them and remark :

" The people wonder why financial panics occur so frequently.
I can tell them why. It is to the interest of bankers and brokers
that they should occur. It is one of the specious methods by
which these despotic and utterly useless knaves rob the producing
manufacturing and mercantile classes of their honest earnings.
It is one of the chief plans by which this infamous ring is rivet-
ing the chains of slavery upon the limbs of labor. It is one of
the chief means adopted to build up a money aristocracy tKat
shall live in idle luxurv and ape the pretentious airs of European
nobility."

THE DOLLAR CROP.

Daniel Webster touched a grand principle when he said:
"Liberty cannot long endure in any country where the tendency
of legislation is to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few." I
quote you Daniel Webster, because he lived in a time when itTHE DOLLAR CROP

was not the fashion of the newspaper press and shallow-pated
clergymen to class level-headed statesmen and patriots with an-
archists and other enemies of society. Legislation that increases
the value of money increases the people's burdens. The pur-
chasing value of money to-day is greater than it ever was before
in this country. In other words, the general range of prices of
commodities is lower than ever before. Everything is cheap but
dollars, and they are dear enough. The gold standard means
that everything will be cheaper and dollars dearer as time rolls
on. The money question is a question of prices. Men talk
glibly of the wheat crop and the price per bushel; the peach
crop and the price per crate, but what of the Dollar Crop, my
friends, and the price per dollar? You have to buy dollars just
as you do anything else. You pay for them with the product of
your labor or your farm. You don't buy your dollars with cop-
per pennies. You surrender the product of your farm and labor
in exchange for these dollars, and you surely must appreciate
the fact that if there is a very small volume of money, or a short
Dollar Crop, so to speak, you will have to surrender more of your
product for each dollar than though dollars were plentiful.
Draw a line through the center of this town, put the producers
on one side and the buyers and consumers on the other side. In
a given year the buyers have ten thousand dollars in gold, silver
and greenbacks with which to buy produce. With this amount
of money wheat brings one dollar per bushel, and other produce
in proportion. The next year there is the same amount of pro-
duce raised as the year before, and the demand on the other side
of the line is the same, but during the year the authorities in
control have retired and burnt the greenbacks and taken the
silver out of circulation; so that, instead of ten thousand dollars,
there is only five thousand to pay for the crops. Do you think
the producers are going to receive the same price for their crops
as they did the year before? Impossible! One of two things
must take place: If they get the same price as the year before
they can only sell one-half the crop, or, if they sell the whole
crop, they can only get half as much, for there is only half the
money to buy with. This principle applies to the whole country
as truly as it does to this single town. *l6 THE DOLLAR CROP

The price of any particular commodity is determined by the
supply of and demand for it. That statement is equally true of
the price (or purchasing power) of the dollar, which depends
upon the supply of dollars and the demand for dollars. In other
words, you farmers and laboring men must buy dollars just
as you buy anything else you desire. After you have grown your
potatoes or other produce, you find you need money with which
to settle your different obligations and you go into market with your
products to buy dollars with them. Hence, if the supply of dol-
lars is short, you will have to surrender a correspondingly larger
amount of your product to secure each one of those dollars. It
doubtless seems strange to many of you that the volume of money
in any country is one of the most important factors in determin-
ing the general range of (money) prices of the commodities of-
fered in exchange for that money. We hear it so frequently re-
marked: "If you have got something to offer, you can always get
money," but you certainly cannot doubt that the amount of
money that will be exchanged for a given quantity of any com-
modity is based largely upon the amount of money there may be
in existence.

Surely, if there were no money in existence, we could get none,
even though we offered vast quantities of produce for it. If there were
only ten dollars in existence and seventy million people were in
competition for them, somebody would get left. Even bankers
must admit that the relative value of a dollar changes according
to the number of dollars or the size of the Dollar Crop. There is
always a demand for dollars. The vast public and private in-
debtedness legally payable in dollars only would pre-
vent our doing business upon a mere barter basis. If
there is a demand for dollars, the number of dollars in
existence must be a factor in determining how much of any given
commodity must be surrendered to secure that dollar for which
there is a demand. There is a supply of dollars (although very
limited just now), and there is a demand for those dollars and
the purchasing value of those dollars is determined by the law of
supply and demand.

The most eminent political economists agree thatTHE DOLLAR CROP

"The purchasing value of a dollar depends upon the size of the
Dollar Crop, other crops remaining the same."

By exactly the same reasoning that
'•The value of a crate of Peaches depends upon the size of the
peach crop, other crops (including dollars) remaining the same."

And if you give careful attention to the great debate now going
on you will see that the newspaper press has been lying worse
about the Dollar Crop than they ever cared to about the peach
crop, daily evidence of it being given at this exciting period when
the money sharks of Wall Street are trying to show that there
has been no reduction in the volume of money.

We may go a little further without entangling ourselves in useless
technicalities by saying:

"The price of a crate of peaches depends as much upon the size
of the Dollar Crop as it does upon the size of the peach crop.

In determining the point at which two trains may meet which
are approaching each other from opposite directions, you must
figure the rate of speed in which both trains are moving. In de-
termining the price of a crate of peaches measured in money, the
supply of and demand for peaches, and the supply of, and
demand for money, are equally important factors. If
your own reason tells you this is true you can then turn to
your Encyclopaedias, or the ablest works on Political Economy
and read such statements or axioms as these:

Ricardo (reply to Bosanquet) says:

"The value of money in any country is determined by the
amount existing. That commodities would rise and fall in pro-
portion to the increase or diminution of money I assume as a
fact that is incontrovertible."

John Stuart Mill (Political Economy) says: 4^^ y

"The value of money, other things being the same, varies in- "
versely as its quantity; every increase of quantity lowering
value and every diminution raising it in a ratio exactly equiva-
lent."

David Hume, the historian, says:

"It is not difficult to perceive that it is in the total quantity of
the money in circulation in any country which determines what
portion of that quantity shall exchange for a certain portion of
the goods or commodities of that country. It is the proportion18 THE DOLLAR CHOP

between the circulating money and the commodities in the
market which determines the price."

Professor Francis Bowen (American Political Economy, page
280) says:

" All exchanges, as I have said, is a barter of merchandise for
money, and the quantity of money which an article of merchan-
dise will command in the market is termed its price. Increase
that quantity and the price of all articles inevitably rises; dimin-
ish it and the price as certainly falls."

William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury (February 12,
1820), in a report to Congress, said:

"All intelligent writers on currency agree that when it is de-
creasing in amount, poverty and misery must prevail."

The report of the United States Monetary Commission says :

"A shrinkage in the volume of currency has caused more mis-
ery than war, famine and pestilence, and more injustice than all
the bad laws ever made."

The coin value or mint price of the dollar (100 cents) is
determined by law, and always remains the same unless the
legal statute is tampered with, as I shall subsequently show you
in the case of the war greenbacks and the sham trade dollars,
which were the "fifty-cent dollars" so frequently alluded to by
ignorant or designing persons. But the purchasing value of
money is an entirely different question and is determined by an
entirely different factor—that is, volume without regard to sub-
stance.

By confusing these entirely different values, the adroit gold
bugs plunge the public mind into Egyptian darkness and then
build their fortresses of deception.

The law governing the purchasing value of money is referred
to generally as the quantitative theory. The history of many
ages attests its accuracy, and no aspiring latter-day economist
has been able to refute its conclusions. This highly important
law has had very little consideration in the humdrum of com-
mercial strife, for if it had, that propagator of the American
tramp, Hugh McCullough, the Secretary of the Treasury, who
funded the war greenbacks, would have met an ignominous
death by lynching to a lamp-post, instead of going down to the
grave as he did, with the blessings and praise of a nation of un-THE DOLLAR CROP

thinking people whose very existence he had placed in jeopardy.

Had this highly important law and fundamental truth been
given the consideration in our currency question that its import-
ance warrants, John Sherman, of Ohio, and his colleagues who
surreptitiously secured the closing of the mint doors to silver,
thereby shutting off the main supply of dollars, would have
served long terms with stripes and shackles instead of serving
honorable (?) careers in the highest law-making body of our
nation. This fundamental law never had the full consideration
of the average citizen, but by its workings for many years past we
have seen the maelstrom of contraction sucking everything valu-
able into its vortex and casting out only a debris of pauper-
ized monkeys, many of whom even now won't study or inves-
tigate the underlying causes of their embarrassment. But it has
always been fully understood by the money-lending fraternity,
and by its workings they have undermined social institutions,
wrecked nations and been able to absorb the wealth of the world
as fast as the toilers produced it, all through the lowering of
prices of commodities and land until equities were wiped out
and the titles transferred to themselves.

This one principle of monetary science if held steadfastly in view
will constitute an unerring guide through what would otherwise be
a maze of difficulty. The greater the number of dollars out, other
things being equal, the less will be the purchasing power of each
dollar; the fewer the number out, other things remaining the same,
the greater the value of each—and this without any regard what-
ever to the material of which those dollars are composed—as long
as they are full legal tender by the law of the land. This is the
key to the financial situation in our country, and, in fact, it is
the key to the financial situation in every land. With this key
in hand, the most secret recesses of the question may be explored
with confidence. Without it, the student travels in a circle, re-
turning, after great labor, to the point from which he started.
As once remarked that distinguished Senator from Nevada, the
Hon. John P. Jones:

" To the possessor of this theory and of an impartial mind,
that is to say, a mind in search of truth for truth's sake, there is
no phenomenon of industry, of commerce, or of finance that is20

THE DOLLAR CHOP

not accounted for. With it all facts in the monetary world har-
monize. All the teachings of history illustrate its force. It has
therefore for support both reason and experience. It resolves all
doubts; unriddles all enigmas; makes clear that which, without
it, would be an insoluble problem of political economy."

Now, it being a fact that by curtailing the volume of money—
we increase the purchasing value of the dollars remaining, sup-
pose that I, as a banker, loan you $10,000 upon your farm valued
at $18,000, at six per cent.

At the time you borrowed of me, the Dollar Crop was large
(say two billion dollars), and potatoes were selling at one dollar
per bushel. Your interest, due me annually, being $600. You
take 600 bushels of potatoes, secure the money and pay me. Dur-
ing the second year while you are at work, I enter into a conspi-
racy with my fellow usurers, and we having fellow members in
high official positions of the Government, do advise and formulate
a governmental policy of contraction, by calling in (retiring)
all the paper money, thereby destroying it, and reducing the size
of the Dollar Crop fully one half.

The policy of contraction may cover an extended period of four
or five years, but all the while that the dollars keep getting scarce
you find that it takes more of your products to get them, and
ruinously low prices are prevailing. After we have secured the
destruction of half the Dollar Crop you find that each dollar is
costing you two bushels of potatoes to get it where it only took one
before, resulting in your giving 1200 bushels to get the $600 in-
terest money to pay me, whereas you formerly only surrendered
600 bushels for that amount of money. And vice versa, when I
have the money in hand it is twice as valuable to me as that same
amount was prior thereto. For you know, I want money to pur-
chase necessaries of life with, as I do not eat the money.

Then after a few years, when your farm products have sold
lower and lower, your land measured in money takes a lower
value, in the same proportion as the fall in prices of your pro-
ducts; then my mortgage, which formerly only represented a half
interest in your farm now really covers it all; the farm is mine
and all its products go in exchange for the dollars to pay my
annual interest charges. You struggle in bankruptcy, until at3THE DOLLAR CROP

last you can hold out no longer; the mortgage is foreclosed. I,
who have sat in comparative idleness, now hold a title clear to
the whole farm, while you, who have labored and toiled, are left
homeless and penniless to tramp your way with the great army
of unemployed; to underbid other wage earners in competition
for their positions whom you formerly supported by your indus-
try.

Then I can afford to control the channels of information, such
as the newspaper press, and preach false doctrines into your ears;
raise the false cry of over-production while thousands are starv-
ing. And when some one tells you that there is a money trust,
then I can afford to call them "Blatherskites and Anarchists "
through my controlled newspaper organs, and show just how
there is plenty of money (especially bank checks), and that the
present hard times are all on account of "the fool agitators," who
are demanding more money for circulation and less misery. Yes I
I can certainly well afford all this, particularly if my colleagues
are all with me in a compact organization, and we can do just as
pointed out by the Hon. John C. Calhoun, many years ago, in
these words:

" Place the money power in the hands of a few individuals,
and they, by expanding or contracting the currency, may raise
or depress prices at pleasure, and by purchasing when at the
greatest depression, and selling when at the greatest elevation,
may command the whole property and industry of the com-
munity

Now you ask, " was there ever such a foul conspiracy concocted
and successfully carried through in this free land, where every
man is a sovereign?" (Forgive the sarcasm.)

I say to you that there most assuredly has been, and to a
much greater extent than I can explain to you to-night, it has
been done, not only once, but twice and thrice in the last quarter
century, and will be manipulated soon again, unless the people are
on their guard. It was accomplished under the smooth pretense
of a supreme regard for the welfare of the people and especially
the laboring men.

John Milton, the well-informed historian of Hades, quotes in
Paradise Lost, the politic devil as saying:

" I, under fair pretense of friendly acts

And words of glozing courtesy, wind me
Into the easy hearted man, and hug

Him into snares." J /

And this is how it was done.CHAPTER III.

RETIRING THE GREENBACKS.

When and How the Dollar Crop Was Destroyed About
One-Half.

During the Civil War, as you all know, this Government issued
quantities of paper money to pay the soldiers for their services, and
despite the fact that gold and silver money was hoarded by the
gold gamblers the size of the Dollar Crop was largely increased by
those issues, and prices of commodities took the upward turn in
accordance with the quanitative law governing the purchasing
value of money. Other causes conspired to advance prices on
some special lines, but the main factor was indisputably the ex-
pansion of the money volume. After Sherman's march to the
sea, when it was believed that the war would soon close, the peo-
ple became anxious about the influence the returned soldiers
would have on society. It was thought that three or four years
of army life would have a demoralizing influence, and that they
would not return to the peaceful vocations of life. But we hardly
had a tramp in those days for the reason that farm products were
selling at sufficiently high figures to warrant employment of labor
upon the farm and manufactured goods at figures sufficiently re-
munerative to give employment to labor. In the report of the
Secretary of the Treasury, Hugh McCullough, for 1865 to Congress,
may be found the following:

"The country as a whole, notwithstanding the ravages of war,
and the draft upon labor, is, by its greatly developed resources,
far in advance of what it was in 1857. The people are now com-
♦ paratively free from debt. * * * There is an immense vol-
ume of paper money in circulation. * * * It is undoubtedly
true, that trade is carried on more largely for cash than ever was
the case previous to 1861, and that there is a much greater de-
mand for money than there would be if sales were made, as here-
tofore, on credit. * * * So far as individual indebtedness is
regarded, it may be remarked that the people of the United
States are much less in debt than in previous years."THE DOLLAR CROP

Surely, such a condition as that was not a happy one for
money lenders who thrive upon the debtors and fatten upon
their misfortune. Then it was that the greedy organization of
money lenders, since known as the American Bankers' Associa-
tion, commenced to advocate the retirement of the war green-
backs. The arguments in behalf of which appeared in all the
great daily newspapers long since known to have been under
their control. Abraham Lincoln was then President, and still
alive to the interests of the people, and in answer to this Wall
street agitation, he at once said:

"If a Government enacted a debt with a certain volume of
money in circulation, and then contracted the volume of money
before the debt was paid, it is the most heinous crime a Govern-
ment could commit against the people."

But that able and conscientious man was assassinated on
the 14th day of April, 1865, and ere the burial services by 4he
mourning nation were over, the old Wall street cry, which he
had so promptly hushed, was raised in agitation for the retire-
ment of the greenbacks. I have searched the history of those
years, and have never found an honest reason ventured for such
a policy, nor to this day can I trace an honest motive for that
crime.

Mr. Hugh McCullough was Secretary of the Treasury. This
man was the President of a National Bank at Fort Wayne, Indi-
ana, prior to his selection for this high office, and was conse-
quently a willing and able tool for Wall street to use in accom-
plishing their fearful purpose. In later years he opened a bank-
ing house in London, England, and though nominally a citizen
of the United States held residence abroad, for all of which the
American people should be duly grateful.

In McCullough's report to Congress December 4, 1865, he used
these bold words, the meaning of which cannot be misunderstood
by the dullest intellect:

"The first thing to be done is to establish the policy of con-
traction."

Now, good folks, the people were prosperous and busy in field
and factory, and little understood the meaning of those words.
McCullough successfully decoyed our legislators into authorizingTHE DOLLAR CROP

him to issue bonds for $4,000,000 legal tender notes per-month.
The Contraction Act was passed April 12, 1866, and under this
law he went on reducing the volume of money, and he would
have continued the conversion of the whole of them into six per
cent, bonds had not Congress, owing to the solicitations of the
people, compelled him to stop, of which he complained. These
acts were disgraceful to the Secretary of the Treasury, having
been enacted at his request, and they are by no means flattering
to Congress.

At that very moment when they legislated to reduce the vol-
ume of money, more money, if anything, was needed to meet the
requirements of the eleven million people in the Southern
States who were just coming back into the Union, and were
draining the North for a circulating medium.

Mr. McCullough lost no time in accomplishing his purpose.
In the Report on the Finances for 1866, page 164, it says:

"There was retired, counted and destroyed $211,239,515.41."

And on page 168, same report, that

" There was retired from circulation but not destroyed, $181,-
096,904."

The policy of contraction was carried on resolutely, and the
Finance Report for 1869 shows "that there had been retired,
counted and destroyed " of the people's money, up to July 1,1869,
$1,778,987,091.

This is evidence of the reduction of the Dollar Crop from the
official records. A statement taken from the books of the Treas-
ury Department by Moses W. Field, shows that on September 1,
1865, the Dollar Crop (exclusive of coin) was $1,996,678,770. By
December 1, 1873, it had been reduced in size (exclusive of coin)
to $765,679,685. Showing an actual contraction of $1,230,099,-
085, about one and a quarter billion dollars.

Think of it, good folks, over half of the Dollar Crop destroyed
by the McCullough blight between September 1, 1865, and De-
cember 1, 1873.

What was the history of those years ? You older men know
too well; they are the most distressing and maddening pages of
American history. First prices began to fall. The farmer had
no profit, the manufacturer less customers and the wage earnersTHE DOLLAR CROP

less employment. Business was done at a loss, men borrowed
money to tide them over hoping another season would prove
right. More burning 0! the people's money and another bad
year. Borrowing more general by men in all pursuits. The
contraction process continued. Commerce and industry were
struggling against the fearful fall in prices caused thereby. Cred-
its were expanded and men borrowed of necessity. More con-
traction and prices fell still further. Then the wheels of com-
merce stopped. There were many mortgage foreclosure sales,
many business failures and numerous tramps. Next there were
hundreds of mortgage foreclosure sales and hundreds of com-
mercial failures and thousands of tramps.

Then the crash of 1873, with thousands of business failures,
and over a million of tramps.

Look at the workings of that legislation. A man with $100,000
of those greenbacks found it necessary to employ that money in
order to derive any profit from them, for they were non-interest
bearing, and in employing that money he employed labor and
paid taxes upon property. But investing, by this opportunity
given him, in bonds, he surrendered his greenback dollars to the
Government, who destroyed them and gave him a $100,000 bond,
bearing interest and not subject to taxation.

But what of labor seeking employment? The owner of that
money had invested it in bonds; he had no need of labor. True,
labor must pay the interest on his bonds, but he had no employ-
ment for it. While this $100,000 was in Government money, it
could have given employment to a number of men, but with
their money invested in bonds, they kicked labor into the street,
and ever afterward have been growling at the inefficiency of the
tramp law.

By the operation of that Contraction Act the American peo-
ple HAD ONE BILLION DOLLARS LESS MONEY TO DO BUSINESS WITH J
ONE BILLION DOLLARS MORE DEBT TO PAY INTEREST UPON, AND
ONE BILLION DOLLARS LESS MONEY TO EVER PAY THE DEBT WITH.
And by the consequent decline in commodity prices are chained
in perpetual bondage to the money kings of Europe and America,
for we can never liquidate with forty-cent wheat, debts contracted26

the dollar crop

when wheat commanded two and three dollars a bushel, and
other commodities in like proportion.

In later years Horace Greeley remarked:

"We boast of haying liberated 4,000,000 of slaves. True,
we have stricken the shakles from the former bondsmen and
brought all laborers to a common level, but not so much by ele-
vating the former slaves as by practically reducing the whole
working population to a state of serfdom. While boasting of
our noble deeds, we are careful to conceal the ugly fact that by
our iniquitous money system we have nationalized a system of
oppression more refined but none the less cruel than the old sys-
tem of chattle slavery."

Do you older men remember what the bankers' newspapers
told you was the cause of that panic of 1873? They said that
you laboring men and farmers had been living too extravagantly.
Whereas, for a period of seven years the farmers had been strug-
gling against falling prices, sending the best products of the
farm to market to get money to meet the annual interest charges.
Feeding the second-class products to the hogs to exchange them
for money to pay those fixed interest charges and tax bills, which
was getting more difficult to meet each year, and eating the
third-class products. Those gold trust editors charged you with
extravagance, and as a rule you believed them. They charged
that business men had overtraded, and, remarkable to say, they
also believed it, simply because the daily papers from which they
buy their ready-made opinions told them so."

Why, even to-day, in this enlightened period, no less a dis-
tinguished man than Samuel R. Shipley, a leading banker of
Philadelphia, in a recent essay on "Gold, Silver and Money,"
says:

"The panic of 1873 was the result of speculation and over-
trading."

I prefer to answer Mr. Shipley and all his Shylock colleagues
with a speech very much to the point, made by Senator John A.
Logan upon this subject, March 17, 1874 (App'x Cong. Record,
Vol. 2):

"It was the contraction and increased want of currency, and
not a superabundance, which produced the necessity for running
in debt, of which there is so much said on this floor. Why, sir,THE DOLLAR CROP

2 7

the people were never freer from debt in proportion to business
done, than in 1865, at the close of the war, when Mr. McCullough
began his system of contraction, and at the very time eleven
millions more people were to be supplied. Was it to be supposed
that the activity and energy which the adequate supply of money
had put into operation, and which was giving prosperity and
happiness to the country would suddenly dwarf itself to suit
financial notions without a severe struggle? The inevitable re-
sult was an expedient to meet the consequent want, and credit
was expanded. At the very moment, above all others, when
adequate supply was needed, the opposite course was adopted;
and right here lies the true cause of the late panic, which re-
sulted from a money famine, and not from an excessive supply.
Sir, turn this matter as we will, and look at it from any side
whatever, and it does present the appearance of being a stupen-
dous scheme of the moneyholders to sieze this opportunity of
placing under their control the vast industries of the nation.
Therefore, I warn Senators against pushing too far the great con-
flict now going on between capital and labor. It is not our duty
to legislate exclusively for either, but as far as possible to try
and harmonize the interests of the two. Capital rests upon la-
bor; but when it attempts to press too heavily upon that which
supports it in a free Republic, the slumbering valcano, whose
mutterings are beginning already to be heard, will burst forth
with a fury that no legislation will quell."

Writing further in the remarkable essay referred to, Mr. Ship-
ley, in arguing against'the restoration of the Dollar Crop to its
former size by the free coinge of silver, speaks of a class of men

"Who remember the rapid inflation followin g the war, who recall
the days of twenty-five cent cotton and two-dollar wheat; who
remember how pleasant the experience was of seeing prices ad-
vance day by day, and who after the fashion of human nature,
have forgotten the uncomfortable experience of the decline in
prices which inevitably follows."

He, however fails to give the reason for an inevitable decline.
If he presumes that the producing and mercantile classes will
ever again quietly submit to the destruction of half the Dollar
Crop to gratify the whims of Lombard and Wall Street bankers, he
is wrong, for the mass of people are to-day better informed than
they ever were upon economic questions, and are somewhat in
the position of those famous pups bought by Senator Vest—"they
have their eyes open now," , ?28

THE DOLLAR CROP

And now, my friends, the calling in of the paper money (the
war greenbacks) was when and how the Dollar Crop was cut in
half. That is how the organized creditor class stole everything
in sight—except red-hot stoves. And that is why you found that
after many years of hard toil you were at last a bankrupt farmer
and the vigorous mechanic, went begging the streets for bread
and work. That is how we became a bankrupt nation, groveling
on our knees to Rothschild of England. For this Government is
now in the same condition as the farmer. Owing to the reduction
in the size of the Dollar Crop all commodities have fallen, and
while we could have paid the entire public debt at one time with
15,000,000 bales of cotton, now we have paid of principal and
interest, the equivalent of 95,000,000 bales of cotton and there
still remains to be paid more cotton than would have been suffi-
cient to pay it all off at the time the debt was contracted.

The Hon. W. D. Kelly, a member of Congress from Philadel-
phia for twenty-five years, told the citizens of that place in a
speech at the Academy of Music:

"Hugh McCullough * * * hamstrung the whole nation.
I affirm that his management of the finances, while it enriched
him and made him a great London banker, has cost the Ameri-
can people more than the war did."

There were some good men in Congress at the time who would
not enter McCullough's foul conspiracy, such as John A, Logan
and many others, but from among those who did vote for the
Contraction Act of 1866, the people can only forgive one. He is
none other than the aforesaid Judge William D. Kelly, who
pleaded ignorance, and for years afterwards on the floor of the
Lower House, sought to right that great wrong by his advocacy
of reopening the mints to silver.

Since the advent of these McCullough tramps into our midst
there has been one kindly heart, one eloquent tongue, one emi-
nent and experienced statesman who told the truth about them.
It was the Hon. William D. Kelly of Philadelphia. Addressing
his constituents, he said:

"McCullough not only entered into the designs of the money power but became its most sub*
servient tool, and retired with the reputation of being the first Secretary of the Treasury who ever
prostituted this high office for the purpose of enriching himself and his associates."—From Ber-
key's Money Question; pp. 218.THE DOLLAR CROP

"You have seen a strong man, full of life, rise in the morning
as a lion shakes the dew from his mane, and go forward to the
battle of life, full of vigor, full of hope, full of energy, full of
enterprise. * * * But an accident happens; an artery is cut.
The blood does not ooze, but flows from him. The surgeon comes
just in time to save his life. He staunches the wound and binds
it up. But the man is another being. He lies there pallid and
shrunken. His sturdy limbs will not bear his wasted body. His
muscles are flaccid, and his fingers have lost their skill. His en-
ergy is gone, and he dreams not of enterprise.

"This is our condition to-day as a people. In 1865 and 1866
every man in America who had the skill and the will to labor
could earn wages to support his family and lay something by.
All industries were quick and active. Production ran on. The
American people awoke each new morning to feel there were
great duties before them. There were mines to be opened, forges
and furnaces to be erected. * * * New houses were built. * * *
Our wealth grew as it, or that of any other people, had never
grown.

"We were moving onward, when one, Hugh McCullough, tapped a
great artery, and let nearly all the blood flow from the body politic.
Diseased, paralyzed, shrinking from day to day, what American
has the energy to engage in developing a new mine? * * *
Your laborers—moody, sullen, in want—are begging the poor
privilege of earning a day's food by an honest day's labor.
Their homes are being stripped of everything they cherish. Go
through the suburbs of your city; halt before the houses
of a Sunday afternoon, you would, a few years ago, have found
the family gathered about the melodeon or the cheap piano,
singing praises of Him who had given them their lines it these
pleasant places. Ah! the house is silent now; the father is out
of employment, the sons are in idleness, the daughters have no
work; the melodeon or piano is gone. Aye, worse than that, the
most cherished mementoes, though of little value measured in dol-
lars and cents—the cheap jewelry—the trinket that the young lover
toiled in over-hours that he might buy and see it grace the person
of his sweetheart—the amulet he hung upon the neck of his
bride—the silver cup that marked the birth or christening of their
first-born—cherished by all—but they have gone to the pawn-
broker or jeweler to bring them food! Courage gone, hope gone,
despair crushing him to earth, and destroying all the pride that
made the American mechanic the boast and honor of his country,
how many a man to-day, longing for honest work but powerless to
obtain it, creeps and crawls from town to town, foot-sore, ragged,
dusty, to beg from strangers rather than from those who know him
and will remember it—to be denounced as a Hrampf and commended
to the custody of the police "3°

THE DOLLAR CROP

THE PECULIAR REASON GIVEN.

You may wonder what reason Secretary Hugh McCullough
gave for entering a contraction policy, when the country was in
the midst of prosperity, to maintain which even more money was
needed than then existed. Well, here is the reason given in his
official report to Congress, December 4, 1865, said he:

" The first thing to be done is to establish the policy of con-
traction * * * The issue of United States notes (greenbacks)
as lawful money, was a measure of expediency doubtless, and
necessary in the great emergency in which it was adopted. But
this emergency no longer exists; and however desirable may be
the saving of interest, these considerations will not satisfy a de-
parture from that construction of the Constitution which is essen-
tial to the equal and harmonious workings of our 'peculiar insti-
tutions"

What empty prattle about such a grave question ? Posterity
will sarcastically ask: " What peculiar institutions ?"

THE OLD MAN AND HIS CONSCIENCE.

Speak man ! You are aged
and grey and nearing the grave.

Speak McCullough! And se-
cure your pardon at the Judg-
ment Bar you now approach,
and tell these people who are
about to right a great wrong,
what " peculiar institutions "
you referred to in that official
document.

Quick man! ere your tongue
is silent in death.

Did you mean such"peculiar
institutions " as the banking
house of Morton, Rose & Co.,
of London, the head of which
is Levi P. Morton, now Gov-
ernor of the State of New York,
and recently Vice-President of this country ?

mm®**- Jul

hugh McCullough

propagator of
The American TrampTHE DOLLAR CROP

Or was it such " peculiar institutions," one of which you were
the head of in Fort Wayne, Ind., the National Banks of America.

Ah, man, why don't you talk?

But the hardened black heart ignored the conscience call, and
the lips of Hugh McCullough, ex-Secretary of the Treasury and
propagator of the American tramp, were sealed in death on May
the 24th, 1895. The worn body and stony heart, seared and
scarred by his frequent money wars, have been lowered in the
grave, and he has gone to make his last report to that stern
judge who said:

"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are
like unto whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear beautiful,
but inwardly are full of dead men's bones."

"A shrinkage in the volume of currency has caused more
misery than war, famine and pestilence, and more injustice than
all the bad laws ever made."—Report of the United States Mone-
tary Commission.

"Soft words, smooth prophecies, are doubtless well,

But to rebuke the ages' popular crime

We need the souls of fire, the hearts of olden time."

—Whittier

THE DEMONITIZATION OF SILVER.

The Scheme Adopted by Shylock to Prevent the Dollar Crop from
Increasing While the Population
Multiplies.

Now, good folks, when this great Republic was founded,
Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other liberty-loving
souls, arranged a monetary system calculated to insure an in-
crease in the size of the Dollar Crop as the population increased.
The method of securing this result is spoken of technically as
the "automatic plan," although it might more properly be termed32

THE DOLLAR CROP

the "accidental plan."* The Government of the United States
simply took this position, and placed upon its statute books
words to this effect:

"Mr. Silver Miner: After you dig your silver bring it to our
mint, and upon every 371i grains of your metal we will stamp
the word 'dollar,' and we furthermore agree to accept such dollar
from you or any one else, in payment to us of all public dues,
such as taxes, import duties, etc., etc., and it shall be also a full
legal tender for all debts among the people.

"Mr. Gold Miner: After you dig your gold bring it to our
mint, and upon every 23.22 grainsf we will stamp the word 'dol-
lar,' and it shall be the same value as the silver dollar in pay-
ment of all debts, public and private."

This offer standing upon the statute books was made in order
to induce a portion of the people to continually mine silver and
gold—for always having a market for their product, it would be
profitable for them to produce the metals, and in return society in
general would always be benefited by the regular and continual
increase of the Dollar Crop.

Suppose you were either a gold or silver mine owner, with that
offer standing upon the statute books, and that I came along as a
jeweler by trade, and say to you that I have an order for a lot of
jewelry and want to buy some silver and gold bullion, and offer
to pay you at the rate of 70c for each 371 grains of silver and each
23 grains of gold.

How quick you would laugh at me and say:

" Why, Mr. Jeweler, I can take the same number of grains of
either metal you specify in your offer for 70c and have it coined
into a dollar which is 100c, and can pay my public taxes to the
extent of 100c, or can pay it to my grocer for food supplies at the
rate of 100c, for the grocer can in turn, pay it to the importer,
who can in turn pay it to the Government in payment of import
duties at the rate of 100c. Therefore, why should I take 70c from
you, an individual citizen, for that amount of bullion which, by
authority of all the citizens collectively, is equal in every trans-
action to 100c ?"

I am sure that not one of you, were you the owners of gold or
silver bullion, would accept my offer. Of course you would not.

* For a complete treatise on the Silver question, read Coin's Financial School.

f Number of grains in this case changed by law twice, but irrelevant In this argument.THE DOLLAR CROP

And for the eighty years that that offer stood unchanged upon
the statute books of this Government, neither;j$ld nor silver ever
sold below 100c, and it is a historical fact that in February, 1873.
when silver was demonetized in this country, that the amount
of silver bullion contained in a dollar was worth $1.03., Think
of it people, the much despised silver dollar worth three cents
more than the much lauded gold dollar.

On February 12, 1873, when silver was at a 'premium a law
was passed changing the statute provisions in regards to the coin-
age of gold and silver, and in the new arrangement the Govern-
ment told the gold miner to continue to bring his bullion, and
that the Government would continue to coin it into dollars, and
that it should be legal tender, but in this arrangement the silver
miner was denied the privilege he formerly had and the Govern-
ment thereafter refused to coin the silver bullion, and further
said that it (the Government) would not receive silver money in
settlement of taxes from the people, and further, that in business
transactions, no one need take silver money in sums greater than
five dollars at one time. It was a legal tender for only five dol-
lars,* while gold was a legal tender for any amount, and the
gold miner could continue to have 23.22 grains stamped into a
dollar.

Money is nothing but a creation of law, and here is where the
law impartially sided.with the gold money and placed severe re-
strictions against silver money. Under such unequal conditions,
is it not natural that silver should go begging for a market, while
gold can hold its own, with whole governments back of every
grain of it.

When the jeweler offers the silver miner 70c for 371 grains, the
silver miner can do nothing but accept. But the gold miner when
made an offer of 70c for the 23 grains, replies: "Why, sir; the
Government makes this worth 100c at the mint, therefore I am not
foolish enough to accept 70c from you."

And behold, gold remains at par, while silver fluctuates.
Place yourself in that same position: If one of the leading mer-
cantile establishments made you an open offer of $100 per month

♦Restored to full legal tender function in 1878, except when otherwise stipulated by contracts.34

THE DOLLAR CHOP

to come to work for them, at any time you pleased to accept their
offer, and a competing house should want your services and offer
you $70 per month, would you accept? No, you would say "One
hundred dollars or I don't go."

On the other hand, I may be just as good a salesman or man-
ager as yourself, but I have no large mercantile establishment
behind me with an open offer of $100, or anything of the kind.
I am seeking a job, and a firm offers me $70 per month. As I
have no other opportunity, such as you have, of course I go and
hire for $70, although I may be as capable a man as you are.

The pages of history point with pride to the fact that silver
was at four cents premium over gold,* at the very time that the
law was changed, despite the fact that England had demonetized
silver in 1819.

That is why silver bullion to-day is less than its former mint
value, while the mint value of gold remains the same. It is
impossible for any one to buy gold bullion for less than 100 cents,
because the law supports it to that extent. If the support of the
Government had not been taken from silver, it is also certain that
silver bullion would never have sold below the mint price. For
despite the many misleading statements to the contrary, the pro-
duction of silver in proportion to gold has not increased.

Any statements to that effect are not only misleading, but abso-
lutely false. Mulhall, the English statistician, says " that in 1600
A. D., there were 27 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; in 1700 34 tons
of silver to 1 ton of gold; in 1800, 32 tons of silver to 1 ton of
gold; in 1848, 31 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; while in 1880,
the production of silver had declined to 18 tons of silver to 1 of
gold, and in 1890 but 18 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold." There-
fore instead of the ratio of coinage being increased above 16 to 1,
if relative production of the two metals is to determine the ratio,
then the ratio should have diminished rather than increased, and
confirms the fact that merely the denial of mintage upon terms of
equality with gold is responsible for all depreciation in the value
of silver bullion.

* " The bullion contained In It (silver dollar) was ihen (1873) worth more than the bullion con-
tained in a gold dollar."

(Extract from an open letter by Secretary of Treasury Carlisle to John Y. Gore, of Texas,
dated August 29, 1895.)the dollar crop

Should the law of 1873 be repealed to-night, and silver bullion
given its former right of free access to the mint, there is not a
silver mine owner who would sell any bullion at the rate of 50
cents, nor is there any bullion broker in the London market who
would part with the same below 100 cents, less exchange.

A very natural question now arises: "Why was silver refused
access to the mints and deprived of its legal tender function?"

In replying to this, I could cite you many points of vantage
over the Government and the people, which the organized creditor
class gained by this act, such as their desire to render thereby the
the payment of the Government bonds in gold; but the underly-
ing motive was their desire to secure absolute control of the
volume of money.

James A. Garfield once said: "Whoever controls the volume of
money in any country is absolute master of all industry and
commerce."

The history of the destruction of the greenbacks is replete with
direct evidence that there was an organized conspiracy formed
during the war to secure control of the volume of mongy in this
country. The first intimation of this movement was gleaned from
the appearance in this country of a circular letter, sent to the
leading financiers of America during the early stages of the Civil
War. It was sent out by a combination of London bankers and
signed by the Secretary, Hazzard. This letter is known as the
Hazzard Circular. It was first made public by Hon. Isaac
Sharp, at one time acting Governor of Kansas, and now a well-
known resident of Washington, D. C., who secured it from Mr. J.
W. Simcock, the Cashier of the First National Bank of Council
Grove Kansas.

Listen carefully while I read you:

the hazard circular.

Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power, and chattel
slavery destroyed. This, I and my European friends are in favor
of, for slavery is but the owning of labor, and carries with it the
care for the laborer, while the European plan, led on by England,
is for capital to control labor by controlling the wages. This
can be done by controlling the money. The great
debt that capitalists will see to it is made out of the war36

the dollar crop

must be used as a means to control the volume of money. To
accomplish this the bonds must be used as a banking basis. We
are now waiting for the Secretary of the Treasury to make the
recommendation to Congress. It will not do to allow the green-
back, as it is called, to circulate as money any length of time, as
we cannot control that.

That none of you shall have reason to doubt the existence of
an organized body of destructionists of values, I shall read you
the Buell circular:

On September 12, 13 and 14, 1877, the bankers from
all over the country met in New York City, and after electing
Charles B. Hall, of the Boston National Bank, President, and
James Buell, of the Importers' National Bank of New York,
/Secretary, and a Vice-President or two from each State, the
j AMERICAN BANKERS' ASSOCIATION was organized ready
Ifor SOLID business, and to-day is the most powerful political
lorganization in this country.

Under date of October 9, 1877, the following circular was
sent to all bankers in the country:

the buell circular.

"Dear Sir: It is advisable to do all in your power to sus-
tain such prominent daily and weekly newspapers, especially
the agricultural and religious press, as will oppose the issuing of
greenback paper money, and that you also withhold patronage
or favors from all applicants who are not willing to oppose the
Government issue of money. Let the Government issue the coin
and the banks issue the paper money of the country, for then we
can better protect each other. To repeal the law creating Na-
tional bank notes, or to restore to circulation the Government
issue of money, will be to provide the people with money, and
will therefore seriously affect your individual profit as bankers
and lenders. See your Congressman at once, and engage him to
support our interests, that we may control legislation.

(Signed) JAMES BUELL, Secretary.

Room 4, No. 247 Broadway, New York.

An original copy of this Buell circular was given by a
banker of Bloomington, Iowa, to Colonel S. F. Norton, the editor
of the Chicago Sentinel.

At the present time the organized money power controls the
majority of stock in all the leading daily papers of this country,this dollar crtfp

and thereby secures the appointment of desirable men as editors;
but at one period they did not exercise that power, and they had
to buy their way—and they were none too good to do so, as will
be seen from the following editorial from the Chicago Inter Ocean
of Monday, October 29, 1877:

the buell briberies.

"The Inter-Ocean acknowledges the receipt of the following
singular document which came to this office from New York
Saturday morning:

The American Bankers' Association, )
*247 Broadway, Room 4, >

'New York, October 9, 1877. )

'Strictly Private.

'Dear Sir : Please insert the inclosed printed slip as leaded
matter on the editorial page of your first issue immediately fol-
lowing the receipt of this, and send marked copy with the bill to

'Yours truly,

'James Buell, Secretary,

'247 Broadway, Room 4.

'Comments on the slip, not to exceed half a column, will be
paid for if billed at the same time. J. B.'

"The following is the document which we are asked to insert as
leaded matter on the editorial page; in other words, as a state-
ment made by the Inter-Ocean:

'The greenback party has offered through its managers to
sell out the democrats and hereafter to work in democratic har-
ness if a few of their leaders can be provided for. This shows
how much dependence there is to be placed on the leaders of the
lunatics who clamor for money based on nothing.'

"We insert this, but we shall send no bill for it. We shall
send no bill because, in the first place, we do not follow directions
about leading it; secondly, we can't believe a word of the state-
ment to be true. We do not know who is managing the affairs of
the American Bankers' Association, but whoever he is, we advise
that body to get rid of him without delay. The attempt to thus
maliciously destroy the greenback party without submitting a
word of proof is a piece of effrontery which ought to be beneath
any body of commercial gentlemen, and especially the American
Bankers' Association.

"Since the above was in type we have received a copy of the
New York Sun containing the above circular, which it appears
was sent to that paper also. The Sun publishes the document
with editorial comment from which we quote as follows;38

THE DOLLAR CROP

'This we may say is an extraordinary circular, with an extra-
ordinary slip. It will be seen that the slip is, or assumes to be,
an item of news. It is an item that none of the ubiquitous re-
porters of the Sun had been able to get hold of. If any one of
them had brought it to us properly authenticated by document-
ary or other evidence, we would not have asked him to pay us for
printing it, but on contrary, we would have paid him well for
procuring it. It will be observed, however, that the scandalous
item which we are asked in the name of the American Bankers'
Association to publish, has two peculiarities: First, no proof of its
accuracy is furnished; and secondly, we are offered money for
its publication as "leaded matter on the editorial page" of this
day's.SWi. This is remarkable business to be performed in the
name of the American Banker's Association.

'Our astonishment is increased by the postscript which appears
at the bottom of this circular. It informs us that "comment
upon the slip not to exceed half a column will be paid for."
This means, of course, that the editorial comments that are to be
paid for must sustain the slip on the editorial page that is
to be paid for. * * * js attempt to

bribe and corrupt the press by the direct offer of money for edito-
rial articles made under the authority of the American Bankers'
Association, the name of the Secretary of which is signed to the
circular above printed? We call for information upon this point,
and shall wait for it. If authority has been given to bribe the
press, then very certainly attempts will be made to bribe Con-
gress and corrupt the sources of influence at Washington in the
same interest. It is a shameful business, if there be not some
mistake about it. Let the truth be brought out. Let a responsi-
bility for this circular be fixed.

If this circular is a forgery we shall be glad to make it known.

"Following is the printed slip offered for the Swi to print edito-
rially:

The prospect is that in six months there will not be a green-
back leader in all the land. Overtures have been made by the
leaders of the greenback movement to President Hayes to aban-
don the greenback as a lost cause, provided he will give good offi-
cial positions to about twenty of the most blatant of the clamor-
ous for money that is based on nothing."

That the Bankers' Association was bent upon securing absolute
control of the volume of money in this country there can be no
doubt, Therefore, after having secured the destruction of most ofTHE DOLLAR CROP

the paper money (greenbacks), these enemies of the people deter-
mined to have the government stop coining silver into money, as
they saw they could not control both gold and silver. Therefore,
they determined by legislation not only to deprive the toiling
masses of their right to have the output of silver flow into the
channels of commerce and thereby increase the Dollar Crop as
the population continued enlarging, but also to deprive the silver
miner of his right to have the metal coined.

This could only be done by repealing or changing the law,
made by our forefathers, for the protection of the people.

How did they do it ?

Emboldened by the ease with which they had secured the de-
struction of the greenbacks, their tool, John Sherman, of Ohio,
in 1868, introduced a bill in plain, clear, not to be misunderstood
language. It was headed:

" A BILL IN RELATION TO THE COINAGE OF GOLD AND SILVER."

This bill met with the avowed hostility of Senator E. D. Mor-
gan, who was on the Senate Committee of Finance with John
Sherman at that time, and he made a strong, clear minority re-
port showing the evils of such an act. The prospects of the
passage of the bill, in its undisguised form, were imperiled and
John Sherman went back to his "pound of flesh" colleagues a
whipped cur.

Just a little later (April 28, 1870), Sherman, undiscouraged,
introduced another bill headed in a very deceptive manner to
divert attention from its real object. This bill was entitled:

"AN ACT REVISING AND AMENDING THE LAWS RELATIVE TO THE MINTS,
ASSAY OFFICES, AND COINAGE OF THE UNITED STATES."

It was a lengthy document, dwelling largely on matters of
minor detail. It is a well known fact that our representatives in
Congress cannot read every bill introduced. Usually a commit-
tee, consisting of a few members from both parties, digest the bills
and report to their party colleagues the nature of the same, and
how the party will stand upon the subject, if it is of a partisan
nature. Why, if your Congressman sat down to-night and
started to read all the bills introduced at the last session he could
not get through them entirely by next Christmas.40

THE DOLLAR CROP

This Mint bill was regarded on all sides as an unimportant
measure, not greatly affecting our coinage laws, but merely revis-
ing them. Bear in mind, however, that John Sherman, of Ohio,
was on that committee that reported that bill.*

The bill which accomplished the demonetization of silver was
not printed in advance, the one passed being a substitute for
the original printed bill. When this substitute was presented to
Congress for action one of the conspirators (Mr. Hooper) moved
that the reading at the Clerk's desk be dispensed with, giving this
reason: "It is a long bill, and those who are interested in it are
perfectly * familiar with its provisions." To which Mr. Kerr
replied at the time: "I want the House to understand that it is
attempted to put through this bill without being read."

This bill was thereafter finally passed without discussion,
debate being cut off by the operation of the previous question.
No newspaper discussed its merits or demerits, and the Dollar
Crop was tampered with again to gratify Lombard and Wall
streets Bankers, bartered while the people knew nothing of it.

That particular phrase in the bill which, when passed,
changed our entire financial system from a silver basis to a gold
basis did not appear in the original bill which was printed in
due form, but was doctored and placed in the substitute.

Do you ask, what did this Mint Bill accomplish for the
money monopolists? The paragraph that was tampered with
and changed from the original, failed to make provision for the
coinage of the standard silver dollar—closed the mint to silver,
but fully provided for coinage of the gold dollar as theretofore.
It further legislated that silver currency should thereafter be legal
tender in sums not exceeding five dollars.

The effect of such legislation is easily discernable. The sil-
ver miner took his bullion to the mint to have it coined. He was
informed that the law had been changed and that the Government
would not coin more silver for him.

"But," says the silver miner, "you still coin the bullion of
my neighbor, the gold miner, why not for me ?"

* For detailed account of method in which this bill was handled, the words and action of each
participant therein, showing by the stenographer's report how the bill was doctored, read
" Shylock," by Gordon Clark, Sun Building, Washington, D. C. (15c.)THE DOLLAR CROP

"Why, sir, the law has been changed, we tell you."

And the silver miner returned and had to accept what-
ever price the commercial world would give him; but gold
still having free access to the mints at the rate of 23.8 grains of
gold to one dollar, of course the gold miner refuses any offer be-
low that, and the hireling editors of the .gold trust point to the
unchanging mint value of gold.

That gold dollar, seemingly so stable, has in reality doubled
in value, as a gold dollar now costs the laboring men and farmers
just twice as much labor or commodities as it did prior to the
reduction in the size of the Dollar Crop.

Long statistical tables are published showing a general ad-
vance in wages, even while prices of commodities have been fall-
ing; but they never cite the vast army of unemployed, who were
all employed prior to the destruction of a part of the Dollar Crop,
and who should figure in the aggregate wage bill of the country.
Ask the laboring men of this country if they think they have
been receiving increased wages during the past twenty years,
other than the natural advance for skilled labor upon new in-
ventions, such as the type-setting machine, with which one man
can do the work of four men. The one man, then, receives $3
or $4 per day, where four men formerly received $2 per day
each. The individual salary is raised from $1 to $2 per day,
but the wage bill of the country is diminished $6 per day, and
three men are vagrants. The fall in the price of commodities is
so distinct that there can be no question on that point. All
other commodities have fallen in nearly the same ratio as silver.
The silver mine owner has not been injured by that legislation
as much as the farmer To illustrate: Take the result of a
day's labor in the silver mines as ten ounces of silver. In 1873,
prior to the demonetization of silver, the bullion was every-
where worth $1.29 per ounce. This made the gross result for the
day's operation of the mine $12.90, with which the owner bought
his boy a shoddy suit of clothes for $12.90.

To-day, silver is quoted at 59 cents, so the ten ounces are
worth $5.90, with which a shoddy suit of clothes can be bought
as good as the suit that cost $12.90 in 1870.42

THE DOLLAR CROP

Just so with the farmer. Prior to the demonetization of sil-
ver, and the consequent reduction in the size of the Dollar Crop,
he got twice as much for his products as he gets for them now.
As he had to pay twice as much for the necessaries of life then
as now, I hear someone ask if he is not as well off now as then?

Why, no. He is now a debt slave. So is the silver miner.

Their debts have been doubled; their property in which they
held a large equity in those times, has been absorbed.

It takes nearly two ounces of silver to pay $1 worth of the
miner's debts, and nearly two bushels of wheat to pay a dollar's
worth of the farmer's debts. Some people may speak lightly of
their debts, but their blighting effect cannot be exaggerated. You
and I, and all of us, owe these National bonds, municipal bonds,
railroad bonds. The producers are behind all these obligations.

When we reopen the mints to silver the silver miner will not
reap such an enormous profit as some newspapers try to make
you believe.^By the free coinage of silver the Dollar Crop would
be so largely increased that the purchasing power of the dollar
would be reduced. In other words, prices of all commodities rise
in proportion to the increased supply of money. The silver
miner could pay a dollars worth of debts with 371^ grains of
silver, whereas it now takes nearly twice that amount; so also
the producer could pay a dollar's worth of debt with one bushel
of wheat, whereas it takes nearly twice that quantity now.

Some one exclaims that that is robbing the creditor class, but
the burden of proof rests on their side. It was the organized
creditor class who robbed the debtors and the producers by legis-
lating to destroy a large portion of the volume of money. The
demand to coin silver again is a just demand of the people upon
the robbers to give back their stolen vantage. Are highwaymen
entitled to public sympathy and protection for the retention of
their dastardly gotten booty?CHAPTER IV.

HONEST (?) MONEY ARGUMENTS!!

The Dumping Scarecrow—The Passage of the Mint Act of 1878—
Why Silver Dollars Pass for a Dollar.

We demand that the mint be reopened for the free coinage of
silver, just as it now is to the free coinage of gold, and exactly as
it was prior to the passage by fraud of the Act of 1873, for the
reason that when the silver miners bring forth a quantity of silver
from the bowels of the earth they will take the bullion to the
mint and have it coined into dollars. Bear in mind that the
Government does not buy the silver bullion, but simply tranforms
the lifeless silver bullion into dollars, with full legal tender power,
agreeing to receive them in settlement from all people for taxes
and all public dues, as well as making them legal tender between
individuals. It is not a demand for legislation to benefit a par-
ticular class, but it is a demand for the repeal of an act of legis-
lation which has benefited a particular class, and which threat-
ens to destroy the Republic.

After the miners have their silver coined, it is money, which, if
they hoard, will bring them no income, consequently they must
invest the same in legitimate enterprise, necessitating the em-
ployment of laboring men, and as fast as this new money comes
into circulation it gives employment to labor, reduces the army
of unemployed, who, receiving wages thereafter, are consumers of
the products of the farms and factories, exerting a beneficent in-
fluence in every quarter.

"But," shout the Gold Trust editors and orators, "if we should
open our mints to silver, and coin what is now worth fifty cents
into a dollar, the whole world will dump their silver upon us by
the ship load,"44

THE DOLLAR CROP

With this bogy man they frighten the entire commercial world.
Why, bless your hearts, good people, let them dump all they have
a mind to! We are badly in need of something like this dump-
ing process. If an English firm sends a cargo of silver to our
shores, free coinage does not mean that they can get gold for it—
they can only get the metal coined into dollars, United States
dollars. And then what? They cannot spend American dollars
in England any more than an English pound could be spent (as
currency) in this country. The English firm cannot eat them,
for they are not digestible—the only thing for them to do is to
invest or spend them in this country. Meaning that they must
buy from us some of the commodities of which the Plutocratic
papers say we have an over-production here. The only result of
which, is a reduction in the supply of that particular commodity
that they select and an equal increase in the size of the Dollar
Crop.

A few such transactions as this are just what are needed here;
we are struggling through a money famine and a surplus of com-
modities, and this threatened "dumping process" would just
reverse that condition.

But unfortunately this dumping process could not continue to
the extent that we would all like to see, for as the volume of
money increased here prices would be advancing. England has
no stock of silver except her subsidiary coins, and when England
sent silver here it would reduce the volume of money in that
country and consequently lower the range of prices on commodi-
ties there; and when they paid $1 per bushel for wheat in
America to sell in England at 50 cents per bushel, it would wipe
out the profit it is claimed they will make by sending silver here
at 50 cents and selling it at $1.

Yes, the process could not continue. Silver was demonetized
in England in 1816, and the mints were open to it in the United
States until 1873, a period of 54 years, and whoever heard of
England dumping silver on us.

Any one who has given the subject investigation knows that
the wrong done the American people by the destruction of the
greenbacks and the demonetization of silver cannot be rightedTHE DOLLAR CROP

solely by restoring silver. An issue of paper

volume to at least a per cagita of .33^ a partial •

atonement.

TfThe world's entire supply of silver is less than $3 per cap-
ita. * * * Not a nation on the globe has a silver coin to
spare; and if it were possible for every dollar's worth of silver in
the world to be sent to our shores, we would have then a less
amount of silver per capita than the per capita circulation of
paper, silver and gold now in Prance."*

Secretary of Treasury Carlisle himself once said in a speech
delivered in the House February 21, 1878 (which was prior to
that banquet given in his honor by the New York Bankers):

"I know that the world's stock of the precious metals is none
too large, and I see no reason to apprehend that it will ever become
so. Mankind will be fortunate indeed if the annual production
of gold and silver coin shall keep pace with the annual increase
of population, commerce and industry. According to my views
of the subject, the conspiracy which seems to have been formed
here and in Europe to destroy by legislation, and otherwise, from
three-sevenths to one-half of the metallic money of the world is
the most gigantic crime of this or any other age. The con-
summation of such a scheme would ultimately entail more misery
upon the human race than all the wars, pestilences and famines that
ever occurred in the history of the world. The absolute and in-
stantaneous destruction of half the entire movable property of
the world, including houses, ships, railroads and all other appli-
ances for carrying on commerce, while it would be felt more
sensibly at the moment, would not produce anything like the
prolonged distress and disorganization of society, that must in-
evitably result from the permanent annihilation of one half the
metallic money of the world."

Now, behold this same man hobnobbing with the "pound of
flesh" fraternity, advocating a single gold standard!

I hold in my hand, here, a pamphlet published by the self-
styled "Sound Money League," of 424 Chestnut Street, Philadel-
phia. It is a "report of the Sound Money Meeting," held at the
Academy of Music, Philadelphia, May 28, 1895, at which place
many prominent men argued in favor of the gold standard,
which they choose to designate as Sound Money I ! ! This pam-

* Speech by Hon. Joseph C. Sibley of Pennsylvania, January 8, 1895. Sent free on appli-
cation to American Bimetallic League, Sun Building, Washington. D. C.46

THE DOLLAR CROP

phlet will be mailed free to any upon application (so they adver-
tise). I want each one of you to send for this pamphlet, and see

"What a tangled web they weave
When they practice to deceive."

While I shall try to answer the most important statements
made therein, yet time will preclude a minute analysis of the
labyrinth of falsehoods and misstatements, and we may get a
better understanding of their position by answering them from a
negative standpoint, rather than talking from the affirmative
side.

The distinguished Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, was the
first shrewd distortioner of the truth introduced to that audience,
and on page 17 of the report, you find this utterance, regarding
the passage of the Act of 1873:

Said Senator Edmunds:

" Some people have said that that act was passed secretly; that
the wage-earner, the debtor and the people to whom demagogues
address themselves, had been deluded and cheated by the secret
passage of that act. I happened to be a member of the Senate at
that time, and I am able to say, from personal knowledge, as one
Senator, that any such statement is absolutely devoid of truth.
I do not mean to say that everybody who makes it knows it tb be
devoid of truth, for I have lived long enough in the world to give
large credit to the sincerity of a great many delusions. (Ap-
plause.) It is just possible that, although that bill was in the
possession of the Senate Committee for weeks, and, I believe,
months, and, although reported from the committee and on the
printed calendars of the Senate that were laid upon our desks
every day, there may have been some of the sixty or seventy
Senators who never saw it at all.

"It is just possible that some Senator might have been in the
mountains of dear, old Virginia trout fishing, and studying nature
in forests, streams and the speckled beauties of the brooks, rather
than staying in the summer time in the hot Senate chamber and
attending to business by reading the calendar and voting on bills.
But I do not think that sort of a Senator ought to go around the
country complaining that he never knew of it."

That is a strong, sweeping denial of the statement that the
Mint Act of 1873 was passed by fraud, and is worthy some inves-
tigation. Therefore let us review some pertinent facts in the
history of our finances.the dollar crop

When the mass of the people awoke to the fact that the finan-
cial system had been tampered with a second time (i. e. that silver
had been demonetized) there was a strong demand that silver be
restored to its former position. Congress yielded to the demands
of the people, and sought to undo the legislation of 1873, but this
action was hotly resisted by the members of the Bankers' Associ-
ation, and their tools, who were seated in the halls of Congress. A
great debate took place in Congress in February, 1878, which
resulted in the passage of a compromise measure, generally known
as the " Bland-Allison Act," which provided for the governmental
purchase and coinage of not less than two nor more than four
million silver dollars per month and restore silver money to
its full legal tender power, except when otherwise expressly
stipulated in the contract. This, of course, was beneficial to
the commerce and industry of the country by the considerable
increase monthly of the size of the Dollar Crop, and did relieve
much distress, and business was fairly good from 1879 to 1892.
The benefits of which were of course accredited to "the tariff," for
it was not well for the banking fraternity that the people should
understand fully the money question. However, such a drop in
the bucket was not by any means a complete or just atonement
for the wrongs previously committed against the people.

To return to Senator Edmunds' statement. At the time of
this debate over the Bland-Allison Act, some indignant repre-
sentative of the people rose up and asserted that the act of 1873
was passed by stealth and fraud and never had the moral sanc-
tion of law; whereupon one of the lackeys of the Anglo-Ameri-
can Gold Trust rose up and passed the lie and denied the allega-
tion just as Senator Edmunds does.

There was then a scramble to get the floor, and the following
men stood up and placed themselves on record, the statements of
whom I shall read you. Keep in your mind, however, the utter-
ance of Senator Edmunds.

Hon. W. D. Kelly, for twenty-five years member of Congress
from Philadelphia, and known as the father of the House, said:

" I was chairman of the committee that reported the origi-
nal bill, which demonetized silver, and I aver on my honor that
I did not know the fact that it proposed to drop the standard4«

THE DOLLAR CROP

(silver) dollar, and did not learn that it had done it for eight-
een months thereafter."

Mr. Holman of Indiana, Cong. Record, vol. 4, part 6, Forty-
fourth Congress, first session, Appendix, page 193, said:

"I have before me the record of the proceedings of this
House on the passage of that measure, which no man can read
without being convinced that the measure and the method of its
passage through this House was a 'colossal swindle.' I assert that
the measure never had the sanction of this House, and it does not
possess the moral force of law."

Mr. Bright of Tennessee, Cong. Record, vol. 7, part 1, 2d
session, Forty-fifth Congress, page 584, said:

" It passed by fraud in the House, never having been printed
in advance, being a substitute for a printed bill; never having
been read at the Clerk's desk, the reading having been dispensed
with by an impression that the bill made no material alteration
in the coinage laws; it was passed without discussion, debate
being cut off by operation of the previous question. It was
passed, to my certain information, under such circumstances that
the fraud escaped the attention of some of the most watchful
as well as the ablest statesmen in Congress at that time. * * *
Aye, sir, it was a fraud that smells to Heaven. It was a fraud
that will stink in the nose of posterity, and for which some per-
sons must give an account in the day of retribution."

Senator Allison of Iowa, in the Cong. Record, vol. 7, part 2,
Forty-fifth Congress, 2d session, page 1085, said:

" But when the secret history of this bill of 1873 comes to be
told, it will disclose the fact that the House of Representatives in-
tended to coin both gold and silver, and intended to place both
metals upon the French relation instead of our own, which was
the true scientific position with reference to this subject in 1873,
but that the bill was doctored. It was changed after the dis-
cussion."

In the Congressional Record, February 15, 1878, page 1063,
may be found the following:

"Mr. Voorhees (of Indiana): I want to ask my friend from
Maine (Blaine), whom I am glad to designate that way, whether
I may call him as one more witness to the fact that it was not
generally known whether silver was demonetized. Did he know,
as the Speaker of the House, presiding at the time, that the silver
dollar was demonetized in the bill to which he alludes?"the dollar crop

Mr. Blaine: "I did not know anything that was in the bill at
all. As I have said before, little was known or cared on the sub-
ject. And now I should like to exchange questions with the Sen-
ator from Indiana * * * Did he know?"

Mr. Voorhees: "I frankly say I did not."

General James A. Garfield, in Cong. Record, Vol. 7, part 1,
Forty-fifth Congress, Second Session, page 989, said:

"I never read the bill. I took it upon the faith of a promi-
nent Democrat and a prominent Republican, and do not know
that I voted at all. * * * Nobody opposed that bill
that I know of. It was put through, as dozens of bills are *
* * on the faith of the report of the Chairman of the Com-
mittee.

Mr. Holman, in the House, August 5, 1876, said:

"I myself asked Mr. Hooper (who handled the bill with Sher-
man), who stood near where I am now standing, whether it
changed the law in regard to coinage; and the answer of Mr.
Hooper certainly left the impression upon the whole House that
the subject of coinage was not affected by the bill."

Senator Hereford, on Feb. 13, 1878, said:

"I say that beyond the possibility of a doubt (and there is
no disputing it) that bill which demonetized silver, as it passed,
never was read, never was discussed, and that the Chairman of
the Committee who reported it, who offered the substitute, said
to mr. holman, when inquired of, that it did not affect the coin-
age in any way whatever."

Mr. Burchard, of Illinois, Cong. Record, July 13, 1876, Vol.
4, part 5, page 4560, said:

"The Coinage Act of 1873, unaccompanied by any written
report upon the subject from any committee, and unknown to
the members of Congress, who, without opposition, allowed it to
pass under the belief, if not assurance, that it made no alteration
in the value of the current coins, changed the unit of value from
silver to gold."

Senator Beck, of Kentucky, Congressional Record, January
11, 1879, page 258, said:

" I know that the bondholders and monopolists of this coun-
try are seeking to destroy all the industries of this people in their
greed to enhance the value of their gold. I know that the act of
1878 did more than all else to accomplish that result, and the de-
monetization act of the revised statutes was an illegal and un-50 THE DOLLAR CROP

constitutional consumation of the fraud. I want to restore that
money to where it was before, and thu& aid in preventing the con-
sumation of their designs."

General U. S. Grant; President of the United States at the
time of the passage of the bill, said in a letter written to Mr.
Coudray, under date of October 13, 1873, eight months after he
had signed the bill demonetizing silver. See page 208, Congres-
sional Record, December 14, 1877:

u I wonder that silver is not already coming into the market
to supply the deficiency in the circulating medium."

Showing clearly that he did not know that the bill he had
signed demonetized silver.

At a later time he used these words:

" I did not know that the act of 1873 demonetized silver. I
was deceived in the matter."

Now, good folks, you have heard of all these men whose
testimony I have read you. You know their record for probity
and sincerity. Just place their evidence alongside of the intel-
lectual prostitutes, who say that there was no fraud or secrecy in
connection with the passage of the Demonetization Act of 1873.

Furthermore, note carefully how Senator Edmunds entangles
himself when he says:

" It is just possible that some Senator might have been in
the mountains of dear old Virginia trout fishing and studying
nature in forest streams and the speckled beauties of the brooks,
rather than staying in the summer time in the hot Senate cham-
ber and attending to business by reading the calendar and voting
on bills."

The facts in the case are that the bill in question was
passed upon the 12th day of February, 1873, when the " moun-
tains of dear old Virginia" were covered with snow, and the
"speckled beauties of the brook" were four feet down in the mud,
beneath the frozen streams, and the beautiful forests were naked
and bare while nature slept.THE DOLLAR CHOP

WHY SILVER DOLLARS PASS FOR A DOLLAR.

We might wonder at the necessity of further answering
statements made by Senator Edmunds in that address, but on
page 24 of that pamphlet you will note his explanation of why
silver dollars pass for a dollar, while the gold price of silver
bullion is less than 60 cents. He says:

"How is it, then, that since the Act of 1878, more than four
hundred million of these sham dollars have been coined, and yet
everybody has taken them, and they have been just as good as
gold?" That is true. How did it happen? It happened be-
cause the Government of the United States wisely, for the good
of the people, and, I think, with the authority of law—although
that is a point sometimes disputed—kept the value for all the
purposes of the wage-earner, and of the trader, and of the manu-
facturer, and of the railway, and of the farmer, up to the stand-
ard of gold, by exchanging it for gold whenever anybody brought
it to the Treasury for that purpose. And that is what has com-
pelled this Administration, so wisely and bravely as it has done,
to borrow money in order to keep up the credit of this debased silver,
and in order to be able to exchange gold for it whenever it was
demanded. * * * We all know how it has kept at par with
gold, and this is just how it happens that all the paper money of
the United States, National bank notes, legal tenders, silver cer-
tificates and all, are now just as good.

Such assumptions as are therein made are as false and more
seriously so than the distinguished Senator's allusions to the
"hot, sultry days of February."

Upon this same subject the St. Louis Globe-Democrat re-
recently marked:

"Our own silver dollars, though intrinsically worth about
the same [as the Mexican dollar] passes current at a valuation of
100 cents, because the Government stands ready to exchange gold
for it or paper that is as good as gold. If free and unlimited coin-
age were to prevail, neither the Government nor the banks would
furnish gold or full value paper money in exchange for the silver
dollar, and it would instantly sink to its bullion value."

The statements made are false, and not based on fact.

Our Government does not stand ready and willing to ex-
change gold dollars for silver dollars. Silver dollars pass for a
dollar because they are dollars of full legal tender power by tha52

THE DOLLAR CROP

laws of the land. The gold reserve has nothing to do with the
transaction. By the passage of the Bland-Allison Act in 1878
silver money was made a full legal tender for all debts, public
and private, in any amount. Which means that you can tender
them in payment of any public debt, such as taxes, duties on im-
ports, postage stamps, etc., and so long as the Government con-
tinues to receive them at par, just so long will they continue to v
pass among the people at par, regardless of whether we have any
gold reserve or not. The silver dollar is a dollar because it will
do the duty of a dollar. For years the Gold Bug papers have
been telling this falsehood to the American people. Here we are
in August, 1896, in the throes of financial panic, deliberately
brought on by these enemies of the people in order to frighten the
people and deter them from casting the vote of freemen. Gold is
at a premium in every city East of the Rocky Mountains. A
crisis is impending before the American people, and the gaunt
shadows of a panic are cast over the land.

In answer to inquiries, leading papers have told their read-
ers that "16 to 1 means that after the free coinage bill is passed
anybody can get two silver dollars with one gold dollar." Gold
trust editors and orators have passed the lie along. Presidents of
insurance companies, men heretofore of supposed veracity
and integrity, have lent themselves (knowingly or unknow-
ingly) to spreading the falsehood. They have asserted with
brazen assumption of honesty that they could pay off two dollars
of their debts with one gold dollar. All of this was done to con-
fuse the people and delude them.

Lo! the people believe them. They see prospects of a silver
victory, and they have concluded to get some of that gold. "Two
for one" is a good thing, and the people are pushing it along.
Now, then, the weakness of the gold standard becomes apparent.
The people are after the gold, and in the wild scramble find their
way to the Sub-Treasury, beset with so many obstacles that they
cannot get it. So anxious are they that they pay a premium.
The banks cannot supply it, and are imploring the people to be
patriotic and not demand gold. But the people want that "two-
for-one shot" that the bankers have been telling them about.THE DOLLAR CROP

And to-day, by their false statements, the gold-standard advocates
have raised a storm, the fury of which I doubt the ability of even
the American Bankers' Association to quell.

The only way for them to head off the panic is to turn to
the people and acknowledge their falsehood.

If Senator Edmunds told the truth, if the Gold Trust edi-
tors have been telling the truth, how is it that the gold coin is at
a premium to-day (August 25, 1896). If our government is
willing to exchange a gold dollar for a silver dollar why are the
people paying a premium for gold? Will anybody pay a prem-
ium for'money which they can receive in equal exchange for the
money they have? There is the man on Broadway, New York,
wanting gold coin, scared to death by the outrageous falsehoods
of gold trust editors and orators. The Sub-Treasury is but
three blocks away, but that man can't get gold exchanged for
his silver. No such exchange is permitted by the laws of our
land. Our government does not stand ready and willing to ex-
change gold dollars for the silver ones. It is false. True, the
government stands ready to deliver the bankers anything they
want. I don't deny this at all. The New York bankers have
made Uncle Sam stand and deliver everything they wanted ever
since Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, but the government
does not stand ready to exchange with the people, as present con-
ditions very forcibly illustrate.

Neither are the National bank notes redeemable in gold.
They can only be redeemed over the little 4x6 counter of some
particular National bank, and then the banker can entirely, at
his own option, pay the holder silver dollars, silver certificates or
greenbacks. The greenbacks are exchangeable for coin at the
Sub-Treasury. Certain officials have ruled that they are redeem-
able in gold coin, and upon that ruling the bankers are allowed
to deplete the treasury at their own sweet will. If these bankers
see fit to give a greenback in exchange for a silver dollar or a
national banknote, then, according to present rulings, a man may
go to the Sub-Treasury and get gold (while the reserve lasts).
But the tricky part of it is that everything is so shaped that at
just such a moment as this the crafty bankers will not exchange54

the dollar crop

a greenback (Treasury note) for a silver dollar, or for even their
own National bank note. Look at a National bank note and you
will see that sueh and such National bank of a designated city
will pay to bearer on demand five dollars. It does not specify
what kind of dollars, and they can pay any kind of dollars that
is most convenient to them. At this time they are paying silver
dollars and silver certificates. For any ordinary person to ex-
change a gold dollar for a silver one at such a time as this is well
nigh impossible and can only be done through the kindness of
acommodating bankers. And they are not in that mood just now.

The people have discovered that the gold reserve is a fake,
just as honest papers have been telling them for years. When
the bankers want gold they get it at par. When the people want
gold they cannot get it even at a premium. The scales are fall-
ing from their eyes. When the bankers were hungry for bonds
they pulled the strings on the Sub-Treasury and they soon got
their bonds.

If the statements of the gold standard press have been true,
that all our money is exchangeable for gold, why are the American
people paying a premium for gold coin to-day? Don't pass lightly
over this question. Some editors are deceived, or have been
deceiving the people. It will be a costly lesson to the American
people if they are blinded by prejudice any longer on this most
important question. The Sub-Treasury, to all appearances, is
still open to the people to walk in and exchange money for gold
coin. No law has been changed. That same old gold reserve is
stacked up there in New York—for the bankers only. The peo-
ple have been told they could swap their silver dollars for gold
ones, but they cannot seem to do it, and if they want gold
must pay the bankers a premium for it. I ask, in all sincerity,
why is this so?

The reason " silver dollars pass current at a valuation of one
hundred cents" is because the Government promises to receive
them from the people in settlement of taxes, duties on imports,
the internal revenue, etc. The promise to receive them is more
effective than any promise to pay gold for them, because theTHE DOLLAR CROP

promise to receive can be carried out, but by the laws of God and
nature—gold redemption may be impossible.

The United States Government promises to receive silver dol-
lars from the editor of the Globe-Democrat, and all other men," at
a valuation of one hundred cents" in payment of postage bills
and direct taxes on what property he owns, and indirect taxes on
what food he consumes or clothes he wears. As long as the Gov-
ernment will receive them at that valuation, I don't think the editor
of the Globe-Democrat would part with any at less than that valua-
tion, even though all the gold in this country were dumped into the
sea to-morrow. Would he? Silver dollars are dollars, in and of
and by themselves, and not dependent on any make-believe swap-
ping process, such as is conducted at the Sub-Treasury in New
York, for the sole purpose of fleecing the people.

There is another practical illustration given by the situation
that confronts us. Our silver dollars are accepted at par in every
commercial center of the world. Why do they not sink to their
bullion value in London to-day? Everybody sees that they can-
not be exchanged for gold at our Treasury. Secretary Carlisle has
recently made such an announcement. Then why don't our sil-
ver dollars sink to their bullion value in London, Paris and Ber-
lin? It is besause of our extensive trade relations with those
countries. Shippers of foreign goods to this country can pay
their import duties with those silver dollars the same as they can
with gold ones. They can buy American goods for a return cargo
with those silver dollars the same as they could with gold dollars,
because our silver dollars are a legal tender in this country. Our
mints were open to silver until 1£73, while England has been on
a gold basis since 1816, yet our silver dollars never sold at a dis-
count.

Your own Senator from this State of Delaware (Bayard) at-
tended a conference meeting of the Senate Finance Committee
with the then Secretary of the Treasury, John Sherman, and
this very question came up for discussion on March 19, 1878.

Senator Bayard there asked Secretary Sherman this question:

"By the first of July next or the first of January next, you
have eighteen or twenty millions of silver dollars in circulation
and payable for duties; how long do you suppose this short sup-j6 the dollar crop

ply of silver and your control of it by your coinage will keep it
equivalent to gold when one is worth ten cents less than the

other ?"

To which Secretary Sherman replied:

"just as long as it can be used for anything that gold

can be used for it will be worth in this country the par of
gold."

That answer covers -the whole ground. The law cannot cre-
ate value, but it can create demand. By clothing the silver dol-
lar with full legal tender power to be used anywhere that gold
can be used, is the only manner in which to keep our coins on a
parity with one another.

It is true that there is a limit to the demand that a govern-
ment can create, and that is why Mexico with her open mints
cannot hold silver up. Simply because she is not powerful
enough as a nation to supply the demand. Our people are mighty
in commerce and industry. Mexico as a nation is not to be com-
pared with us.

With an experience of eighty years in keeping our mints
open to silver, while England was on a gold basis, we know that
we can do so now. The gold reserve fake has exploded. Under
the pressure of the peopled demand to be accorded the same
privilege as bankers have enjoyed, the truth is out.

For years gold trust editors and orators told the people that
if the Government did not exchange silver dollars for gold ones,
that they (the silver coins ) would instantly sink to their bullion
value. But here are those despised silver coins passing at par
not only in this country, but the world over. Think of it, my
deceived countrymen, struggling in bankruptcy caused by cur-
rency contraction! We American people are in the same posi-
tion as the peasantry of the Canton of Berne, Switzerland, were
once in, as related in Heaths Labor and Finance Revolution:

"It had been customary in that Canton, from time immemo-
rial, to keep a bear at public expense; and the people had been
taught to believe that if they did not have a bear on hand they
would be undone, and the country would go to wreck and ruin.
So they endured the bear, notwithstanding the expense, and the
fatal injury that he inflicted upon children and pigs that hap-
pened to step over his line pf jurisdiction. It happened one dayTHE DOLLAR CROP

that bruin sickened and died—too suddenly to have his place
immediately supplied with another. During the interval the
people were amazed and delighted to see that the sun continued
to shine, the corn to grow and the vintage to flourish, and every-
thing went on the same as before—saving the danger and expense
of the bear. So they came to the sensible conclusion not to keep
any more bears."

With no more sense, and at much greater expense, we have
been issuing bonds and selling our children into debt slavery to
replenish the gold reserve, our National Bear, of which the poor,
deceived people stood in such great awe.

With the people hypnotized into that belief by the instru-
mentality of their newspapers, the money sharks have plundered
the country. They presented paper money at the Treasury, re-
duced the gold reserve, then through their papers, yelled, "Look,
people; calamity is upon you!" and unthinking people thought
calamity was sure enough upon them. The papers shouted that
"confidence was destroyed and there must be a bond issue."
Then the Administration graciously offered them bonds if they
would return the gold. The scheming bankers handed back the
gold and secured their bonds. After which they applauded
themselves in the columns of their own papers for saving the
poor bankrupt Nation. Then, by presenting the same paper
money at the Sub-Treasury, they repeated the process, piling up
bonded indebtedness against unborn generations.

It reminds me of the story told of Davy Crocket and the
"coonskin currency" of Kentucky. It is related that Davy
Crockett, after a whole day's hunt in the mountains, returned
home with but one coonskin as a result of his prowess. At the
village tavern he fell in with a crowd of friends, and to drown
his sorrow, invited them into drink, which he paid for with his
coonskin—an acceptable currency in that section at that time.
The village tavern was the familiar log building, with the bar
erected in the same style. After drinking to Davy's health, one
of the group espied the coonskin sticking out a little between the
logs, under the bar, where the proprietor had thrown it. He
adroitly pulled it through the crack, and with the remark, "Let's
have one on me," ordered drinks for the crowd, and paid for58

THE DOLLAR CHOP

them with the same old coonskin, and the crowd, catching onto
the racket, kept pulling that skin from between the cracks and
buying drinks, until the barrel was empty, when they retired.
The proprietor, at a later moment, started to count his pile of
coonskins, and found that in exchange for his barrel of whisky
he had only the same old hide.

What reasons were offered for those bond issues ? It was
claimed that this government must maintain a gold reserve, so
that the other coins could be exchanged for them; that all coins
were based on gold, and if the government did not maintain its
gold reserve the silver coins would sink to their bullion value.
Now, when the people want gold they cannot get it. The reserve
is still there piled up for the exclusive use of the bankers, but
when the people want it they must go to the bankers and pay a
premium for it. I have heard men wrangling and preaching
about the way the government was robbed of its million dollars
by the wide margin of profit that was allowed the bond syndi-
cate on those issues. That is the most insignificant point in the
question. The whole issue was robbery, open-handed stealing.
Hundreds of millions in principal and millions upon millions
in interest to be paid upon them from the death sweat of Ameri-
can toilers and producers.

Ah, my countrymen, how long, think you that liberty can
endure in a land where such corruption successfully parades
under the banner of patriotism and honesty!

/ " 111 fares the land to hast'ning ills a prey,

I Where wealth accumulates and men decay.

Princes and Lord may flourish and may fade;

A breath can make them, as a breath has made;

But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,

When once destroyed can never be supplied."

—Goldsmith.CHAPTER V.

BUGBEAR OF THE GOLD BUGS.

"Beware of Fifty Cent Dollars"—Yesy Beware!—The Sham
Trade Dollar—The War Greenbacks.

Having secured absolute control over the volume of money m
this country, thereby controlling all industry, crippling produc-
tion and transferring the wealth of our land to their own laps, the
house of Rothschild, with its puppets, the American Bankers'
Association, erect scarecrows based on bald falsehoods, to delude
and confuse the people.

Dishonored in holy writ, legislated against by the founders
of this republic*, they sit to-day in the high places of our gov-
ernment and bawl forth to the public: "Beware of fifty cent dol-
lars. Beware, beware."

As a sample of this scarecrow, I will quote you first from
the report of the self-styled " Sound Money Meeting " at Phila-
delphia, when Mr. Joseph Wharton, a large employer of labor in,
that city, takes up the cry, on page 158:

"Are we therefore seeking to pay those whom we employ in
cheap money, in something that we can get for less than its face
value, but which they (our employes) must take at its face value?"

Why, yes, Mr. Wharton, if such a thing were possible, nine
tenths of all employers would seek such an opportunity instead of
opposing it, and the other ten per cent, would also have to do it in
order to compete with those who did.

At that same meeting another man took up the cry of " fifty
cent dollars." It was the Hon. Michael D. Harter, of Ohio, who
has since committed suicide. He said :

"Look at the savings banks. Free coinage would allow two
thousand millions of deposits to be paid off with one thousand
millions in gold."

*A resolution passed by the third Congress of the United States on December 23, 1793, signed
and approved by George Washington, then President, reads as follows:

"Any person holding any office or any stock in any institution in the nature of a bank for
issuing or discounting bills or notes payable to bearer or order, cannot be a member of the House
whilst he holds such office or stock,"

That law has never been repealed.6o

the dollar CROT

Just as though the savings banks would not gladly accept
such opportunities. The Presidents of these institutions may be
of the usual standard of honesty and integrity, but the history of
their profession does not warrant the assumption that they are
opposed to doubling their money every time they get an oppor-
tunity.

Why, good people, the fifty-cent dollar is a picnic for bank-
ers, and just the kind of pie they like to get their teeth into, and,
if they thought the opening of the mints to silver would give them
such opportunities, they would take off their coats and work for
it. Here is the latest form in which they have presented this
scarecrow to the people. It is an Associated Press dispatch:

Boston, July 23.

President J. L. Greene, of the Connecticut Mutual Life In-
surance Company of Hartford, has prepared a letter for policy-
holders, in which he says:

"Our contracts with you agree to pay to your families so
many dollars. There has never been any doubt as to what was
intended thereby, but should we come upon a silver basis your
policies would, for the present, be paid in dollars worth to your
families only about 50 cents, and the great bulk of them would
probably be paid in dollars worth not more than from 25 to 85
cents."

Of course, President Greene wouldn't like to have just such
an opportunity. A legal tender dollar can be passed as a dollar
for taxes at the Custom House, or at the stamp-window of the
Postoffice, whether it be made of gold, silver or paper, and as
long as it can be passed upon the Government (or redeemed by
the Government in service) it will pass at par among the people
regardless of the Government's ability to swap (alleged redemp-
tion) a dollar made of one material for a dollar made of a differ-
ent substance.

We have had several kinds of the fifty-cent dollars alluded
to in Mr. Greene's circular.

The first was the State Bank notes. The people were robbed
unmercifully by them. The people lost; who made the profit?
The bankers. Funny they should object to another picnic like
that!

The next was the "war greenback." The people lost fear-THE DOLLAB CROP

fully by them. Rather were robbed unmercifully by them. The
bankers bought them at 30c to 40c on the dollar; then bought coin
bonds with them, passing them at par. Who made the profit on
the war greenbacks? The bankers. Funny they should object
to another picnic like this.

Then the trade dollar. What a picnic they were for the
bankers! Very remarkable that they should object to such ex-
cellent opportunities to make money.

The pages of our history show how they spent millions of
dollars to secure the debasement of the war greenback and the
trade dollar. They did it surreptitiously and under cover from
the public gaze, but as deliberately as the Devil tempted the
Nazarene on the Mount.

I would remind you right at this point that, in order to
thoroughly understand the money question, and to be able to
determine upon the merits or demerits of the free coinage of silver,
you must first be able to draw the line of distinction between the
two entirely different values of money.

The mint value, or coin price, of any money is established by
the legal statute of the land, and that coin value only changes
when the law is changed. The purchasing value of a dollar,
however, fluctuates from day to day, according to the law of sup-
ply and demand. We have seen through this era of falling prices
that our dollars have doubled and even tripled in purchasing
value; that is, they buy twice or thrice as much to-day as they
did five, ten or twenty y^ars ago. The distressing conditions
existing throughout the nation make it imperative that a higher
range of prices on commodities be secured, or, in other words, the
purchasing value of money must be diminished, for the producers
of this country with forty-cent wheat can never liquidate debts
that were contracted when wheat was worth $3 per bushel. And
as a nation of people we can never liquidate our national indebt-
edness on that basis. True, the holders thereof don't want them
settled, but the American people long ago found out that Sher-
man's cry of a "National debt is a National blessing" is based
upon his interest in National Banks.

The purchasing power of money must be reduced, or the62

THE DOLLAR CROP

titles to the farms and homes of this land will be transferred from
those who have toiled and produced wealth into the laps of those
who neither toil nor spin. With that wholesale transfer of titles
by mortgage foreclosure, we will have added to our army of unem-
ployed, millions of the best blood and manhood of the American
continent. Liberty cannot long endure under such conditions as
now prevail. None of us, however, are asking for coins which
do not pass at their mint value. But there have been times when
the organized bankers have asked that very thing of the Govern-
ment; aye, demanded it and forced the Government to yield. It
was in the case of the war greenbacks and the sham or so-called
trade dollars. These were actually fifty-cent dollars. Most of
you remember them. You remember how the bankers made mil-
lions out of them, too, don't you?

While the trade dollar is not the first in the historical series,
I cite the case for the reason that the machinations of the bank-
ing fraternity are more easily seen, and with an understanding of
the legislation that depreciated the trade dollar, one can more
readily follow the crooked work of the humanity-loving bankers
in the legislation which secured the depreciation of the war green-
back, through which they unmercifully fleeced the patriotic sol-
diers in the army, the helpless widow in the home, and the honest
toiler in the field. The perpetrators of these two robberies hold
Up the picture of the havoc that they themselves created, and with
this scarecrow, frighten the unthinking people who have not made
themselves acquainted with the foul means they employed to se-
cure the very depreciation which they now, with mock virtue,
warn the people to beware of.

THE SHAM TRADE DOLLAR.

In goldbug parlance, the trade (or sham) dollar was created
to facilitate the harmonious working of our commercial relations
with some foreign countries. The assertion is false. The trade
dollar was created merely to blind and confuse the people, and as
the only results of its existence were further opportunities for the
bankers to legally rob the toiling masses, they, of course, were
entirely satisfied.THE DOLLAR CROP

This sham trade dollar, according to the Act of 1873, was to
contain 420 grains of silver, and was legal tender only in amounts
not exceeding five dollars. That was a discrimination against it
immediately. A public or private debt of five dollars could be
paid with it, but a debt of ten dollars could not, therefore making
a further demand for the gold dollar. Being legal tender in the
amount of five dollars, it was just sufficient to secure its circula-
tion among the people; and that was where it was circulated, and
not in foreign countries, as they pretended. The trade dollar
went among the people and circulated at par until 1876, when,
at the dictates of the organized bankers, Congress pulled the
string, and, by the Act of 1876, it was declared that trade dollars
thereafter were not legal tender in any amount. Think of it a
moment! They could not be used for paying debts which called
for dollars, consequently they were not money any more than a
bushel of wheat is money, and the man that had trade dollars in
his pocket was no better than a man who had a box of pears with
him, for both were commodities, and before he could pay a debt
which called for dollars he had to buy the legal tender dollars
with the sham trade dollar, or any other commodity he had.
Consequently the trade dollar passed for what it was—a disc of
silver—entailing great losses upon the people at large, after which
they duly passed into the vaults of these humanity-loving bank-
ers at a discount; and, when the whole issue was safely under
lock and key, at their dictation, the Government concluded to
redeem them all at par, and the bankers passed them into the
Treasury at their full face value.

The people lost the discount, the bankers profited by it.
They had successfully practiced the tactics of the ink fish, and
this gave them a scarecrow with which to fool the people, who
being busy in the fields and factories, had not taken time to fol-
low the devious manipulations by which they worked the game.

A joint resolution of Congress, approved July 23, 1876, pro-
vided that "The trade dollar shall not hereafter be a legal ten-
der."

Can any one defend that act? Can any one assign an honest
motive for its passage?64

the dollar crop

The standard silver dollar of to-day is a full legal tender. If
they had enough power in Congress to restrict the legal tender
function of the silver dollars of to-day, they would undoubtedly
do so, for they want nothing better than to make the standard
silver pass at a discount to-day, for it is very annoying to them,
in this debate, that many millions of silver dollars pass up and
down throughout the land, clothed with the full power that the
gold dollar has, and if you read the colums of the Gold Trust pa-
pers you will see where the Rothchilds-McKinley cohorts are ad-
vocating that silver be made a restricted legal tender only in
amounts not exceeding fifty dollars. Every dollar in this land
must be a full legal tender, otherwise it is a commodity and not a
dollar in the full sense of the word. That is what the Bryan
forces say.

The united bondholders of London and Wall Street say
that every dollar must be worth one hundred cents as a com-
modity. Can you discriminate between the false and the true?
If you do, prosperity and happiness may be restored; if not,
greed and avarice will control, with the resultant, continued
misery and degredation of the grandest nation of people that ever
existed.

This is the way the intrinsic value account of the silver coin
stood in the year 1882:

The two half-dollars contained a total of 346 grains of silver,
and being legal tender, they passed current in all public and
private transactions for one dollar, just the same as any gold dol-
lar did.

The standard (or Bland) silver dollar contained 412^ grains
of silver, and being a legal tender, passed for one dollar in all
transactions the same as any gold dollar.

these $1.00.

this $1.00.

this 80c.THE DOLLAR CROP

This sham, or so-called trade dollar, contained 420 grains of
silver, but it was not legal tender, it was not money in any sense
of the word, it was commodity, and it only passed in commercial
transactions for about eighty cents.

Now, then, will your Simon-pure gold-bug explain, accord-
ing to his intrinsic value theory, this conundrum?

"If 346 grains of silver pass for a dollar, and 412 grains of
silver pass for a dollar, and 420 grains pass for only eighty cents,
how many grains, according to his doctrine, must we put in each
coin to make them worth nothing?"

The fact is, the theory of intrinsic value of money is absurd
and unreasonable. As authority we quote from Appleton's
American Encyclopaedia:

"An article is determined to be money by reason of the per-
formance of it of certain functions without regard to its former
substance."

Attorney-General Ackerman, in ruling upon the legal tender
act, said:

"I repeat that money is not a substance, but an impression
of legal authority—a printed legal decree."

Aristotle said:

"Money exists not by nature but by law."

Henry Clay continually reminded the people that:

Whatever the Government agrees to receive in payment of pub-
lic debts is money, no matter what its form may be."

The above illustrations of the trade dollar proves the
accuracy of these quotations, and the history of that sham dollar
shows the fallacy of every gold-bug argument.

Let it be understood that nature creates gold and silver, but
it is law that creates money from them or from any other sub-
stance which our lawmakers elect. The Simon-pure gold-bug,
from his labyrinth of falsehoods and pasteboard fortresses of de-
ception, tries to offset the fundamental principles of money in
order to prevent us from creating sufficient money with which to
transact our business without submitting to his nefarious schemes.

The American people can create money from silver or from
gold; they can create more money from . silver because there is66

THE DOLLAR CROP

more silver than gold, and each one of the dollars thus reacted
will be one hundred-cent dollars, for the very evident reason
hereinbefore mentioned. President Greene of the Connecticut
Mutual Life Insurance Company, who raised the threat of 50 or
35-«ent dollars as a result of the re-opening of the mints to silver
is either disgracefully ignorant on our monetary history or is a
designing prevaricator, and his supporters cannot rescue him
from that position.

The debt paying value of money is determined by law, but
the purchasing value of money is determined by its volume. By
confusing these widely differing values our clever gold-bug
friends are able to hide their real meaning, and thereby secure
legislative authority to continue their control over the money
volume. Having control of the money volume they can, by
systematic contraction, demand in return money double in pur-
chasing power of that which they loaned.

THE WAR GREENBACKS.

Another bugbear (of their own creation) which the design-
ing gold-bugs audaciously flaunt in the face of the American peo-
ple, in warning them against 50-cent dollars, is the exception
clause war greenbacks. This note, dripping with the blood of
the soldiers who were robbed by the bankers who stayed at home,
is a favorite scarecrow with them. A small part of the people
only understand how that money was depreciated, for, had they
known the treachery that the organized bankers resorted to in
securing that depreciation, there would have been war between
the people and Wall street.

The history of that currency issue, the cold treachery and
cupidity of the wealthier citizens, and the direful results of their
machinations, when properly understood, has made strong men
weep! When the war broke out, President Lincoln needed funds
to fit out an army and carry on the Government. As at all such
moments of National peril, the gold and silver coin of the na-
tion was hoarded and locked away by the money-changers in all
cities.THE DOLLAR CROP

6 7

The Administration needed money. The lowest offers of
loans were at such high rates of interest that they could not be
considered. Whereupon, the Administration turned to Congress
for relief. With the power duly vested in Congress by the Con-
stitution, bills were passed authorizing an issue of $60,000,000 of
paper money. They were redeemable in coin, and eventually
made a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, and
consequently passed current at par, for the Government received
them from the people for all public dues. The passage of the
Legal Tender Act was alarming to the money-changers, who sawr
very clearly that the full legal tenders were being issued from
the Treasury to the soldiers, going around the channels of trade,
and back into the Treasury from where they started, without
creating any demand for gold.

In their selfish interests, something must be done to block
these legal tender paper dollars, otherwise they could not profit
upon the gold and silver coin they had hoarded. Consequently,
on the 14th day of February, 1862, a bankers' convention was
called at Washington. Representatives from Boston, New York
and Philadelphia banks were there. They could not influence
the House of Representatives, where another issue had just been
authorized, but they secured control of the Senate. The Senate
placed an exception clause amendment to the Legal Tender Act,
and sent back word to the House and the Administration that
the bill could not pass (which meant the Administration would
be crippled), if the exception clause amendment was not adopted.

The supporters of the measure had to yield. The bill passed.
The following issue of greenbacks read as follows: "This note is
a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, except import
duties and interest on the public debt." The word except in any
contract is a highly important one.

The new issue of greenbacks came out, were paid to the sold-
iers, and through the channels of trade came to the importer,
who, taking them to the Custom House, was told he must have
coin to pay duties on imports.

The importer was astonished that this Government would,
not receive and honor its own paper with which it had discharged68

the dollar crop

its debts to the soldiers. His argument availed nothing. He
had to have coin, and the only place to get it was down at the
bank counter, whither he went and submitted to their nefarious
shaving process. Yes, they sold him coin just to oblige him, but
they did not forget to charge him enormous premiums.

With the full legal tender greenback (the demand notes) the
merchant was free from their clutches. But with the exception
clause greenback his footsteps were directed to their counters to
buy bullion. The exception clause was the bunco-steering policy
which the bankers secured to give them the opportunity to fleece
the people.

Both these issues of greenbacks were redeemable in coin, but
the government having suspended specie payments neither of
them could be so redeemed.

The full legal tender greenbacks passed current in all foreign
and domestic transactions as 100 cent dollars, for they were
clothed with as much authority as any silver or gold dollar. The
latter issues, with the exception clause upon them, depreciated
and did become at one time actual 35 cent dollars. However,
when one dollar in coin purchased two or three of those excep-
tion clause greenbacks, one dollar of the full legal tender green-
back also would purchase two or three of the exception clause
greenbacks, notwithstanding that they were both issued by the
same government, signed by the same, officials, and in every way
exactly similar, other than the difference of their legal tender
power. One was money, the other was money, EXCEPT it was
not.

I would like some supporter of the American Bankers' Asso-
ciation (or its political machine, the Republican party) to give an
honest motive for the passage of that exception clause amendment
to the legal tender act of 1862. It needs no microscopical scrutiny
to detect the dishonest motives. They made millions out of the de-
preciation of those notes.

With $1,000 in coin they bought on an average $2,000 in
those exception clause greenbacks. They then turned the green-
backs (at par) into a $2,000 bond made payable in coin.

The reason assigned for adding the exception clause amend-the dollar crop

ment to the legal tender act of 1862 is that the Government had
to raise coin at the Custom House with which to pay interest on
the bonds.

But no reason can be given why the interest upon our bonds
should have been made payable in coin. The records of the
Treasury Department, the records of the Stock Exchanges of the
leading northern cities, all corroborate the fact of the legal tender
greenbacks commanding a premium over the exception clause
greenbacks, and it is very evident to any mind, when given con-
sideration. Allison's Encyclopaedia confirms the fact and gives
the figures.

On page 225 of Shuckers' Biography of Salmon P. Chase,
Secretary of Treasury under Lincoln, you will see this fact con-
firmed as follows:

"the demand notes (full legal tender greenbacks) being re-
ceivable for customs the same as coin, kept pace with the ad-
vance in the price of coin."

Wm. A. Birkey, in his treatise on money, referring to the
greenbacks, says:

u These notes were receivable for all public debts, duties on
imports included, and were subsequently made a legal tender for
all debts, and the result was they commanded the same premium
over other greenbacks that gold did, and went up with coin step
by step, to the enormous premium of 285—not because they were
payable in coin, but because they were receivable f^r duties on
imports and other debts due the government.

The placing of that exception clause amendment upon this
issue of the war greenback was done deliberately and with malice
intent, so to speak, with the sole purpose of forcing the people
into the hands of the bankers, who had hoarded the gold and
silver.

The Hon. Thaddeus Stephens, of Pennsylvania, had charge
of the original bill in the House. He was a man, honored and
esteemed by all who knew him. When the exception clause
amendment was forced to his bill, these were the remarks he
made in the House of Representatives, February 20, 1862:7 o

Tftis DOLLAR CROP

"Mr. Speaker: I have a very few words to say. I approach
this subject with more depression of spirit than I ever before
approached any question. No personal motive or feeling influences
me. I have a melancholy foreboding that we are about to con-
summate a cunningly devised scheme, which will carry great
injury and great loss to all classes of people throughout the
Union. There was a doleful sound came up from the caverns of
the bullion brokers and from the saloons of the associated banks.
The cashiers and agents were soon on the ground, and persuaded
the Senate, with but little deliberation, to mangle and destroy
what it had caused the House months to digest, consider and
pass. * * *

" The Government now creates money, and by its very terms
declares it a depreciated currency. It makes two classes of
money—one for bankers and brokers—another for the people.'*

On his deathbed the great Commoner said:

"Yes, we had to yield. The Senate was stubborn. We did
not yield, however, until we found that the country must be lost
or the bankers gratified, and we sought to save the country, in
spite of the cupidity of its wealthier citizens. When a few years
hence the people shall have been brought to general bankruptcy,
I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that I attempted to pre-
vent it."

Examination of the proceedings of the passage of that
Legal Tender Act will show that the amendment making duties
on imports payable in coin was inserted first, and, as I have
stated, with the evident intention of forcing the hoarded coin
to a premium. Further along in the bill can be noted that
interest upon our public indebtedness was made payable in coin.
This, to my mind, was to provide for the return of the coin to
the moneymonger, so he could have it to sell again to the
importer.

I would like to ask their supporters why the bankers' bonds
should be made payable in coin, when the soldier, who went into
the'field at the risk of his life, was paid in paper currency?

If the money lenders' dues—the interest on his sheckels—
had been settled in the same money that bought soldiers' arms
and legs, coffins and graves, there would have been no demand
for a single dollar of gold to be used in this country.

When the war broke out the Bankers' Association smelt
money on the distant fields of slaughter, and prepared by suchTHE DOLLAR CROP

legislation as the passage of the Exception clause amendment to
coin the blood of the people into their interest, or profit-bearing
dollars. Having made their interest payable in coin, they cor-
nered the coin, and at one time squeezed $2 85 out of the people's
honest money for $1 of their coin.

When knaves could buy the people's honest money with 35
cents in coin, those who loaded the dice of this confidence game
heaped up the paper dollars by millions, and converted them
into bonds, every bond bearing coin interest.

By the exception clause amendment the money lenders of
Wall street forced the pound of flesh compact into their bonds,
and maintain that, if paper money was good enough to remuner-
ate the soldiers who risked their lives, it was plenty good enough
to remunerate the unpatriotic money lender for the use of his
money and property, all of which were being protected by these
very soldiers. They made two classes of money—one for the
bankers and brokers, and another for the people. That is what
they want to-day; and these same bankers, who fleeced the peo-
ple with their State bank notes, and who have been identified
with all the treachery in our system of finance, are the ones who
to-day claim a monopoly on patriotism and honesty. God for-
bid that our standard of honesty and patriotism should be molded
and established in Wall street.

And still they yell "Beware of 50-cent dollars," when his-
tory proves that the only actual 50-cent dollars that ever existed
in this country were deliberately planned by the leaders in finan-
cial circles, and each time resulted in a rich harvest for them-
selves. Do the members of the Grand Army of the Republic know
how their paper money was deliberately reduced in value for the
aggrandizement of the Wall street bankers? Ah, no! Controlling
the channels of information, the press, they have been able to
keep the history of the exception clause amendment compara-
tively secret, but the records are open in the Congressional Rec-
ord, and when the people do comprehend the whole case, there
will be a change in our financial system. When you folks get a
copy of this pamphlet from the self-styled "Sound Money
League," I want you to observe with what hypocritical sancti-72

the dollar crop

mony that man Harter, the mouthpiece of the perpetrators of
those two robberies, holds up the picture of the havoc which
they themselves created, by the exception clause amendment
on the war greenback, and tampering with and altering the legal
tender function of the trade dollar, and just see how anxious
they are to protect us from their own game.

With the mints reopened to silver, these so-called " fifty cent
dollars " will continue just as they are to-day. A dollar " for 'a
that and 'a that" just as good and as useful to any man as a
gold dollar, because they can be used the same as a gold dollar.

Should it ever be your good fortune to meet with a member
of the gold bug fraternity who may endeavor to ridicule the free
coinage of silver by referring to the fifty cent dollars during the
war and during the existence of the trade dollar, I want you to
turn on him and level him out from the shoulder, with something
like these words:

" You hypocrite ! It was you who secured the legislation
which depreciated the war greenbacks. You and your heartless
associates who stayed at home, made vast millions out of that
depreciation, which was taken from the mouths of the wives and
children of the men who went into the field of battle to
save this nation and your property. It is on record by state-
ment of unimpeachable character that you spent a large corrup-
tion fund in Washington to secure the depreciation of those
notes. It was you and your ilk, whom the grand old commoner
of Pennsylvania, Thaddeus Stevens, scourged in his speech in
1862. You, sir, builded your present fortune out of those ' forty
cent dollars,' and founded your vicious banking system of le-
galized robbery upon the bonds which you afterwards bought
with those dollars at their face value. And if you or your crowd
saw any possibility of re-opening the mints to silver; giving such
opportunities as you threaten, you, sir, would lose no time in ad-
vocating and securing the passage of this measure you are now
fighting."

Ah, yes; good people, we should always have had actual
fifty cent dollars in circulation, right up to the present moment,
but for the fact that the pound of flesh fraternity, have found a
better and more effective method of filching the productive indus-
try of the country. It is capable of returning larger stakes, was
invented and first carried out on a grand scale by one Peel of
England in the early part of the present century.THE DOLLAR CROP

The plan is to secure absolute control of the Dollar Crop,
and thereby enslave whole nations in debt. To control the Dol-
lar Crop, and by contracting the volume to reduce the money
price of all property until it falls into their laps by foreclosure.
They let the business of the country adjust itself to a certain vol-
ume of money, then get their network of obligations such as Na-
tional and industrial bonds and mortgages spread over all the
wealth in the land. Then by reducing the size of the Dollar Crop
they simply mark down the money price of all this wealth; and
the tithe thereof reverts to them. That is the way the prop-^
erty of England was filched from the small holders, and it is the
method by which they are working to build up a landed aristoc-y
racy in this country. I charge you to-night, it must be stopped'.
Liberty in this country was purchased at too great a price and sac-
rifice of blood to be lost by the carelessness of a money-getting
people. The man who is so engaged in business in which he can
conform himself to all the changes in the industrial conditions
effected by the manipulations of the Dollar Crop by the Ameri-
can Bankers' Association, must rise and call a stop to these high-
handed proceedings, lest, in the crash impending, all of liberty,
all the hope of this giant Republic shall be lost, and in the ruins
wrought about him all the savings, all the hopes of his active life,
be drawn into the maelstrom of destruction.

James A. Garfield said: "He who controls the volume of money in any country controls all
industry and wealth."CHAPTER VI.

THE POLICY INVENTED BY PEEL.

The Partial Uprising of a Great People Against the Money Con-
tractionists Checked by Force of Arms.

I have referred to the "Policy Invented by Peel" and I
shoulcj like you thoroughly to understand the history of this
great scheme of contracting the volume of money in England.

Young Peel became famous in 1819, when he and a Jew
banker named Ricardo secured the passage of the " Peel Resump-
tion Act," which contracted the money volume in England and
transferred the land of that country from the many who toiled to
the idle few. Let me read you from a speech made by Judge
William D. Kelly, in Philadelphia, in 1875:

"Who was Ricardo? He was a banker who, being rich,
secured his election to Parliament, and did for himself and Robert
Peel, the son of the first Sir Robert Peel, and other British bond-
holders, what Congress is doing for the banks and other holders of
our bonds to-day—transferring the property of the men of. toil
and enterprise to men of bonds and gold. The Peel family has
had its story, and it should be studied by every American farmer,
manufacturer and laborer.

" The first Sir Robert Peel was a manufacturer of fabrics, and
contracted for clothing for the army. He was a patriot, and
proved his loyalty by putting all his profits into the depreciated
bonds of the Government. He said: 'I stand with the Govern-
ment and make or lose; I give it the use of my capital.'

"And when the war was over he was one of the heaviest hold-
ers of the National debt, He and his son, Mr. Robert Peel, Jr.,
were both in Parliament. The younger Peel united with Ricardo
in forcing through the act providing for the resumption of specie
payment at the end of four years. * * * They carried it, and
Sir Robert, who had stoutly opposed it, said to his son: 'Robert,
you have made the fortunes of your family, but you have
ruined your country.' And it was so. The bonds went up, and
factory and every other species of productive property went down.
The Peels and Ricardos sold at par the bonds they had bought at
40 per cent, and put the proceeds into real estate at one quarterTHE DOLLAR CHOP

or one fifth its intrinsic value. In these facts you have the secret
of the great landed estate of the Peel family, and an illustration
of the method by which the landed property of this country is to
be concentrated in a few families. Men who bought our bonds at
40 per cent, are howling for resumption in order that they may
get 100 for them; and that factories, farms and mines may be
without marketable value until they shall come to own them,
and again set industry in motion by expanding bank credits."

The sad story of the result of that Peel Resumption Act, I
shall read you from different English histories. The first is the
account by Sir Archibald Allison. Listen carefully:

"The effects of this extraordinary piece of legislation were
soon apparent. The industry of the nation was speedily con-
gealed, as a flowing stream is by the severity of an arctic winter.
* * * The entire revenue of England fell off from $232,545,000
in 1818 to $142,757,000 in 1821. The effects of this sudden and
prodigious contraction of the currency were soon apparent; and
they rendered the next three years a period of ceaseless distress and
suffering in the British Islands. * * * The effect upon prices was
not less immediate and appalling. The rate of wages fell one half.
From the tremedous reduction in the price of land, says Double-
day, which now took place, estates barely sold for as much as
would pay off the mortgages; and the owners were stripped of all
and made beggars."

In Doubleday's History/it is described as follows:

"We have already seen the fall in prices produced by the
immense narrowing (contraction) of the paper circulation. The
distress, ruin and bankruptcy which now took place were
universal, affecting the great interests of both land and trade;
but especially among land owners, whose estates were burdened
with mortgages, etc., the effects were the most marked, and out of
the ordinary course. Before the close of the year 1819 the dis-
tress became insufferable. Great meetings were held throughout
England and Scotland during the summer. In August, 60,000
people assembled near Manchester. A collision occurred be-
tween the people and the troops, in which a number were killed
and many wounded. This created intense excitement, and the
meetings of the people held in Liverpool, York, Leeds, and vari-
ous other cities, were attended by vast multitudes of suffering
people, demanding vengeance. Serious riots occurred, which were
only quelled by military force. In 1820 a conspiracy was dis-
covered which had for its object the murder of all the King's
ministers, and was only frustrated through the cowardice of one76

the dollar crop

of the conspirators, who betrayed his associates. Military train-
ing went on among the people, and the Government was obliged
to provide a large military force to prevent an outbreak."

Thus you see the immediate effects of a rapid contraction of
the currency in that country. It endangered society, and en-
dangered the existence of the Government, through the creation
of hungry stomachs in their midst.

How very similar has been the picture in this country where
Peel's policy has been so successfully put in operation.

Speaking of the great contraction in the currency that oc-
curred in England as a result of the Peel policy, Sir James Gra-
ham, in a tract entitled " Corn and Currency," published in
1826, says:

"Whether we regard private debts or public burdens, the ef-
fects of the measure of 1819 have been to enact that for every less
sum owing, a greater sum shall be paid. Falling prices. But
pecuniary engagements remaining the same—the farmer has no
profit, the manufacturer no customer, the laborer no employment.
But amidst the ruin of the farmer and manufacturer, and the

insurrections of the people without bread and without work,

one class flourished and was triumphant; the annuitant and the
tax eater rejoiced in the increased value of money; in the sacri-
fice of productive industry to unproductive wealth, the victory of
the drones over the bees."

Such, my good people, was the effect in England of the
policy invented by Peel, and since the introduction of the Peel
policy in American finances, we have seen the same sad picture.

Extract from speech by Hon. Joseph C. Sibley in Congress,
1895:

"They have plucked the deadly Upas tree from an alien soil
and planted it in the free soil of this Union. What are its fruits?
It has given the homesteads of thousands of toilers to the credit-
or. It has given one-third of our railway mileage to receivers.
It has given idleness to four million would-be toilers. It has
given productive capital no scope for use, and little or no re-
turn for the risks assumed. It has given the farmer 40 cents for
wheat and the cotton planter 4 cents for cotton. It has given
nakedness, hunger and cold to millions of men, women and help-
less children. It has produced a crop of defaulters and criminals
until the jails and prisons overflow, It has produced mobs andTHE DOLLAR CROP

riots and the calling for armed forces of the nation to check and
control. It has produced $100,000,000* more of Government
bonds, which are so many financial fetters to shackle the feet of
industry. It has produced the tenants of ten thousand graves
filled by despairing suicides since your panic began, and for the
first time in the history of English literature the pamphlets on
the counters and the newspaper press are devoted to the discus-
sion of the question, 'Is Suicide a Bin?' "

INTERNATIONAL BYE-AND-BYE BIMETALLISM.

I have little to say to you upon the subject of International
Bimetallism. By any one observant enough, it is easily seen
that this is the last corner the money sharks can take when they
have been driven from all their false premises by the justice of
arguments favoring the re-opening of our mints to silver.

The American Bankers' Association, who are virtually in
control of the executive department of our government, are
arrayed in bitter opposition to bimetallism in any manner. At
one time bright prospects in this direction were held out to the
American people.

It was when the Hon. A. J. Balfour secured the appointment as
First Lord of the Treasury in England. Balfour is an ardent
bimetallism Much enthusiam was manifest in this country over
that appointment, but right at this time one of our leading Gold
Trust papers took the actual position that we may always expect
the American Bankers' Association to assume, and gave an open
editorial boast, cruel in the depths of its meaning. It was the
Philadelphia Record of June 27,1895, a Gold Trust paper, owned
by William A. Singerly, naturally enough the President of a
National bank in Philadeldhia, which, in discussing Balfour's
appointment, said:

"And when the sanguine free silver exhorters shall start
their dance over the appointment of Balfour to be First Lord of
the Treasury, they should not forget the policy invented by Peel
is likely to be maintained, continued and extended."

* Subsequent issues raised it to $240,000,000.7«

THE DOLLAR CROP

How plain that language is? What a blast to the hopes for
International Bimetallism to restore the money volume of the
United States. A country, which in its younger days, legislated
for itself and its own people.

Ah, Singerly, you gilded fiend, how well you knew, when
you uttered those bold words, that hardly one reader in a thou-
sand would understand the cruel meaning of your exultant
boast? Like the fiends of hell gloating over the advent of a lost
soul in their midst, you stand exultant and merry at the holo-
caust of human lives, wrecked and starved in the midst of plenty
by the operations of this very policy of Peel.CHAPTER VII.

THE NATIONAL BANKING SY&T-EM.

Shylock's Facilities for "Maintaining, Continuing and Extending
the Policy Invented by P&i~Tht Interest^ - -
Bearing Dollars. : _ - I

How often we see in our great daily papers that our National
banking system is the finest banking system the world ever saw.
It is undoubtedly the finest banking system in the world for the

bankers.

Close examination of a National bank note will show that it
is a promise to pay bearer on demand a certain number of dol-
lars by a certain bank in a certain city. No particular kind of
dollars is stipulated in the contract, consequently during a pe-
riod of financial disturbance like this summer of 1896, the bank-
ers can pay any form of legal tender dollar most convenient to
them. For many years the people have been told that National
Bank notes were based on gold. The premium paid for gold in
August, 1896, in all commercial transactions explodes the false-
hood. Merchants in New York have their tills filled with these
notes, but to get gold they must pay a premium for it, notwith-
standing that the hundred million dollar gold reserve, which has
cost us such expensive bond issues to maintain, is still piled up
in the Sub-Treasury in their city. On the face of the bank note
you will observe the following words:

"National Currency. This note is secured by bonds of the
United States deposited with the Treasurer of the United States
Treasury at Washington."

By this Act, passed in 1863, the banker was permitted to in-
vest his greenbacks in Government bonds at face value. Upon
these bonds he not only drew gold interest in advance, but by
means of the bank scheme he actually had 90 per cent of their
value returned to him. While drawing interest upon the entire8o

the dollar crop

investment in the form of bonds, 90 per cent of it had been re-
turned to him in the form of National Bank notes. On the one
hand, he draws interest from the Government; on the other, from
the same investment, he draws interest from his individual
debtors. Just consider what this means.

If you loaned me $'J.00,000 on my note (or bond), and I aft-
erward returned you 90 per cent, of the amount borrowed, you
certainly wouM not ecpect wc to ^continue paying interest upon
the full face of the note? This is the lax method with which our
Government deals with the bankers, however. The Government
borrows $100,000 from them on the Government bond (or note),
then by the National Banking Act, accepts that bond (or note)
in return as security, and gives the bankers $90,000 in the form
of National Banknotes, and continues paying them interest upon
the full face of the bond. The National Banks buy the cake and
then " have the cake and the penny both." They collect interest
from the Government and interest from the people all on the
same investment.

According to recent Treasury Department figures, there is in
circulation 246,000,000 National Bank notes, and 346,000,000 of
greenbacks. Are the bank notes any better than the greenbacks?
The bank notes are interest-bearing dollars, and the greenbacks
are non-interest-bearing dollars. Bank notes are secured by U.
S. bonds. The bonds are secured by the wealth of the Nation.
The greenbacks are secured by the Avealth of the Nation also. Is
not a fiat paper dollar as good as a fiat paper bond? If nervous
people are desirous that bonds shall be deposited in the United
States Treasury to secure our paper money, why not the Govern-
ment print its bonds, deposit them in its own Treasury, pay the
interest to its ownself and issue, the paper money based upon
them ?

The fact is a bald one. For bold robbery of the people the
National Bank note stands pre-eminent, not even considering the
fact that the major portion of the bonds in existence were bought
with Government paper money, deliberately depreciated to about
40 cents on the dollar.

The United States Treasury note (commonly called* green-THE DOLLAR CROP

back) costs the Government (the people) only a fraction of one
per cent, to issue. It is paid out by the Government to its em-
ployes, pensioners, etc. It circulates and performs the function
of money and does not draw interest.

The National Bank note (an alleged honest dollar) has a bond
behind it, upon which the people pay interest, averaging about
five per cent annually. This bank note is eating itself up with
interest year by year. In twenty years at five per cent, it has
cost the people its face value. Every twenty years (at compound
interest even shorter) "it turns to ashes in the hands of the peo-
ple." Talk about depreciated dollars! Look at that bank note.
Depreciates one hundred per cent, every twenty years. Our gold
bug friends scornfully laugh at the old Continental paper money
which carried us safely through the Revolutionary War, pointing
out the loss of the people by their depreciation. But the old
Continental money was lost to the people only once, while these
National Bank notes are a total loss every twenty years. It is
thirty-two years since their inauguration. As a people, we have
already lost them once, and are nearing the end of the second
turn, with millions of the people yet asleep, and the bankers cry-
honest money."82

THE DOLLAR CROP

This great, bold robbery of the people by the National Bank-
ing Act is what the Hon. James G. Blaine referred to in a speech
upon that subject in Congress in 1880. I will read you from Ap.
Cong. Rec,, 1880, page 118:

HON. JAMES G. BLAINE ON NATIONAL BANKS.

"Could there be a scheme devised that would legally enable a
certain class of men to get money without work, to grow rich while
robbing the people, to swallow up the fortunes of the masses
more effectually than the system of banking (State banks),
pursued in this country up to the time of the introduction of
the greenbacks ?

" If it is possible to inaugurate a greater system of robbery of
the people's money, that system has been inaugurated in the
present system of National Banks. The money lost by the people
under the old system of State banks is a mere bagatelle when
compared to that which has been and will be taken from them
under the present system of National Banks."THE DOLLAR CROP 83

The opinion of Hon. James G. Blaine hardly needs any en-
dorsement. Yet, how often do we hear of the beauties of the
present National banking system over the old State bank system.
How frequently you see the Gold Trust editors shouting, Be-
ware, beware of State bank money."

Nobody is asking for the re-establishment of State banks.

Why, bless your hearts, some of the old State bank presi-
dents are living and are at the head of the National Banks to-
day, it is the same old crowd. They made no change of heart,
simply a change of the game. They clearly saw that the people
would not longer endure their system of cinching them with
"fifty cent dollars," so, accordingly, in the words of James G.
Blaine they " inaugurated a greater system of robbery of the
people in the present system of the National Banks." Very
funny, all their anxiety to protect the American peop]e from
their own gold brick schemes ?

MAINTAINING THE PEEL POLICY.

The fact of bankers drawing an interest charge from both the
Government and the individual borrower is not the worst feature
of the National Bank act of 1863. Banking corporations are
required to keep only a small legal reserve of money deposited
with them. By loaning and re-loaning the depositor's money they
erect a structure of bank credits which must tumble with each
recurring financial disturbance. Why should a banking corpora-
tion with a capital of $100,000, and no surplus, be permitted to
expand its credit four or five times beyond its capital, and thus
realize 20 or 30 per cent, on its actual capital, while individual
loaners must be content with 5 or 6 per cent, interest? Viewed
from existing conditions, this expansion of bank credits appears
to facilitate trade, but productive industry cannot stand such
usury, and as long as such a system is in vogue, constantly recurr-
ing panics must ensue. Incorporated banks are useful to the
public as places of deposit, of discount, of exchange, but these84

THE DOLLAR CHOP

offices are quite as well performed by individuals. Why is it not
safer for the public to have more money and less bank credits in
circulation? Have not the special privileges granted to banks, to
expand or contract their credit, and loans at will, proved too
costly to the business public?

This is a serious problem for the future and one which our
men will find necessary to look into after they have been cinched
with a few more "panic object lessons" which the emboldened
American Bankers' Association brings on by contracting these
credits every time they desire to sho^v hostility to some proposed
legislation.

National Bank notes are a superfluity in our currency system.
Why are the National Bank notes in existence? Everywhere
east of the Rocky Mountains they play an important factor in all
money transactions.

It is because they represent the Archimedean Screw by which
the bankers can inflate or contract the currency without the nec-
essary consent of Congress, which has ofttimes proved expensive
to them. These National Bank notes exert a baneful influence
in our monetary system. If at any time the American Bankers'
Association desires to pinch business and make a direct contrac-
tion of the currency, in order to frighten or punish people, all
they have to do (according to the amendment to the National
Bank Act passed in 1870) is to take $90,000 in paper money to
the Treasury Department, demand their bond, which is returned
to them instanter, and this money is held there in the Treasury
Department to redeem their own bank notes as fast as they are
presented, when they are destroyed. Their surrendering the
$90,000 for the bond previously deposited shuts that amount out
of circulation. Behold, the Dollar Crop is reduced, business is
pinched, prices fall, and, to the extent desired by themselves, they
can create ruin. Many good people are slow to believe that bank-
ers ever desire to create such ruin. For years, however, they
have been waging a slow and sure campaign to place the finances
of this nation upon a gold basis, with no other circulating money
than their interest-bearing bank notes and gold coin. A portion
of the people have been awake to their movements. A small rep-THE DOLLAR CROP

resentation in both houses of Congress have opposed them.
Sometimes this representation was too strong for them. Then
their favorite tactics have been to retire their bank money as
recited to you, contract their bank credits, to which the business
community had conformed itself, make a money stringency felt,
close factories, and, amid the distress of the people, shout that the
agitators (their opponents) were causing the trouble, and thereby
secure their ends. The control they maintain over the monetary
volume through the National Banking system has been the means
with which they have attained many unholy ends. Among recent
instances of this kind was the made-to-order panic of 1893, which
was the means of their securing the repeal of the purchasing
clause of the Sherman act.

In December, 1895, in a mild form, they sought to compel
Congress to act on Secretary Carlisle's plan to retire the outstand-
ing greenbacks, a repetition of Hugh McCullough's tactics. By
this means they are conducting this summer of 1896 the fight
against the people and the reopening of the mints to silver. The
panic of 1896 will be known as the bankers' most open rebellion.
The history of the panic of 1893 is interesting.86

the dollar crop

WERE THESE MEN ANARCHISTS ?

" Place the money power in the hands of a few individuals, -
and they, by expanding or contracting the currency, may raise or
depress prices at pleasure, and by purchasing when at the greatest
depression and selling when at the greatest elevation, may com-
mand the whole property and industry of the community. The
banking system concentrates and places this power in the hands
of those who control it. Never was an engine better calculated
to place the destinies of the many in the hands of the few.

"John C. Calhoun."

" I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to
our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up
a money aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance.
The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored
to the Government and the people, to whom it properly belongs.

"Thomas Jefferson."

" If Congress has the right under the Constitution to issue
• paper money, it was given them to be used by themselves, not to
be delegated to individuals or corporations.

"Andrew Jackson."

"I conceive the establishment of a National Bank dangerous
to the safety and welfare of this Republic. " Henry Clay."

" There was a time when the National Banks were a neecessity,
but that time has long since passed away. The time now is when
something better and cheaper for the people must take their place.

"Horace Greeley."

A legislative committee of the State of New York made the
following report in 1818:

" Of all aristocracies none more completely enslaves a people
than that of money; and, in the opinion of your committee, no
system was ever better devised to perfectly enslave a community
than that of the present mode of conducting banking establish-
ments. Like the siren of the fable, they entice to destroy. They
hold the purse-strings of society, and by monopolizing the whole
of the circulating medium of the country, they form a precarious
standard by which all property in the country—houses, lands,
debts and credits, personal and real estate of all descriptions—
are valued."CHAPTER VIII.

THE WILD PANIC OF 1893.

A Glorious Manipulation of the Policy Invented by Peel.

The silver law of 1890 very generously named after the dis-
tinguished Senator from Ohio was the result of a compromise. It
provided for the government purchase of a stipulated amount of
silver bullion for which silver certificates were to be issued. The
result of this measure was to provide a regular increase in the
size of the Dollar Crop each month.

While the population continues to multiply and the Dollar
Crop remains stationary it is not difficult to perceive that the
result is a steady, although indirect, contraction of the currency.

Being restricted in amount the Sherman Law could not set
aright all the wrongs committed in the name of "sound cur-
rency," but the inflow of new money did ease the situation, par-
tially checked the falling of prices and gave a general result of
easier times throughout Harrison's administration. It is also
true that a certain tariff bill named after one McKinley, of Ohio,
was passed and all the good effects of the Sherman Act were ac-
credited to that measure. Our gold standard friends have a way
of never mentioning the effects of financial legislation. This
Sherman law was an eye sore to the house of Rothschilds and
their puppets, the American Bankers' Association, because about
four millions of those "despised silver dollars," wrhich they called
dishonest dollars, were going into the hands of the people
monthly, and despite their predictions and ridicule, there they
circulated like the actual dollars they were, passing at a valua-
tion of 100c in every transaction, and if it was not stopped, the
people might soon learn the truth; that it matters not what the
substance of dollars is, nor the value of that substance just so
long as they are legal tender, they are real dollars, in and of and
by themselves,88 THE DOLLAR CROP

If this truth ever began to dawn upQn the people and they
comprehended the facts in the ease, they would rise in open re-
volt against the present financial system and inaugurate the truly
scientific policy, used by the Bank of Venice for 600 years—a
paper currency which at times commanded a premium of 20 to
40 per cent; in gold or silver, the volume so expanding and con-
tracting according to the needs of business, that for nearly 600
years there was never a " lack of confidence " panic, such as has
afflicted England on an average once every silx years since Peel's
resumption policy (gold standard) was inaugurated in 1819.

Ah, if the people ever awoke to the facts behind the daily
object lesson they were having from these so-called " fifty cent
dollars"—what then? Why, Rothschilds and his fellow drones
would have to engage in legitimate industry, like the rest of us,
and would no longer be given the opportunity of preying upon
the public and impoverishing whole nations by their system of
debt slavery. That would be very sad for them, consequently
after seating their Jack-on-the-stick Cleveland, in the Presidential
chair, the edict passed around the inner circles: "Now let's
kill the Silver law." Grover Cleveland was elected on the tariff
issue, but immediately after election he suddenly found some-
thing wrong (?) with the financial policy of this country, just as
the silverites had said; although Mr. Cleveland, as developments
show, was speaking from a Wall Street attitude.

After the result of the election was announced, the bankers'
newspapers stopped talking tariff, and began their complaints
against the silver law; but you must bear in mind that during
the campaign nothing was said against it. In 1878, shortly after
the American Bankers' Association was put in active working
shape, an editorial in the New York Tribune made this announce-
ment:

"The time is near when they [the banks] will feel themselves
compelled to act strongly. Meanwhile, a very good thing has
been done. The machinery is now furnished by which, in any
emergency, the financial corporations of the East can' act to-
gether on a single day's notice, with such power that no Act of
Congress can overcome or resist their action."the dollar crop

In 1893, it seems that that "time" referred to had arrived,
and they commenced to act together.

Being in hearty accord with the clamor raised by the press
and the banking fraternity for the "immediate and unconditional
repeal of the Sherman bill," Grover Cleveland, then president-
elect of the United States, sent his agents, Mr. Henry Villard
(a Wall street banker) and Don M.Dickinson, to Washington, to
advise the Democratic Congressmen that they must vote with the
Republicans for the repeal of the Sherman bill in the second
session of the Fifty-second Congress (December 6, 1892). Mr.
Cleveland's newspaper organs in New York City, the Herald and
the Times, which were also the principal organs of the Bankers'
Association, very evidently by inspiration, in elaborate editorials,
printed in both journals on the same day, declared that those
Democratic Congressmen who opposed repeal must go into retire-
ment, and would be given no official patronage.

A bill for the repeal of the silver law was subsequently in-
troduced in both Houses, and it soon became apparent that the
repeal was to meet a vigorous and determined resistence, chiefly
from the Democrats; the Republicans, under the leadership of
John Sherman, being practically unanimous in its favor. Mr.
Henry Villard appeared in Washington on the 12th day of Janu-
ary, 1893 (before Cleveland was inaugurated). He was in com-
munication with leading Democrats, who were instructed by him
as to Grover Cleveland's wishes and purposes about the silver
law. He offended many by his threats, and was successful only
with a few.

After waiting a fortnight, Cleveland (yet President-elect)
dispatched a second agent (Don M. Dickinson, of Michigan),
who appears to have been clothed with more extensive powers
than Henry Villard had been, and his advent at the Capital was
announced with correspondingly greater impressiveness.

"Don M. Dickinson came to the city last night," said a Wash-
ington dispatch to the New York Herald, under date of Feb, 1,
1893, "and has spent the day in consultation with the Demo-
cratic leaders. The repeal of the Sherman law never before re-
ceived such agitation. * * * The word has gone outgo

THE DOLLAR CROP

among Democrats that the act must be repealed at this session.

* * * Mr. Cleveland has it in his power to make mat-
ters very uncomfortable for certain Silver Democrats. The ques-
tion of patronage will be an important one after March 4th. *

* * The scare is pretty general . * * * there
is no doubt that this second expression of President-elect Cleve-
land will bear fruit. He gave his first intimation when Henry
Villard came to this city and consulted with Democratic mem-
bers of Congress. The second cannot be misunderstood."

However, good folks, General Dickinson's mission was as un-
successful as that of Villard, and the patronage bribery scheme
turned out a contemptible failure. The end of the agitation was
reached when both Houses, by decisive votes—the Senate on Feb.
6th, and the House on Feb. 9th, refused to consider bills for re-
peal.

Grover Cleveland, however, had no thought of abandoning
his crusade against the Silver Law; neither had the Bankers'
Association. On the contrary, their determination to secure the
repeal of the law had been intensified by their defeat in the Fifty-
second Congress. They resolved upon a resort to harsher and
more extraordinary measures.

They resolved to convulse the Nation with a panic. Plans
were devised for this purpose. If you would acquaint your-
selves with the exact data of this conspiracy you must send
for a pamphlet, written by J. W. Shuckers, who was private sec-
retary to Salmon P. Chase (Secretary of the Treasury under Lin-
coln). The pamphlet is entitled, "The New York Bank Presi-
dent's Conspiracy Against Commerce and Industry,"* being a
history of the panic of 1893. To this work and compilation of
records I am indebted for the main facts in this scare which
I intend giving you.

The conspiracy was this: The Bankers were to create a mone-
tary stringency, bring on a panic, and give the people an "object
lesson," and then through the papers to shout "the Silver Bill is.
doing it," and thereby create a public demand for the repeal of
the Silver Law.

*For Shucker's Book send 25c to the Progressive Pub. Co., Vinetand, N. J,THIS DOLLAR CROP

Well, they did it, and in a very open-handed way.

On the 11th day of April, 1893, shortly after his inaugura-
tion, President Cleveland appointed Conrad N. Jordan to be Sub-
Treasurer at New York City, vice E. H. Rogers resigned (or prob-
ably kicked out).

Jordan was President of the Western National Bank of New
York at the time of his appointment. Jordan became the confi-
dential intermediary between Grover Cleveland and the Bank
Presidents.

Jordan was confirmed on April 15th, and on the 20th and
21st he was in Washington with his bonds of security, which were
duly approved. While there this intermediary between Wall
Street and the White House had repeated interviews with Grover
Cleveland, and schemes of direful portent to the people were un-
doubtedly consummated.

Jordan returned to New York on Friday, April 21st, arriv-
ing about 5 p. m. He went directly from the station to the Chase
National Bank, where his coming was awaited by Henry W.
Cannon, President of the Chase National Bank, and J. Edward
Simmons, President of the Fourth National Bank. A short con-
ference took place, and as a consequence Cannon took the mid-
night train for Washington. He arrived Saturday morning,
April 22d, and stayed there until Sunday afternoon, April 23d.
In the meantime consulting with Grover Cleveland. Newspaper
reports allege that he carried to Washington a proposition from
the New York bankers, but "he was disinclined to talk," although
he was willing to say that "he believed his visit would bear fruit."

Jordan was sworn into office as Sub-Treasurer, in New York,
on Saturday morning, April 22d. His first act was to arrange a
meeting with certain National Bank Presidents in the afternoon,
and a meeting took place accordingly in the Managers' room of
the Clearing House. The National Bank Presidents who met
Jordan on this occasion were:

George G. Williams, President Chemical National Bank.

Ebenezer K. Wright, President Park National Bank.

George F. Baker, President First National Bank.92

THE DOLLAR CROP

Edw. H. Perkins, President of the Importers' and Traded
National Bank.

James T. Woodward, President Hanover National Bank.

R. M. Galloway, President Merchants' National Bank.

Wm. A. Nash, President Corn Exchange (a State bank.)

This meeting was said, by the newspapers, to have been in-
formal, both Jordan and the bankers refusing to give any infor-
mation about it. But it was an important meeting, for Jordan
took a late train that same evening, and reported in Washington,
at the White House, early on Sunday morning. He had a long
conference with President Cleveland, at which Cannon (who was
already there) was present.

Jordan and Cannon left Washington and reached New York
late that evening (Sunday, April 23d). Before leaving Washing-
ton, Mr. Jordan wired certain National Bank Presidents to meet
him at a private residence up town immediately after his arrival.
The following bankers met him on that Sunday night:

Henry W. Cannon, President Chase National Bank.

J. Edward Simmons, President Fourth National Bank.

James T. Woodward, President Hanover National Bank.

Bray ton Ives, President Western National Bank.

What took place at this meeting, is only known to Conrad
N. Jordan and the participating National Bank Presidents. But
it was a Sunday night meeting, and undoubtedly was preliminary
to one more important meeting held the following day.

On Monday, April 24th, Sub-Treasurer Jordan was early at
his desk in the Sub-Treasury, in Wall street, New York. Notifi-
cation was immediately sent to National Bank Presidents, to
officers of trust and other companies, to members and represen-
tatives of the great foreign banking houses, and to many private
bankers in and about Wall street, that he desired them to meet
him at the Sub-Treasury. The bankers responded promptly, and
from the hour that Wall street opened for business that morning,
until the lighting of lamps in the evening, the Sub-Treasurer's
office was filled with bankers. Conspicuous among these was
George S. Coe, President of the American Exchange National
Bank, who was apparently taking a leading part in explainingTHE DOLLAR CROP

the objects of the meeting to all comers. This convention, so
numerously attended by men of high standing, and continuous
through so many hours, was unprecedented in the history of
Wall street.

The subject matter of that all-day 24th of April convention,
is as much involved in secrecy now as it was the day it was held,
for no newspaper published any detail of it. And it probably
never will be known exactly, until it is wrung from the bankers
in the courts of justice. The conclusions reached, however, were
of such great importance, that a special messenger was sent that
night to Grover Cleveland, bearing the news.

What was the object of this convention?

Subsequent events will show that it was undoubtedly held
to obtain the opinion of those present as to the advisability of
bringing on a panic, under the stress of which they could
coerce the people into believing that the Silver Law was to blame
and thereby secure its repeal.

The results of that convention having been sent to President
Cleveland, Secretary of the Treasury, Carlisle was selected as the
most responsible agent to go to New York and communicate the
position of the administration. On the following day, Carlisle
wrote to Sub-Treasurer Jordan that he would be in New York on
the next day, April 26th at 10:30 p. m., and would meet the
bankers.

Carlisle arrived according to program at 10:30 p. m., April
26th, he was met at the railway station by Charles J. Canda, who
accompanied him to the Victoria Hotel and remained with him
until a late hour that night. v

The next day, April 27th, was Columbus Day, a general holi-
day in New York; At half past four, the public exercise^ of the
day being over, Mr. Carlisle was met at the Victoria Hotel by
J. Edward Simmons, President of the Fourth National Bank.
A carriage had been provided and Simmons and Carlisle were
driven to the residence of George G. Williams, President of the
Chemical National Bank, where nine National Bank Presidents
were assembled as follows:94

THE DOLLAR CROP

George G. Williams, President Chemical National Bank.

Edward H. Perkins, President Importers' and Traders'
National Bank.

Frederick D. Tappen, President Gallatin National Bank.

James T. Woodward, President Hanover National Bank.

Bray ton Ives, President Chase National Bank.

George S. Coe, President American Exchange National Bank.

W. W. Sherman, President National Bank of Commerce.

J. Edward Simmons, President Fourth National Bank.

Conrad N. Jordan and Charles J. Canda were also present.

As to the details of this meeting, you must read Mr. Shuck-
ers' book. Secretary Carlisle in this meeting is reported by the
New York Sun to have used words to this effect:

" That he agreed that there must be an early and uncondi-
tional repeal of the Silver Law; but as the South and West were
against the repeal and a practical demonstration (panic) to the
business men of the South and West might be necessary to con-
vert the fanactics (?) of that section to vote for repeal, and that
Grover Cleveland had come to the conclusion that if the (object
lessony of a panic, and the distress that monetary stringency
would cause, were necessary to secure repeal, the administration
would do nothing to prevent it or allay alarm."

This delivery of sentiment from the Administration was glee-
fully received by these National Bank Presidents, for with the
Administration with them, there was no power that could thwart
their plans. With a cordial hand shake the meeting dissolved.

And now a fearful calamity impended over the American
people.

Secretary Carlisle refused to see reporters and left for Wash-
ington.

At the time of this meeting, there was no sign of a financial
storm anywhere visible in the country.

The plan devised as seen from the subsequent concerted
actions of these Bank Presidents, was to retire most of their cur-
rency (bank notes) from circulation, and Call in a large part of
their outstanding loans. As soon as the meeting in the Williams'
house was over they began operations. It is said that one of the
bankers at that meeting went directly from the Williams house
to an adjacent telegraph office and wired instructions to differentTHE DOLLAR CROP 95

banks in the country to commence to make a monetary strin-
gency.

"IF YOU SEE IT IN THE SUN, ITS SO."

There was one great daily newspaper which spoke with au-
thority of that Williams house meeting. It was tbe New York
Sun, a leading and authoritative Democratic paper.

In the financial column of the New York Sun, April 28,1893
appeared the following:

" President Cleveland's advisers have told him that the only
way to induce the West and Southern Senators and Congressmen
to consent to a repeal of the Sherman Law is to demonstrate to
their constituents that they are losing money every day that this
law is in operation. The missionary work in that direction has
been started by a number of the bankers in the solid communities
of the East. They are daily refusing credits to the South and West,
fearing the effects of the Silver Law. The Chicago bankers, it was
said, are carrying out the same line of policy. Secretary Car-
lisle, in his talk with the bank presidents, made his stand very
clear. It is to be heroic treatment all the way through on the
Sherman Law, and possibly by the next session of Congress the
silver mine owners and the adherents of silver, in the Senate and
the House, will be ready to consent to a repeal of the law."

On May 1, 1893, in the same paper, appeared these words:

"The statement of Mr. Carlisle to the New York bankers
makes it clear that while Cleveland works in Congress (?) the
bankers will be expected to work not in New York only, but
throughout the country, doing their utmost to pinch business
everywhere, in the expectation of causing a money crisis that will
affect Congress powerfully from every quarter."

As to the meaning of these editorial utterances you cannot
go astray.

Within a few days after the meeting with Carlisle at the
Williams house, according to the Philadelphia Item (Rep.,
190,000 circulation,) under date of March 8, 1895, the American
Bankers' Association sent out the following circular letter to all
members of the Association in the United States. It reads as
follows:96

the dollar crop

the panic circular.

" Dear Sir : The interests of National Bankers require im-
mediate financial legislation by Congress. Silver, silver certifi-
cates and treasury notes, must be retired and National Bank notes
upon a gold basis made the only money. This will require the
authorization of from $500,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 of new
bonds as a basis of circulation. You will at once retire one-third
of your circulation and call in one-half of your loans. Be care-
ful to make a money stringency felt among your patrons, espe-
cially among your influential business men. Advocate an extra
session of Congress for the repeal of the purchasing clause of the
Sherman Law and act with the other banks of your city in se-
curing a large petition to Congress for its unconditional repeal,
per accompanying form. Use personal influence with Congress-
men, and particularly let your wishes be known to your Senators.
The future life of National Banks as fixed and safe investments
depends upon immediate action, as there is an increasing senti-
ment in favor of Government legal tender notes and silver
coinage."

Now, good people, you certainly understand what such a
movement as that must have brought about.

It resulted in a panic—just what the bankers wanted. The
merchant went to the bank to get his note renewed, and the
Cashier, acting in concert with the entire Bankers' Association,
told him they could not accommodate him.

"Why?"

" Because that Silver Law is destroying confidence," dogmat-
ically replied the banker, "and we are afraid the Government
cannot maintain its credit."

The merchant, dazed and frightened, swallowed the story,
and at the suggestion of the banker, went down to his neighbors
and commenced a clamor against the Silver Law.

And prominent business men all over the country, men suc-
cessful in buying and selling, but thoroughly ignorant of the
philosophy of money, met at the Board of Trade rooms and the
different exchanges and petitioned Congress to repeal the Silver
Law. The business men did it, because the bankers told them
that that was the cause of trouble, and the newspapers (which
the bankers own) corroborated them. Many of these organiza-THE DOLLAR CROP

tions have since changed their minds and now know the truth as
to the origin of that panic.

Then, according to instructions, a majority of the banks in
the country called in a portion of their outstanding loans. The
business men all over the country had to place securities and
property on the market to realize cash. And the crafty,
bankers had prepared for this, as you see in their circu-
lar, by having retired and had cancelled or locked up a large part
of their Bank Note circulation. This made money very scarce at
the time everybody was trying to realize cash on their property
to liquidate their loans, which these same bankers had called in,
thereby doubly aggravating the evil situation. This, however,
was all working just as arranged.

In order to realize cash, valuable properties were sacrificed;
quick and rapid was the falling of prices on the Stock Exchange,
and then all along down the list of general commodities. The
storm thickened. The banks did all they could to aggravate the
situation, and according to the understanding, as outlined in the
New York Sun, remarks, President Cleveland "did nothing to pre-
vent it—or allay alarm." The clouds broke, and the country was
enveloped in panic. Substantial business concerns succumbed to
the pressure! The wheels of commerce stopped. Laborers were
thrown out of employment to starve. Distress prevailed. The
"pound of flesh fraternity" were gleefully rubbing their hands;
while the Ameriean people were taking the "object lesson."

Misery, crime, poverty and destitution prevailed.

The newspapers, irrespective of party, spread the Wall Street
cry, "It is all caused by the operations of the Silver Law, for
Silver Certificates are draining the gold out of the Treasury."

The poor blinded people, who, against the warnings of their
most eminent statesmen, had never studied carefully the money
question, swallowed the weak dose, and set up a poll parrot cry
for the repeal of the Silver Law.

If any of you had thought a moment, you could have seen
that the charge they made against silver certificates being used
to drain the Treasury is equally as chargeable against greenbacks;
but little thought was given. The people, including the best busi-98

the dollar crop

ness men of the country, thoughtlessly bit at the bait set for
them, and took up the poll parrot cry, "Repeal the Silver Law."

Then President Cleveland "nobly and patriotically" called
an extra session of Congress, and after a hard fight by a few
brave men like William J. Bryan, who dared stand up against
the ridicule of the bankers' papers, the Repeal Law passed both
Houses, and the "Object Lesson of 1893" was a success.

There is one fact to which you can all testify, and that is, all
through the darkest days of the panic of 1893 the silver certifi-
cates, in denominations of $1 and $5, sold on the streets of all
cities at 3 cents premium—owing to the scarcity of change—the
very money they claimed was causing the trouble was selling at a
premium. No one was afraid of the quality of this money. They
were afraid they could not get their money out of the banks. For
it is a well known fact that under the present system, banks can-
nit pay all their depositors off at once. They flagrantly sus-
pended cash payments, and made depositors issue checks payable
only through the Clearing House.

The people were afraid of the banks, as they had a right to
be, and not afraid of the silver money.

However, when the repeal was accomplished, the unthinking
people seemed to be gratified.

You have all read the story of Emperor Nero who, having
himself set fire to a portion of Rome, turned the fury of the
masses against the Christians, by ascribing the act to them; by
>vhieh means he justified their massacre. Well, that is what the
Bankers' Association, in collusion with the hybrid Sherman-Cleve-
land gold bug legislators, did in this country in 1893.

They set the whole country ablaze with panic and then
turned the fury of the people against the Silver Law by ascribing
that as the cause and thereby justified its repeal.

What had the New York bankers to lose in such transactions?
Nothing. For all bankers who were on the inside were duly pre-
pared and protected. They had the whole Administration behind
them to allow them any method of lawful or unlawful protection
from any reaction to their detriment. At one period during the
panic they only saved themselves by large issues of Clearingthe dollar crop

House certificates, which were unlawful, without the payment of
the ten per cent, tax against State banks. But what do they care
for law?

What had they to gain by the panic? Everything. Not
only did they secure the desired repeal of the Silver Law, which
was inimical to their interests—and so beneficial to the business
men generally—but all the loss sustained by the people, amount-
ing to six billions of dollars, was swept into their laps. They
brought on the panic and hundreds, if not thousands, of millions
of dollars of the best properties and securities of our people
passed from the hands of the men of industry to the hands of
those who toil not, at astoundingly low figures.

It was a great, grand and glorious manipulation of the
" Policy Invented by Peel," which the Philadelphia Recofd boast-
ingly asserts is "to be maintained, continued and extended."

Is there a man among you who still has a hovering idea that
"the fear of tariff legislation caused the panic of 1893?" If
there be, he must be a stanch " 1896 " Republican.

And I shall shortly read a recent editorial from the financial
column of the Philadelphia Press, the most devoutly partisan of
all Republican sheets, that will forever dissipate his "tariff" views.

It is often claimed that banks are the first to suffer by any
financial disturbance. While this is true of the smaller institu-
tions in outlying districts, yet it is not so with the closely allied
banks during such a storm as 1893. This fact is clearly shown
in the quotations of the Stock Market, October 1, 1893, just as
we were emerging from the panic. These were the market quota-
tions of the stock of different New York banks, October 1, 1893.

Par value $100 per share:

Name. Price.

Bank of New York, N. B. A................$ 232

Manhattan Company..................... 180

Bank of America....................... 200

National City Bank....................... 425

Chemical National Bank.................. 4,450

Gallatin National Bank.................. „ 310

National Butchers' & Drovers' Bank........ 182

Mechanics' & Traders' Bank................. 175100

the dollar chop

Name. Price.

Greenwich Bank..................................................180

Leather Manufacturers' National Bank............225

National Bank of Commerce..............................180

National Broadway Bank............................192

Mercantile National Bank..................................223

Pacific Bank....................................205

National Bank of the Republic..........................174

Chatham National Bank....................................400

Peoples' Bank6...........................315

National Bank of North America....................168

Hanover National Bank......................................338

Nassau Bank........................................................177

Market & Fulton National Bank......................225

Corn Exchange Bank..........................................257

Oriental Bank......................................................245

Importers' & Traders' National Bank................550

National Park Bank............................................302

Fourth National Bank.......................181

Second National Bank........................................350

First National Bank...........................2,000

Bowery Bank........................................................317

New York County National Bank....................612

Chase National Bank..........................................172

Fifth Avenue National Bank..............................625

German National Bank......................................335

Germania Bank............................................350

United States National Bank............................218

Lincoln National Bank......................................426

Garfield National Bank..................................400

Fifth National Bank...........................................320

Bank of the Metropolis.....................459

West Side Bank..................................233

Sixth National Bank......................................315

First National Bank of Brooklyn. ...................550

Eleventh Ward Bank.................... . 307

Mount Morris Bank.....................................500the dollar crop

ioi

There they are as they came through the panic with their
stock the par value of which is $100 per share, selling from $168 to
$4,400 per share. Can you think of any other department of
trade that could make that showing? Are not all lines of legiti-
mate industry depressed about proportionately with these figures.

The evidence I have cited you is astounding and fearful in
its meaning, but you have got to accept the stern truths in the
case. And if I read history aright, I venture to state that the
culprits herein will not go unpunished in a few years.

Why, good people, as hard as it is to believe that human be-
ings, citizens of this alleged Christian America, could have such
callous hearts as to deliberately commit such crimes, yet the facts
in the case warrant the assumption, and even a more severe con-
struction than I care to place upon them to-night.

There is no particular effort made to cover the bald facts in
the case. It is said the National Bank Presidents who were at
the Williams house meeting do not deny, in private at least, that
they produced the panic, but they profess that Grover Cleveland
and John Sherman suggested and incited them to it. The edi-
torials I read you from the New York Sun are conclusive enough
as to the facts in the case, but here is a bald clean admission from
the financial column of the Philadelphia press, September 16,
1895,

In speaking of the large withdrawals of gold about the date
of this article, the financial editor of the Press says:

" Mr. Cleveland wants the greenbacks retired, and his favor-
ite method of impressing the public with his ideas is by bringing
on panics, in 1893 he made the greatest panic this country
ever saw, in order to accomplish the repeal of the silver law.
Now Mr. Cleveland wants the greenbacks retired, and he may go
to the length of seriously threatening the suspension of specie pay-
ments."

The Philadelphia Press is one of the strongest supporters of
the Bankers' Association. But their success has emboldened
them, and they dare to speak the truth, especially in the financial
column, which is not generally read outside of financial circles.
On its regular editorial page you will doubtless see them still
dealing out to the innocents that "the fear of tariff revision
caused the panic of '93,"102

THE DOLLAR CROP

I confess that I do not understand how the New York Sun
or even the' Press dared to speak so plainly, for both papers were
supporting President Cleveland all through the panic, and com-
mend his gold standard policy ever since.

The facts as to the conspiracy to produce that panic are stub-
born, and some day, earlier than you expect, the principals will
be arraigned in the Courts of Justice. The case is strong:

Jordan, a National Bank President, made Sub-Treasurer
right after Cleveland's inauguration;

The many conferences between Jordan and the bankers, and
Carlisle's private meeting with the nine National Bank Presi-
dents in a private house;

The editorial comments of the New York Sun, a Democratic-
paper, which spoke authoritatively of the Carlisle and Bankers'
conference;

The circular sent out by the American Bankers' Association
at that time;

The bold, frank, candid statement of the financial editor of
the Philadelphia Press;

All show conclusively to any unprejudiced mind, the positive
proof of a conspiracy.

That is how the House of Rothschild, with their puppets,
the Bankers' Association, accomplished their purpose, and at the
same time absorbed six billion dollars of the wealth, created by
the toilers and business men of America. Now you see how that
organized band of plunderers and value destructionists have not
only destroyed a large part of the Dollar Crop, when, by the aid
of their tool, Secretary McCullough, they retired the war green-
backs, and again by fraudulently securing legislation to close the
mints to silver, and leaving us dependent upon the very short
production of gold, which cannot possibly increase as fast in pro-
portion as the population, but by the establishment of their
National Banking system have now complete control over the
volume of money.

In their organization they represent a " money trust" be-
sides which, an aggregation of all the other trusts, such as sugar,
oil, etc., sink into insignificance. It is a monopoly that controlsTHE DOLLAR CROP IO3

all industry and wealth, by which they make a monarch of
money, while industry and production have become beggars on
the face of the earth.

Without fear of successful contradiction, and backed by the
spoken and written opinions of the leading Statesmen of America,
I say to you to-night, that our National Banking system is an in-
stitution for legalized robbery of the people. It was foisted upon
the people of this country in 1863 at a time when public atten-
tion was occupied with the Civil war, and Salmon P. Chase, the
Secretary of the Treasury under Abraham Lincoln, saw in after
years the fatal mistake he had made, and said in a letter to
Horace Greeley:

"My agency in procuring the passage of the National Banking
Act was the greatest financial mistake of my life. It has built up
a monopoly that affects every interest in the country. It should
be repealed. But before this can be accomplished the banks will
be arrayed upon one side and the people on the other, in a contest
such as we have never seen in this country."

Perhaps you think it strange that you have never read the
utterances of Blaine, Chase and the other great Statesmen de-
nouncing the National Banking system. Perhaps you found, as
I did that at school, your text-books upon Political Economy
were filled with praise of the system and the men, and you also
observed that the newspapers were always prating about the
"finest banking system the world ever saw," (for the bankers),
but that is easily explained from the fact that they have been ,
organized to inculcate such doctrines in the school and college
text-books. The open attempt to bribe influential newspapers
before they started in to control the stock of the leading publish-
ing companies, which I read you before, all show what methods
they employ.

Secretary of the Treasury Windom, in a letter to the Anti-
Monopoly League in New York, said: "The capitalists have
bought and are buying largely the Associated press, and are con-
trolling all the avenues of intelligence."

In positive evidence of this fact, I want to read you an ex-
tract from a speech made by Senator Daniel W. Voorhees, of In-
diana, uttered on September 19, 1893;104

THE DOLLAR CROP

"My full and complete opinion of that combine of imperti-
nent robbers and thieves, the banks of New York, it would not
be politic to print. You could not get the telegraph company to
handle the message. My views of the New York banks and their
methods and attitudes are, that they add insolence to robbery,
and slanderous lying to highwayism. I have been in Congress
for thirty-two years. * * * I have ever found them plun-
dering and stealing the goods and hopes of the people like so
many cattle lifting caterans. There is not an honest hair in all
their heads, not a broad or patriotic motive in all their bosoms.
They are narrow and selfish, utterly mean and dishonest. No
honest man takes his eyes off them a moment. They would pick
his pocket if he did. If you turn your back they use the assas-
sin's knife upon you like so many lurking, skulking, cowardly
Corsicans of money. * * * In the eagerness of their shark-
ish greed they abandon honor, and right, and decency, and fill
and gorge their bellies on the best hopes of a world; they would
make a boiled dinner of the brightest prospects of mankind."

That speech was made in September, 1893, and true to Sena-
tor V^rliees' prediction, it was not handled by the telegraphic news
gathering organizations.CHAPTER IX.

ADVOCATING CRIME.

u The Greenbacks Must Go"—Logan's Speech—N. Y. Times
Editorial—Cleveland and Carlisle
Convinced—By Whom?

The law of 1875—the Resumption Act—was intended to re-
deem and retire the remaining greenbacks, making gold coin the
money of the bondholders, and bank currency and subsidiary
silver the moneys of trade and business.

Speaking against this foul scheme to further reduce the Dol-
lar Crop, Senator John A. Logan uttered the following prophetic
word picture of the misery that must ensue. It is a speech that
should be handed down from generation to generation as a warning
against power being given any set of individuals to control the
size of the Dollar Crop. It is a speech by a man whose honesty
cannot be impeached, by a man who stood high in the councils
of the Republican party.

Placed alongside the vicious sophistries of the letter of ac-
ceptance of nominee McKinley it shines as a brilliant gem in
these dark hours.

I read you from his original speech. (See Congresssional
Record, Vol. 2, Part 1, pages 755 and 757):io6

THE DOLLAR CROP

HON. JOHN A. LOGAN.

" I can see benefit only to the money-holders and those who
receive interest and have fixed incomes. I can see, as a result of
this legislation, our business operations crippled and wages for
labor reduced to a mere pittance. I can see the beautiful prairies
of my own State and of the great West, which are blooming as
gardens, with cheerful homes rising like white towers along the
pathway of improvement, again sinking back to idleness. I can
see mortgage fiends at their hellish work. I can see the hopes of
the industrious farmers blasted as they burn corn for fuel, because
its price will not pay the cost of transportation and dividends on
millions of dollars of fictitious railway stock and bonds.

"I can see our people of the West groaning and burdened
under taxation to pay debts of States, counties and cities incurredTHE DOLLAR CROP

107

when money was abundant and bright hopes of the future were
held out to lead them on. I can see the people of our Western
States, who are producers, reduced to the condition of serfs to pay-
interest on public and private debts to the money sharks of Wall
street, New York, and of Threadneedle street, London, England.

" And this will be accomplished by withdrawing the Treasury
notes from circulation and destroying them until the banks can
control the entire volume of money, and then compel the people
to use personal checks in lieu of money—checks passing through,
the clearing-houses, which the banks will establish in all the
larger cities to enable them to make a fictitious showing of pros-
perity, and fool the people with the great volume of business, which
they will cause to be published in the daily and weekly news-
papers. BUT REMEMBER, CHECKS ARE NOT MONEY.

"You may theorize and argue to the farmers until you are
hoarse, yet you fail to get them to prefer low prices to high ones
for their products. They know that one bushel of wheat at
$1.25 in currency will buy one acre of Government land, while it
takes two and a half bushels at 50 cents to purchase it, though it
be in gold. They know that a dollar in paper, if legal tender,
will pay a dollar of taxes as well as a dollar in gold. They know
well enough by experience that if you run down prices by lessen-
ing the currency to bring it to a par with gold, there will be no
corresponding decrease in taxes and salaries of county, State and
municipal officers, nor in the debts they owe. They know, also,
that it will take as many dollars in gold, for every one of which
they have to give two bushels of their wheat, to pay their county,
city, town and State debts, as it will dollars of paper, of which
they can get $1.50 for each bushel of wheat. They know full well
when their produce is thus reduced their land will be sold for
their debts and bought by those who held the money when it was
thus transformed into gold. Sir, the farmers of the West are not
blind to these facts, and all the fine-spun theories of contraction-
ists will fail to delude them into this idea. They may have been
led by their county and State officers to endorse and enter into
schemes which involved them more than was prudent, because
money was somewhat plentiful, but they have grown prosperous
under it and have opened the way to market for their products;
and the result of the attempt to return to specie payment, except
by natural course of trade, would be to give all their hard earn-
ings into the hands of railroad and other corporations, as well as
money lenders to whom they may be indebted."

The fight against retiring the greenbacks by Logan, Kelly
and others was unsuccessful for a time. The Resumption actro8

the dollar crop

passed to become effective in 1879. But prior to that time the
sufferings of the people and danger to the peace of the country
became so great that Congress, in 1878, passed a law that redeemed
greenbacks should not be canceled, but should be paid out again.

This defeated that part of the resumption scheme and saved
$346,000,000 of greenbacks from the fiery furnace. This was the
first financial law passed in the interest of the people. It was the
first check to the money power since the passage of the exception
clause on the greenback, which the Hon. Thaddeus Stevens pro-
nounced "the first victory of the money power over the country."

Another law was passed in 1878 restoring the full legal tender
quality of the silver dollar, and requiring its coinage at the rate
of two to four millions per month. The remedial laws of 1878
were an immediate and immense relief to the people, but through
the controlling channels of information, the people were told the
easier times resulted from certain tariff legislation, and the fact
was hidden from them that the Dollar Crop was being healthily
increased.

The bankers' papers were very much disgusted with the
passage of remedial measures in 1878. They unanimously ascribed
their passage to the influence of the greenback sentiment of the
West and South. The American Bankers' Association and their
allies fought bitterly against maintaining the greenbacks in circu-
lation. They denied that the Government had the right to issue
such money, and fought it in the Supreme Court, where the Gov-
ernment was upheld. Defeated in their plans at every turn, they
were indeed desperate.

Commenting upon the Supreme Court's decision, the New
York Times said editorially in 1886:

" The Supreme Court has decided, on grounds that we believe
to be logically unsound, historically false, and in economy mis-
chievous—that these legal tender issues (forced loans in fact and
effect) can be increased at any moment, by any amount, at the
whim of a chance majority in Congress, with the consent of the
Executive; or, if the majority be two-thirds of a quorum, without
that consent. Against this monstrous and grotesque theory,
which is the law of the land, there is absolutely only one defense.
It is to pay the legal tender notes, and thus to free the public

mind of familiarity with the power whose exercise is allowed."THE DOLLAR CROP

109

This was the inception of the conspiracy to retire the remain-
ing greenbacks, " to free the public mind of familiarity with the
power whose exercise is allowed."

THE GREENBACKS MUST GO.

It is fitting that the first announcement should have been
made in the pet British daily published on our shores. The cul-
mination of this conspiracy to " relieve the public mind of famili-
arity" occurred at the annual convention of the American Bank-
ers' Association at Atlanta, Ga., in 1895. Resolutions were passed
demanding the issuance of bonds to retire the greenbacks and cast
them into the fiery furnace. Naturally enough President Cleve-
land set about to do their bidding; and after the bankers' papers
had properly agitated the scheme, we find in his message to Con-
gress, December 3, 1895, the following words:

" I am convinced the only thorough and practical remedy for
our troubles is found in the retirement and cancellation of our
United States notes * * * I believe this could be quite
readily accomplished by the exchange of these notes for United
States bonds of small as well as large denominations bearing a
low rate of interest."

Secretary of the Treasury Carlisle immediately followed on
December 16th, with his report to Congress in which he used
these words:

" I am thoroughly convinced that * * * the United
States and Treasury notes should be retired from circulation at
the earliest practicable day."

Mr. Cleveland says he is convinced and Mr. Carlisle is thor-
oughly convinced, but I am at a loss to state positively who con-
vinced them, although I have strong reasons for believing that
Horace White, a National Bank President of New York, formerly
Comptroller of the Currency, wrote both of those paragraphs.

Surely the people who elected Mr. Cleveland never convinced
him of the truth of any such proposition.

There you have it; two of the highest executive officers of
this land, at the instance of the American Bankers Association,
openly advocating a great crime against the people. Let me
repeat the words of Abraham Lincoln:IIO

THE DOLLAR CROP

"If a government contracted a debt with a certain volume of
money, in circulation, and then contracted the volume of money
before the debt was paid, it is the most heinous crime a govern-
ment could commit against the people."

All the powers of Wall Street, regardless of party affiliation,
concentrated their efforts for the accomplishment of that scheme
but they failed, thanks to the noble men who stood firm in pro-
tecting the interests of the people. That little band of Spartans
answered back:

"You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this
crown of thorns."

Do you ask what reasons the men in high places gave for
advocating this foul measure? You will find the hidden reasons
in the New York Times editorial I just read you, but that is not
what they told the people.

They argued that the greenbacks were presented at the Sub-
Treasury for gold and depleted the gold reserve, making bond
issues necessary. The greenbacks were likened unto an endless
chain, redeemed with gold, reissued and redeemed with gold.
The illustration was effective enough to show the absolute absurd-
ity of swapping a full legal tender dollar made of one substance,
for a full legal tender dollar of another substance. They call it
"redemption."

The gold basis is of their own creation, however. It never
had the sanction of law. In fact, it is at absolute variance with
the legal statutes. They gave the grasping creditors option to
demand gold instead of reserving that option to the Government
—the debtor. They could have all justly been paid in silver.

"But we must have a gold basis for all our money or we cannot
trade with foreign countries. The Government must be ready to
exchange gold for the greenbacks so that the importer who sells
his merchandise in this country for the subsidiary money can
exchange it for gold," says the designing goldite.

Then, pray tell us, what on earth are the importers to do after
the greenbacks are destroyed ?THE DOLLAR CROP

III

The Gold Trust editors and orators advocate a gold basis on
the one hand, then condemn the very and only means of getting
gold the importer has or can have.

If the Government should not supply the importer with gold
by means of the greenback, how is this importer under a gold
basis to get his gold to pay foreign debts ?

If the gold standard advocates do not intend to redeem other
moneys in gold, what does all their talk about a gold basis mean ?

Ah, what does it mean ? I shall try to tell you.CHAPTER X.

WHAT "GOLD BASIS" MEANS.

New York Journal of Commerce Speaks—More Contraction Neces-
sary—Dr. John Sherman's Leather
Pants.

The logical conclusion to arrive at from a careful study of
the arguments offered and measures advocated by the Gold-bugs
is simply that they mean to retire all silver and paper money
from circulation, reducing the size of the Dollar Crop to the small
amount of gold coin available, aided by a system of bank credits
in the shape of ledger entries, or perhaps bank notes, according
,to the scheme formulated by the American Bankers' Association
I in convention in 1894, known as the Baltimore plan. It means
a further "extension of the policy invented by Peel" and imitated
by McCullough, with the wiping out of small property-holders on
a wholesale plan, yet never before attempted in any country.

This is the " prosperity and protection " that is offered the
American people by the English money power, through the Re-
publican party, in this year, 1896.

In corroboration of this, I ask you what is understood by
the gold basis? Does it not mean that gold is primary money,
and silver and paper token money? That all other forms of
money are, or are to be based on gold?

The importers sell their merchandise to the people, and re-
ceive therefrom the token money which circulates among them,
then exchange the token money into gold so that he may pay his
foreign debts. That is the gold basis as I understand it. That
is the gold basis as the American Bankers' Association preach it.

But just look at them, on the other hand, during the last two
sessions of Congress, advocating the retirement of the greenbacks.

Why ?

"Because they are used to draw gold out of the Treasury.
Because they are redeemed and reissued, and redeemed and again
reissued."the dollar crop

113

True, every word of it; but when the greenbacks are retired
and destroyed, are we then on a gold basis? Can the importer
exchange the silver dollars he receives from the people for gold
ones at the Sub-Treasury?

" Why, yes," answers the goldbug.

"Well, won't those silver dollars become an 'endless chain'
also. Won't they be redeemed in gold, and reissued and redeemed
and reissued? Can the Government supply the gold any easier
for silver dollars than for greenbacks?"

"No."

" Then your 'gold basis' plan is to redeem and retire the silver
dollars, in fact all money except gold, for that is the only possi-
ble or logical gold basis according to your arguments.

Here it is, the whole scheme in a nutshell. It is published
under the heading "the real financial issue" in the New York
Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin of Saturday, Au-
gust 22, 1896:

" The Treasury officials are as firmly convinced as when Sec-
retary Carlisle prepared his last annual report that the legal
tender notes are a fertile cause of the derangements in our finan-
cial and commercial system. They admit the possibility that the
trouble may subside when renewed business activity absorbs the
redundant masses of paper money which have been forced into
circulation under the Legal Tender Laws, the Bland Law and the
Sherman Law. They fear, however, that the attention of foreign
investors has been so strongly called to the dangers of the paper
money system that confidence will not be restored until some
steps are taken for its modification. * * * With the present
mass of $346,000,000 in United States notes, $127,000,000 in
Sherman notes, $350,000,000 in Silver certificates, and $225,000,-
000 in National Banknotes, making a total of over $1,000,000,000
of money guaranteed by the Government and without elastic
qualities, it is felt that measures must be taken to greatly reduce
the mass in order to restore confidence in our credit and flexi-
bility to our currency. There is even some doubt felt whether a
material reduction of the mass would be effective while the New
York banks refused to pay gold into the Clearing House, con-
traction might, however, create a demand for money which
would draw gold from abroad and restore the conditions of
confidence which existed when gold clearing house payments
were the usual practice."114

THE DOLLAR CROP

Think of it, good folks, millions of our people half naked and
hungry in the midst of plenty from the curse of currency contrac-
tion, and these gilded fiends advocating more contraction—con-
traction by the wholesale.

According to the inflated reports of the Treasury Depart-
ment, we have not much over one and one-half billions of money
in circulation, and yet "it is felt (by the money monopolists)
that measures must be taken to greatly reduce the mass in order
to restore confidence (?) in our credit, and flexibility to our cur-
rency."

Surely they do intend to "maintain, continue and extend
the policy invented by Peel."

Think men, what it means. Note those last words.

"Contraction might create a demand for money which would
draw gold from Europe."

How draw gold from Europe?

Why, by contracting the prices of farm and labor products
so low that they may be sold with profit at the low prices pre-
vailing abroad, and be paid for in gold. What a fearful premium
measured in commodities we must pay to get this gold? What
of the laborers and farmers who must surrender more of their
products to get this gold? What of their homes?

The proposition is cruel enough to excite feelings of disbe-
lief, but it is said that grave robbers become accustomed to their
gruesome trade.

Those arguments remind me of a pointed narrative told by
the genial Colonel S. F. Norton, in Chicago, concerning

JOHNNIE'S LEATHER PANTS.

"Yes,", said Mr. A. Merricah, "Johnnie shall wear leather
trousers." And Mr. A. Merricah clinched his fist and coughed.

Mrs. A. Merricah had to give up. She knew she would have
to do so in the beginning.

Johnnie was their only child. He was just old enough now
to wear trousers. His father was one of the closest men, andTHE DOLLAR CHOP

though he loved his son, he chose to show his love in his own
way, so he had taken it into his crotchet head that Johnnie's
pants must be made of leather, and poor Mrs. A. M. had to quietly
give in.

"Yes," said he again, "leather is the only right thing of which
to make boys' trousers; made of that and they will last a life-
time-"

"But," interrupted his poor wife, "won't he grow?"

"No," roared the irate A. Merricah; "he has no business to
grow larger than we make them now. See our neighbors' boys,
with the same trousers. They can be made large enough, that is
as large as he ought to grow. He has no business to grow larger
than is reasonable."

So Johnnie got the leather trousers. At first you could scarcely
see him, as they came up as near his neck as his arms would
allow. They also went down so that they touched the face of the
earth at the other ends. But Mr. A. Merricah was delighted. He said
that was the way to dress boys. There was some sense in that.
Those pants would always last Johnnie, and the trouble of making
new ones was done away with.

Well, the time rolled along, and Johnnie grew apace. At
last his trousers began to pinch him; they also had a strained
appearance at the bottom and a bulge at the pockets, and he could
no longer sit down in them in comfort. Time brought no relief,
though Johnnie insisted that he was being squeezed to death by
the contracted state of his trousers, his father insisted that was
not it at all. Poor Johnnie's cry went up day and night. His
circulation was impaired, his whole body seemed paralyzed, and
at last his father summoned a number of very old and very wise
doctors around him. They all examined him in turns, and, after
a consultation, agreed that it was not his leather trousers at all.
It was an over-production of boy instead.

"Which is my opinion, exactly," said A. Merricah; "but
what can we do to remedy it?"

Doctors Cleveland, Sherman and McKinley were finaly called
in. The one, a very wise looking old doctor, who had very long
ears and an elongated countenance, called John Sherman, said:n6

THE DOLLAR CROP

"Well, we must contract the trousers more; that will squeeze
him up to a healthy circulation and give him a new impetus and
restore his confidence. If he has confidence he will get on all
right. Over-production of Johnnie is at the bottom of all trouble.
Contract the trousers then, and that will regulate itself."

So they took hold of poor Johnnie and drew up his pants
tighter, and all the time he roared and grew black in the face and
kicked, while they chuckled and said:

" See how lively he is getting. He will soon be as lively as
ever and recover on a healthy basis."

"But I can't recover," roared Johnnie; "there is not basis
enough in the pants."

"But you must!" roared Sherman J.

Then they took in another reef, and with the breath all but
squeezed out of him, Johnnie had to lie still.

" See how tranquilly he takes it. We knew it could and
would be done. There was plenty of trousers there, but too much
boy."

With this last remark ended their joy. Johnnie gave one
kick and landed on his feet and bent over, and there came an
awful crack and the contracted pants, like the veil of the temple,
were rent in twain.

Old A. Merricah raved and swore to thus see his pet scheme
a failure. Sherman J. and all the other doctors had to go right
away to attend an investigation.

But Johnnie stands out in all his strength and size, and Mrs.
A. Merricah is delighted to see how her son thrives in a pair of
trousers just inflated to his size. Sherman J., Cleveland G. and
McKinley W, have hired a hall.CHAPTER XI.

A QUESTION ANSWERED.

uThe Mortgage on My Place Stipulates Payment in Gold Coin.

How Will Silver Coinage Benefit me?"

If you have permitted the insertion of a gold clause in any of
your obligations, you have placed your head in the lion's mouth.
The so-called " existing Gold standard " is but a hollow pretense,
behind which the American Bankers' Association and their allies
are scheming to diminish constantly the size of the Dollar Crop
and reap a harvest of property and wealth where they have not
sown. Under this pretended gold standard, they loaned you
money, and demanded an obligation stipulating gold in repay-
ment. By legislation, they secured the power to do this. (Act of
1878). It should never have been allowed, and the proposed
reforms in our financial system will right the wrong.

The bankers themselves have taken great care that their obli-
gations are not payable in gold. The National Bank notes are
promises to pay dollars, not necessarily gold dollars.

By vigilant foresight, and as a part of their schemes to
demand more than they gave, they have extorted from you a
" pound of flesh" clause in your obligation. In fact, in some
Western States it became very general so to stipulate. No one
can be blamed for taking advantage of existing laws, as it is com-
pulsory in the keen competition of business. Many honorable
men in all professions have provided this clause in all obliga-
tions they hold to protect themselves in their dealings with con-
cerns who demand it of them.

The legislation was, however, secured for a special purpose,
i. e., to fasten the gold standard eventually upon the American
people, and transfer the titles of all property to the aristocracy of
wealth.

The crowd who conspired to pinch you by these gold stipu-
lations are not the ones from whom to expect relief.n8

THE DOLLAR CROP

They argue to you that free silver will cause gold to go to a
premium, and you will be worse off. That naturally means that
they will be better off, and I fail to see why they should object.

I do not believe gold will go to a premium. I believe silver
will go to par with gold the world over, when our mints are re-
opened to its coinage. I base this belief upon the great demand
for money caused by our vast public and private indebtedness.

The entire public and private debts in the United States
amount to about forty billion dollars, of which less than ten bil-
lions are payable in gold. With these thirty billions payable in
lawful coin, it means a continuous demand for silver. If you
weigh these figures carefully you can grasp the import of that de-
mand. With the mints open to silver, and the coined product
thereof being legal tender, this debtors' demand must immedi-
ately advance silver to par in the United States.

We must also remember that our relations with foreign na-
tions makes a demand for our money in those countries with
which to pay debts they owe in America. A want of parity does
not block foreign trade.

The English merchant will send goods here to sell whenever
our market affords him a margin of profit.

Let me instance the case of a British manufacturing concern
sending a cargo of cloth goods to the United States. It will have
to pay the United States Government the import duties. If sil-
ver is coined free in this country, and should be selling at a dis-
count in London, would not that British manufacturer buy silver
and send it here? If many of them were in the market buying
it, how long do you think it would take them in competition with
one another to advance the market there as well as here? In
considering this question, try to comprehend the extent of this
home debt demand, also the demand of British buyers who are
indebted to the United States for commodities exported
from here. Then add to these the same demand from every other
country, and how much below par do you think silver bullion
would sell in the markets of the world?

Our Gold-bug friends sometimes tell us that we hold an ex-
alted opinion of these United States. Very true. Why shouldTHE DOLLAR CROP

119

not we? Mulhall, the English statistician, seems to also. Ac-
cording to him, the greatest living authority, the relative produc-
tive strength of several different nations is as follows:

The United States 129, Great Britian 56, Germany 45, France
34, Austria 22, Spain 11, Italy 10, the strength of other nations
being comparatively insignificant.

The transportation of the whole world reduced to tons car-
ried 100 miles, amounts to 1540 million tons, of which the rail-
roads of the United States alone carry 800 million tons, which is
over half of the world's total transportation.

I believe this nation is great enough and strong enough to
create its own money and regulate the value thereof, as ordained
by the Constitution, and if we choose to make it of silver, I do
not believe that the quantity of silver bullion in the world is too
large for us to hold at parity with gold the world over.

At the present time, including the United States, one-third
of the people of the world are doing two-thirds of the world's
business on a gold basis. Transfer the allegiance of this country
to silver and two-thirds of the people of the world will be doing
two-thirds of the world's business. Silver bullion would, under
these reversed conditions, undoubtedly command a premium the
world over, as it did before the closing of our mints to it in 1873.

Granting that silver may not go quite to par, I then ask my
good friend who has outstanding obligations payable in gold, if it
would not be better to have the mints opened to silver and the
Dollar Crop restored to somewhere near its former volume, with
the consequent doubling of price, even if he did have to pay a
premium on gold?

Suppose for argument's sake that gold should go to a premium,
say of 10 per cent, or even 20 per cent, which is extreme. With a
restoration of the Dollar Crop to its volume before it was designed-
ly contracted, would double the prices of commodities, and restore
them to the general range that existed prior to the contraction of the
Dollar Crop. Instead of getting only $1 for two bushels of wheat
at 50 cents per bushel (or other commodities in like proportion), his
two bushels will purchase $2 instead of one dollar, and if he was120

THE DOLLAR CROP

then compelled to secure a gold dollar to liquidate some indebt-
edness, he could readily afford to pay the premium of te\i or
twenty cents and still have eighty or ninety cents to his credit,
as he should have, and would have had, had not the Dollar Crop
been contracted to enable the creditor class to demand in return
money more valuable than they gave.

Higher prices for farm products mean work for laboring men
and an era of prosperity in commercial and manufacturing circles,
with a restoration of land values.

With all labor employed at more than livfng rates, and with
farm products and all other commodities selling at double pres-
ent prices, my friend could pay the premium on gold, if any, dis-
charge his obligations and have something left. Whereas now,
after doing his share toward supporting the unemployed, paying
his taxes and fixed charges, he is fortunate if he is not in debt,
without any expectation of compensation for his own labor.

These points must be considered. The man with gold obli-
gations is thoughtlessly drawn into a half-hearted support of the
gold standard policy as advocated by the Sherman, Cleveland
• and McKinley aggregation.

If there were any grounds of hope for help from his oppress-
ors we might forgive the unfortunate man for supporting them.
But what is the situation? According to the Sherman, Cleveland
and McKinley doctrines we are upon a gold basis, our money is all
based on gold. But the bald fact stares us in the face, that ac-
cording to a recent order of the Treasury Department, no more
silver will be taken in exchange for gold, and there is not a bank
from San Francisco to New York but what is refusing to ex-
change silver for gold, and only parting with the last named coin
at a premium.

Does my unfortunate friend with the gold obligation think
that after the "agitators" are subdued, that the humanity-loting
bankers will put us on a sure enough gold basis f Well, before he
decides, let me caution him to read carefully the measures they ad-
vocated in Congress during the last two sessions with a view of
further contracting the currency!THE DOLLAR CROP

121

Let me also remind him that, gold measured in gold, is to-day
at par. But gold measured in the commodities he sells is at from
100 to 500 per cent, premium. That is the premium that the
shylocks of Wall street figure on. By contracting the Dollar
Crop, they would put gold to a still higher premium measured in
labor and labor products, but all the while they seek to confuse
the people about the premium of one money metal measured in
the other money metal. Drop that part of the subject awhile,
good friend, until you have acquainted yourself with the pre-
mium you are paying for gold measured in the products of your
labor or farm, and you can then understand more clearly the less
important premium of one metal measured by the other.CHAPTER XII.

EXTORTION OR REPUDIATION, WHICHf

Sherman Versus Sherman—A Foul Record—The Credit-Strength-
ening Act—National Debt Not
Payable in Gold.

In his recent speech at Columbus, on August 15th, Senator
Sherman said:

"There is another element of meanness in this free coinage of
silver. The United States has always paid its bonds in gold coin,
or its equivalent. In the darkest hours of the Civil War we stip-
ulated to pay our bonds, principal and interest, in gold or its
equivalent. * * * It is one of the objects of those who
advocate free coinage of silver to force the Government to pay
these bonds in silver coin reduced in value. It is harsh to express
this opinion of a measure favored by many good people, but I
cannot regard it in any other light, but both a fraud and a rob-
bery."

In those remarks Senator Sherman uttered a vile falsehood
with a perfect knowledge of what he was doing.

Of the bonds issued during the war, but a very few were
made payable in coin, and none whatever in gold. There were
issued from July, 1863, to July, 1868, $75,000,000 of bonds, known
as "The loan of 1863." This issue of bonds were made payable in
coin} both principal and interest. (12 Statutes, 709). Of the
"Ten-Forties of 1864," there were issued from April, 1864, to July,
1868, $196,118,300. This loan was made payable in coin, both
principal and interest.—(13 Statutes, 13).

There is no record showing that the five-twenty bonds were
payable in anything but lawful money. The interest, however,
was payable in coin.—(History of National Loans, pages 152 to
159, Treasury Department, 1881).

The (exception clause) War greenbacks were made a full legal
tender at their face value for all debts, public and private, exceptTHE DOLLAR CROP

123

duties on imports and interest on the public debt. Surely that
was an implied contract that the principal of the public debt
(unless otherwise nominated in the bond), was payable in this
lawful currency.

A few years after the war was over, the money power adopted
their favorite tactics, as pointed out by Lincoln, "working upon
the prejudices of the people," and they decried the credit of the
Government. The public credit was at stake, according to their
statements, and must be strengthened. They demanded that the
whole public debt be made payable in coin (not gold). The bonds
had cost them from 35 to 60 cents on the dollar in coin.

This agitation took place years after the public credit had
ceased to need strength, when the bonds of the Government were
selling from 18 to 24 cents above their par value, at a time when
the Government had no bonds to sell.

Who, then, would be the beneficiaries of an act authorizing the
payment in coin, obligations that had cost the holders from 35 to
60 cents on the dollar in coin.

In those days Mr. Sherman did not think the five-twenty
bonds were payable in gold. He did not think they were paya-
ble even in silver. The following from a speech delivered Febru-
ary 27, 1867, tells plainly what he did think:

"I say that equity and justice are amply satisfied if we
redeem these bonds in the same kind of money, of the same
intrinsic value it bore at the time they were issued. Gentlemen
may reason about this matter over and over again, and they
cannot come to any other conclusion; at least, that has been my
conclusion, after the most careful consideration. Senators are
sometimes in the habit, in order to defeat the argument of an
antagonist, of saying that this is repudiation.

Why, sir, every citizen of the United States has conformed
his business to the legal tender clause. He has collected and paid
his debts accordingly."

The honorable Mr. Sherman, in still more convincing lan-
guage, attested in a letter, that no portion of the bonds of the
United States, except the interest, was by the original law, author-
ized to be paid in anything but lawful money. The letter was
written at the time of the discussion March 20,1868, to the Hon.
A. Mann, a resident of Brooklyn, N. Y., as follows:124

the dollar crop

"Dear Sir: I was pleased to receive your letter. My per-
sonal interests are the same as yours, but, like you, I do not
intend to be influenced by them. My construction of the law is
the result of careful examination and I feel quite sure that an
impartial court would confirm it, if the case could be tried before
a court. I send you my views, as fully stated in a speech. Your
idea is that we propose to repudiate or violate a promise when we
offer to redeem the principal in legal tender.

I think the bondholder violates his promise when he refuses
to take the same kind of money he pays for the bonds. If the
case is to be tested by law, I am right; if it is to be tested by
Jay Cooke's advertisement, I am wrong. I hate repudiation or
anything like it; but we ought not to be deterred from doing what
is right by the fear of undeserved epithets. If, under the law as
it stands, the holders of the 5-20's can only be paid in coin
then we are repudiators if we propose to pay otherwise. If the
bondholder can legally demand only the kind of money he paid,
then he is a repudiator and extortioner to demand money more
valuable than he gave. Yours truly,

John Sherman.

In spite of the combined opposition of Mr. Sherman and other
Senators the money power successfully "worked upon the preju-
dices of the people," and amid the waving of flags our public credit
was strengthened.

The Act was entitled:

"an act to strengthen the public credit,"

and reads in part as follows:

"That in order to remove any doubt as to the purpose of the
Government to discharge all just obligations to the public credi-
tors, and to settle all conflicting questions and interpretations by
which such obligations have been contracted, it is hereby pro-
vided and declared that the iaith oi the United States is solemnly
pledged to the payment in COIN, or its equivalent, of all obliga-
tions of the United States, not bearing interest, known as United
States Notes, and of all interest-bearing obligations of the United
States."—(16 Statutes, 1).

By this cunning enactment the American people were filched
of about five hundred million dollars. Of that phase of the ques-
tion, I will say nothing further; but do, however, call your atten-
tion to the fact that "our credit was strengthened " by promising
COIN payment of the National debt.the dollar crop

125

After the passage of the demonetization Act of 1873, gold and
silver bullion, as was foreseen by the creditors, began to part com-
pany, In this process, no change took place in the purchasing
power of silver, foj all other commodities, measured in gold, have
fallen proportionately with silver. The change took place in the
increased purchasing power of gold, by reason of the enormously
increased demand for it.

Prior to this time the distinguished Senator Sherman had
experienced "a change of heart" from that expressed in his utter-
ance and letter of 1868. As Secretary of the Treasury in 1877, he
was in hearty accord with Wall Street's wishes, and endeavored
to make subsequent bond issues payable strictly in gold coin.

This letter to the Attorney-General is self-explanatory:

Treasury Department, }

Office of the Secretary, >
Washington, D. C., April 21,1877. )
Sir: I beg leave to call your attention to, and ask your
opinion upon, the following questions, growing out of the refund-
ing act of July 14, 1870, to-wit:

Can I stipulate in the body of the 4 per cent, bonds about to
be issued that they shall be redeemable in coin of the present
standard value; that is, the standard value at the date of their
issue, or must it be the date of the law ?

It may become important to the public interests to make the
new bonds payable in coin of tjae present standard, that is, GOLD
COIN. Some doubts have been expressed upon whether previous
bonds issued under Acts passed prior to 1878 are not legally pay-
able in silver coin. This question may become important, as any
doubt upon the legal terms of public security affects its value.

Very respectfully,

John Sherman,
Secretary.

Hon. Charles Devens, Attorney-General.

The reply of the Attorney-General was an exhaustive one.
The important features are contained in these excerpts:

" The Act provides for the issue of bonds ' redeemable in coin
of the present standard value.' The word 'present' undoubtedly
refers as a matter of date to the time when the Act was passed,
and not to the time when the bonds were thereafter issued. It
contemplated that a long period would elapse before it would126 THE DOLLAR CROP

finally be carried into effect, and that changes in the coinage of
the country might occur during that period. * * *

* * * While I comprehend the difficulty suggested
in your letter and the convenience that there might be in remov-
ing any question upon this matter, I am, therefore, of opinion that
it would not be safe to issue the bonds, except as redeemable in
coin of the standard value of July 14, 1870.

Very respectfully, etc.,

Chas. Devens,
Attorney-General.

This leaves the situation clear to this date. The passage of
the Bland-Allison Act in 1878 restored silver money as a full
legal tender for all debts, public and private (except when other-
wise stipulated in the contract). This very clearly leaves our
bonds payable in gold or silver coin.

At the time of that discussion strenuous efforts were made to
work again " upon the prejudices of the people," and the familiar
cry of " Repudiation," " National Dishonor " were heard through-
out the land.

Secretary Sherman in his report, dated December 3, 1877,
suggested to Congress that provision be made by an express act
for payment in gold coin. Congress did not act upon this recom-
mendation. Congress knew, as all men knew, that the bondhold-
ers had taken very good care of themselves already, and had
provided for more than the full payment of their bonds by the
passage of the " Credit-Strengthening Act."

To place the matter beyond the possibility of a doubt, on the
16th of January, 1878, the Hon. Stanley Matthews, then a Senator
from the State of Ohio, in view of the claims of the bondholders
and their henchmen in Congress, that the bonds were legally pay-
ble in gold alone, submitted to the Senate a concurrent resolution
designed to call forth the views of the members of the House and
Senate nine years after the passage of the Credit Strengthening
Act. The preamble recites the condition of existing laws relating
to the payment of United States bonds, and reads as follows:

the matthews resolution.

Whereas by an Act entitled "An Act to strengthen the pub-
lic credit," approved March 18,1869, it was provided and declared
that the faith of the United States was thereby solemnly pledgedTHE DOLLAR CROP

127

to the payment in coin, or its equivalent, of all the interest-bearing
obligations of the United States, except in cases where the law
authorizes the issue of such obligations had previously provided
that the same might be paid in lawful money or other currency
than gold or silver; and

Whereas all the bonds of the United States authorized to be
issued by the Act entitled "An Act to authorize the refunding of
the National Debt," approved July 14,1870, by the terms of said
Act were declared to be redeemable in coin of the then present
standard value, bearing interest payable semi-annually in such
coin; and

Whereas all bonds of the United States authorized to be
issued under an Act entitled "An Act to provide for the resump-
tion of specie payments," approved January 14,1875, are required
to be of the description of bonds of the United States described
in the said Act of Congress approved July 14, 1870, entitled "An
Act to authorize the refunding of the National Debt"; and

Whereas at the date of the passage of the said Act of Con-
gress last aforesaid, to wit, the 14th day of July, 1870, the coin of
the United States of standard value of that date included silver
dollars of the weight of 412^ grains each, declared by the Act
approved January 18, 1837, entitled "An Act supplementary to
the Act entitled 'An Act establishing a mint and regulating the
coins of the United States/ " to be a legal tender of payment, accord-
ing to their nominal value for any sums whatever; therefore,

Be It resolved by the Senate, the House of Representatives con-
curring therin, That all the bonds of the United States issued or au*
thorized to be issued under the said acts of Congress hereinbefore re*
cited are payable, principal and interest, at the option of the Govern-
ment of the United States, in siver dollars of the coinage of the United
States, containing 412} grains each of standard silver; and that to
restore to its coinage such silver coins as a legal tender In pay-
ment of said bonds, principal and interest, is not in violation of the
public faith nor in derogation of the rights of the public creditor.

That resolution was adopted by the Senate, January 25,
1878, and by the House January 28, 1878, the vote being in the
Senate 42 to 20, and in the House 189 to 89.128

THE DOLLAR CR6P

REAFFIRMED IN 1894.

That Senator Sherman was entirely conscious of the gross
falsehood he uttered in his Columbus speech about our bonds be-
ing payable in gold coin, is attested by terms of the contract be-
tween the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, party
of the first part, and Messrs. August Belmont & Co., of New York,
on behalf of Messrs. N. M. Rothschild & Sons, of London, and
themselves and Messrs. J. P. Morgan & Co., of London, and
themselves, parties of the second part, dated the 8th day of Feb-
ruary, 1895.

This infamous contract was duly published in all the papers
at the time. It pertained to the issuance and delivery of bonds
in payment for the delivery of a certain number of ounces of
standard gold coin, to restore the depleted (and unnecessary) gold
reserve.

According to that contract, those bonds were to bear interest
at the rate of 4 per cent, per annum; but the third clause in the
contract read as follows:

"The Secretary of the Treasury hereby reserves the right
within ten days from the date, in case he shall receive authority
from Congress therefor, to substitute any bonds of the United
States bearing 3 per cent, interest, of which the principal and in-
terest shall be specifically payable in United States gold coin of
the present weight and fineness, for the bonds herein alluded to."

Does that not clearly show that the Secretary of the Treas-
ury thoroughly understood that he had no authority to issue
bonds calling for payment in gold coin?

A resolution was introduced in Congress about February
14th, entitled:

"AN ACT TO SAVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE $17,000,000."

It was a scheme to offset the meaning of the Matthews Reso-
lution, and sell the American people into gold bondage.

What was the history of that resolution?

In the House it took the form of debate. The affirmative
side was represented by the Hon. Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, and
Hon. Wm. L. Wilson of West Virginia. The negative side was
represented by Hon. William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska and
Mr. Hopkins of Indiana.T35E DOLLAR CROP

129

The measure was ably discussed, and very properly defeated.
Wall street organs raised a howl of indignation and blasphemed
the men who had "thrown away an offer to save the American
people $17,000,000," but the people forgave such sarcasm.

They know that the national debt is not payable in gold, and
they do not propose to enact any such dangerous legislation at
this late hour.

In answer to Senator Sherman's Columbus speech, this reci-
tation of facts proves him knowingly untruthful and wholly un-
worthy the confidence of the American people.

Good folks, what say you?

In the light of this history how does Senator Sherman's
statement stand ?

The honor of the United States does not rest upon the word
of interested self-seekers and their henchmen. It abides in the
patriotism of the people, who have never consented to pay more
than their honest debts merely to receive the questionable and
interested plaudits of their creditors. The idea that a debtor
must pay more than he justly owes, to keep on good terms with
his creditor, smacks of sychophancy and cringing, of which the
American people will not be guilty.

A FOUL RECORD.

This distinguished Senator Sherman is generally referred to
in Gold Trust papers as "one of the ablest financiers of the
world." I have no reason to question the assertion other than
that I view themarked points of his ability from a different stand-
point than do his supporters. Senator Sherman aspired to be
President of these United States. He made efforts to secure the
nomination from the Republican party in 1880. At that time he
was Secretary of the Treasury.

He duly opened the "Sherman Campaign Committee" rooms
in the Corcoran building at Washington, and it developed that "by
some accident" the bills of expense of this "Sherman Cam-130

THE DOLLAR CROP

paign Committee" were being paid out of the Treasury Depart-
ment of the United States.

An investigating committee was appointed and "directed to
investigate the accounts for the expenditure of the several appro-
priations for contingent or other expenses of the several executive
departments, etc. The report of this committee is known as Sen-
ate Report No. 265, ordered printed March 15, 1882.

Senator Allison, Chairman of the Committee, a stanch
Republican, submitted the following. (From pages 1, 2 and 3
of the Report):

On October 26, 1881, the Senate passed the following resolu-
tion:

"Resolved, That the committee on appropriations of the Sen-
ate, be and they are hereby authorized and directed to investigate
the accounts for the expenditure of the several appropriations for
contingent or other expenses of the several executive departments,
including the methods of making such disbursements, the charac-
ter and disposition of the purchases made and the employment of
labor paid from such appropriations, etc."

The testimony was taken by a sub-committee composed of
Messrs. Allison, Chairman, Logan, Hale, Davis and Cockrell.

The committee first began the investigation of the accounts
in the Treasury Department, and when this was completed * * *
and no charges of abuse or fraud in any other department was
presented to your committee, no oral testimony was taken
touching any other department. * * *

As Senator John Sherman was the head of the Treasury
Department during the greater part of the time covered by the
investigation, he was from time to time furnished the printed tes-
timony and was also called and testified as a witness. * * *

Your committee have not the time to analyze in detail in all
its bearings the great mass of testimony taken * * * and
can only refer briefly to the most important facts clearly estab-
lished by the testimony. * * *

At the instance of Mr. O. L. Pitney, "custodian" in the
Treasury Department, Mr. J. Brad. Adams, in the Winter and
Spring of the year 1880 furnished stationery, etc., to the "Sher-
man Campaign Committee"—a political committee for the
advancement of the candidacy of Hon. John Sherman for the
Presidential nomination in 1880—whose headquarters were in the
"Corcoran building," opposite the Treasury Department building.
For this stationery, etc., sundry vouchers or accounts against the
Treasury Department, aggregating $502, were made out calling
upon their face for "file-holders," as the articles actually pur-,the dollar crop

131

chased and were paid out of the Treasury. The "file-holders" so
named in such vouchers were never purchased or received in the
Treasury Department nor was any other article furnished to the
Treasury under such vouchers.

About June 14, 1881, after the "Meline Committee" investi-
gation began, Mr. Adams paid back into the Treasury this sum
of $502. * * * * * *

* * * In January or February, 1880, at the in-
stance of said Pitney, Messrs. Robert Leitch & Sons furnished to
the rooms in the "Corcoran building," used by said "Sherman
Campaign Committee," certain gas fixtures, and the work in
putting them in place for use, and were paid for the same out
of the Treasury on vouchers calling upon their face for
"repairs, etc."

In May, 1881, after the Meline Committee investigation
began, Robert Leitch & Sons paid back into the Treasury $110,
as the amount so paid to them out of the Treasury for these gas
fixtures and work. *****

After reviewing a portion of the mass of testimony which
accompanies the report, the Committee conclude as follows:

" In view of the gross abuses and f rauds perpetrated through
false and fictitious vouchers, as shown by the evidence taken, addi-
tional legislation may be necessary.

(signed) W. B. Allison,
John A. Logan,
H. L. Dawes. *
P. B. Plumb, i
Eugene Hale,!
H. G. Davis,

Jas. B. Beck, f
M.|W. Ransom,
F. M. Cockrell.

The names of the Senators on that Committee are well-known
to the American people.

In the testimony accompanying the report, on pages 50, 51,
52, 54 and 55, the referred to Pitney testifies in this manner:

"In January, 1880. * * * Mr. Sherman, who was then
Secretary of the Treasury, sent for me to come to his room. I
went. * * * He stepped into his private room and asked me
to accompany him. * * * He told me they were about
establishing Sherman Committee rooms across the street in the

* Italics our own.132

THE DOLLAR CROP

Corcoran building; that they would need some furniture. He
asked me if I knew Mr. Redfield. (Mr. Redfield is since dead.)

* * * He said he would give me a card of introduction. He
took a card and wrote: 'Mr. Redfield, introducing Mr. Pitney.
He is trustworthy and has my confidence; speak to him freely.1}
Signing his name 'John Sherman' to the card. * * * General
Feering came on and from that time assumed business manage-
ment of the committee. *. * * Mr. Feering said they wanted
to fit that room up in pretty good style, because Mr. Sherman
would use that for a reception room. He would be over there
after 4 o'clock and receive prominent people of the country.

* * * He told me that Mr. Sherman's friends were going to
furnish abundant means to conduct the business of the commit-
tee. I then went to Mr. Moses and told him to send up articles
from time to time. * » *

It was not long when he (Feering) came over to the depart-
ment and said to me that they were short of money and he could
not get any money. * * * They wanted some stationery and
wanted me to get it. * * * I went to Mr. Upton and told
him what Mr. Feering * * * wanted. * * * He said
I had better go down to Mr. Sturtevant, chief of the stationery
division, and have him send some stationery and supplies over to
the Corcoran building for the committee. * * * I went to Mr.
Sturtevant and told him. * * * Sturtevant did not like to
do this * * * but said he would box something up as if it
was to be shipped away from the city and send it to Mr. Skeen's
room. Mr. Skeen was foreman of laborers under the chief clerk,
and he could send his laborers over with it because he did not
care to send it from his own office direct to the Corcoran build-
ing.

* * I went to Mr. Sherman's house and related to him all
the facts about it; told him what the file holders were for, being
for stationery furnished for his political bureau, or committee.

* * * I told him that it was a very serious matter; that furni-
ture was furnished and paid for as file holders; that it ought not
be made public. ' * * * He said Mr. Upton was pretty clear-
headed and probably would arrange some way to settle the mat-
ter satisfactorily. * * * I then went to Mr. Upton's room.

* * * Upton said he did not know what to do, but Sherman
ought to fix that. He said he was a prominent man and that if
the matter was made public it would ruin him. * * * He said
Sherman ought to settle that matter; it was more his than ours.
If it ever got out it would cost Sherman his seat in the Senate;
that it was a small matter and that he had no business toTHE DOLLAR . CROP

*33

jeopardize his friends in that way for the sake of saving a few
hundred dollars at the time he was a candidate for the nomina-
tion to the Presidency.

On pages 1177, 1178 and 1179 this same man Pitney still
testifies:

Question—I wish to ask you now, specifically in regard to any
conversation you may have had with Mr. Sherman?

Answer—Speaking of the Treasury matters, he told me that
he was going to introduce a resolution in the Senate the following
day, calling for a copy of the Meline report. He said he had been
down to the Department that afternoon and read the report, and
there was nothing in it that reflected on him. I told him that
would probably lead to an investigation. Speaking about this
investigation I said, "I suppose I shall be called upon to testify."
* * * I told him that if I was called upon I would have to
state just the facts as they occurred. He told me that he did not
know that I would be compelled to answer. I told him that I
could not refuse to answer except upon the grounds of not desir-
ing to criminate myself. * * ♦ I told him briefly about what
my testimony would be. * * * He said that he thought I
might see Mr. Upton and Mr. Power and arrange some story that
would be satisfactory to the committee. * * * He said some-
thing to the effect that where his own charactor came in question
he would have to protect himself, and I stated that my reputa-
tion was as dear to me as his was to him, and that I could not do
anything else but make a statement of these facts. * * * I
told him that I should go before the committee and make these
statements very reluctantly; that I did not like to do so, but that
I did not see that I could take any other course.

The rest of the testimony pertains to other items of Senator
Sherman's private luxuries which were "accidentally" paid for
with the people's money.*

Such a useful personage as the Ohio Senator was not, how-
ever, to be downed by any such discoveries, especially as his
friends controlled the great public channels of information—the
newspapers—and to this day John Sherman is referred to as "one
of the ablest financiers of the world."

Ah, my friends, how often do we read Sherman's bitter de-
nunciations of men who oppose him. How often do we see the
beneficiaries of his infamous financial schemes berating the men

* For a detailed analysis of this Senate report, send to Emery & Emery, Lansing, Mich., for a
copy of Honest (?) John Sherman. ioc.134 the dollar crop

* who demand an equitable financial policy for this nation. With
what hypocritical sanctimony do they raise their voice with as-
sumed virtue and cry out against the "Repudiators—the An-
archists."

Have they so successfully worked upon your prejudices that
you will follow these false gods of finance to the utter destruction of
all the sacred traditions of this county? I hope not; I hope not.CHAPTER XIII.

BOURKE COCHRAN'S WAGE EARNER.

The Twin Editorials of the Baltimore Sun—The Farmer and

the Crisis.

In his recent Madison Square speech W. Bourke Cochran
made the effort of his life in trying to convince the wage-earners
of America that cheap prices were of advantage to them.

This famous meeting was graciously presided over by Mr.
Perry Belmont, of the Belmont-Morgan Bond syndicate, an ag-
gregation of monied interests which recognizes no party lines.

Said Mr. Cochran:

"When we come to find out just how they expect to increase
the wages of labor we find ourselves in a maze of contradiction.
They cannot tell how or when the wages of workingmen are to be
increased."

The answer is completely involved in the question.

The American wage-earner is not the dull-eyed fool that Mr.
Cochran mistakes him for.

An interesting answer to these idle vagaries is contained in
two editorials which appeared side by side in the Baltimore Sun
of June 26, 1895. The Sun is a stalwart Gold Trust paper. The
first editorial contains the mysterious question of Cochran's, and
the editorial published immediately alongside thereof contains as
good an answer as could be made. These are as follows :136

THE DOLLAR CROP

THE SITUST.

Published Every Morning.
(Except Sunday.)

By the

A. S. ABELL COMPANY.

BALTIMORE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 1895.

"the working peoples' interest
in honest money!"

* * * The wage worker will
have to take the fifty-cent dollar
if the fiat of the Government is
behind it, and he will soon find
that though it is a dollar in
naime it will not have the pur-
chasing power at the stores, of the
present good-as-gold dollar. The
loudest claim of the free silverites
is that the present American dol-
lar, based on the gold standard
buys too much. All commodi-
ties are too cheap, we are told,
and free silver coinage will at
once make them dearer. But
how in the name of common
sense the workingman will find it
to his advantage to have every-
thing he buys made dearer, is
something that no free silverite

has yet attempted to explain."
* * *

"wheat and cotton."

"The recent advance in the
price of wheat has up to the pres-
ent time brought but compara-
tively little money to the farmers.
It came after they had parted with
the crop of 1894. Some farmers
did hold on to their crops and got
the benefit of better prices. But
this was as a mere drop in the
bucket compared with the bulk of
the crop. * * * So important is
the price of wheat and cotton to
the business interests of the coun-
try, that the promise of better
prices for the growing crops con-
tributed largely to the revival of
business and general prosperity.
The reason of this is apparent.
Every industry rests ultimately
upon the farmer. Nothing empha-
sizes this more forcibly than the
well-known fact, the cheaper
wheat is, the harder it is to get
bread. If wheat is so cheap that it
brings to the farmer no surplus
money to spend in manufactured
goods, then the factories suffer and
their employes have no work and
are without money to buy bread,
however cheap it may be. * * *
As we have said before, the pres-
ent prosperity is largely based
upon the promise of better prices
for the crops now being gathered.THE DOLLAR CROP

137

The Baltimore Sun makes an excellent reply to its own query
in the same issue that it offers the question. It might seem to
you that those two editorials are sufficient in themselves. But
there is still another able Gold Trust paper that has spoken upon
this subject. In its issue of September 10, 1893, the New York
Sun talks of "The Farmer and the Crisis." The article is
lengthy, so I shall read you only important extracts in corrobora-
tion of the Baltimore Sun and of the truth of my own position:

" THE FARMER AND THE CRISIS »

[From the New York " Sun," September 10,1893,J

When, by reason of unfavorable conditions, nearly half of
the population is deprived in whole or in part of its power to pur-
chase of the products of those engaged in manufacturing indus-
tries, the whole commercial and industrial world suffers from
paralysis; exchange becomes deranged; hoarding ensues; mone-
tary stringency follows; mills, factories and furnaces close; oper-
atives, ceasing to earn, lose their power to purchase of the products
of their own labor as well as of the labors of others, and the circle
of declining activity constantly widens.

Such are the conditions now existing, and they are largely if
not almost wholly due, primarily, to the loss of the power on the
part of some 45 per cent, of the people to purchase other than
the veriest necessaries.

On the other hand, whenever this great multitude of people
have large enough revenues, their purchases are of such volume
and the character and quantity bought so constant that manu-
facturing plants are fully employed, and new ones are built to
meet augmenting demands; the mill owner buys raw material in
advance of consumption; operatives and artisans have constant
work; the wage scale being an ascending one, the ability of the
worker to buy of the products of his own labor and of the labor
of others is enhanced; money seeks employment with confidence;
the merchant's stock rapidly disappears and is constantly replen-
ished; collections are easy, and in short, labor is fully employed,
manufacturers overrun with orders, money is abundant, and times
are good.

As the prices of farm products have fallen, so has declined
the purchasing power of that great body of producers constitut-
ing nearly one-half the working force of the nation, and so has
waned the prosperity of all. * * * After the close of the138

THE DOLLAR CROP

Civil War, farm products brought such prices that the 52 per
cent, of the population then directly dependent upon agriculture
had ample revenue; their purchases of the products of manufac-
ture were so liberal that many establishments ran night and day;
the mill owner, the producer of raw material, the merchant, and
all those engaged directly and indirectly in distribution or con-
struction, as well as those employed in the subsidiary industries,
were fully employed at remunerative rates, the result being an era
of prosperity never equalled in our history, as neither before
nor since have those prices for farm products been equalled.

Now the reverse of such conditions obtains. * * * As
the power-of the farmer to buy declined, so has declined, meas-
urably, the activity of the industrial and commercial world,
except as an impulse has been given to commerce and manufac-
tures by the construction of an immense railway mileage, often
in advance and excess of local needs. * * * The Nation is
likely never again to have its economic conditions hidden by a
fictitious prosperity growing out of great railway constructions,
as such operations are no longer possible, there being no region,
except very limited Southern areas, where expenditures could be
made to appear as promising returns to tempt the possessors of
available funds. * * * For more than fifteen years—1878 to
1893—all the great primary agricultural staples have been declin-
ing in price, although there have been periods when the price of
some one was high for a limited time. * * *

Much stress is laid upon the necessity of cheap food for the wage
worker; but what possible benefit can be derived from a cheapness
that deprives the 30,000,000 farmers who produce food and fibre, of
the ability to keep wage-workers employed, by buying the products
of the artisan and operative ?

Doubling the present price of wheat would probably add the price
of six or eight days' labor to the cost of the years9 supply of bread
for the average family; but with wheat at an average of $1 a bushel
at the farm markets, and other farm products at proportionate prices,
there would be no idle mills, and the earner of wages would have that
easily procured and constant work which would assure him the con-
tinuous ability to buy bread.

Would not that be far better than existing conditions, and bread
unattainable, though low in price ?CHAPTER XIV.

"WHO MAKE LIES THEIR REFUGE"

Checks Not Money—Major McKinley's Confusion—The Insurance
Policy—Bald Contradictions.

We occasionally note the statements of Gold Trust papers
that there has been no contraction of the currency. That the
Dollar Crop is as large as it ever was. Their statements need no
elaborate refutation. The figures they produce make no allow-
ance for metallic money which has been exported and recoined in
foreign lands, and no allowance for loss by fire and mutilation;
our good friends simply chalk down every dollar that has ever
been issued and credit it to the existing circulation.

In a recent public document Senator Sherman said:

"It has been demonstrated by official documents that, from
the beginning of the war to this time, the volume of our currency
has been increasing year by year more rapidly than our popula-
tion."

Such statements are natural from such a man; but Secre-
tary of the Treasury McCullough, in his report for December, 1865,
says: "We have now about $2,000,000,000 (two billion dollars)
nearly all in circulation among the people." While in March,
1874, Senator John A. Logan says: "Contraction has gone on
until the whole amount of currency of every kind now outstand-
ing is only $742,000,000," which shows a reduction of the Dollar
Crop of over one-half.

The last administration has been persistently following a
contraction policy. I quote you from the the financial columns
of the Philadelphia Press, October 28, 1895:

" It is officially stated that Secretary Carlisle, in pursuance
of his policy to reduce the volume of the circulating medium, has
redeemed $14,486,000 Treasury notes of July, 1890. The notes
are redeemed in silver dollars, which, according to Administration
advices, won't circulate, so there must be a restriction of the140

THE DOLLAR CROP

volume of money in the hands of the people by the operation.
The redemption is going on now at a greater rate than ever before,
and it is said that $2,000,000 of the notes have been redeemed this
month. These notes have a gold dollar's worth of silver behind
them, and a mandatory statute asserting that it is the policy of
the Government to preserve the parity between gold and silver at
the present ratio. They have always been convertible into gold,
and why anybody should want to trade these notes for silver
dollars is a mystery. There is some jockeyism in the matter."

Besides this, the purchasing clause of the Sherman Law was
repealed in 1893. Prior thereto that measure had been replenish-
ing the channels of circulation with from two to four million new
dollars every month, which promptly sought employment.

The population grows on apace and the Dollar Crop is being
contracted. The Baby Crop increases while the Dollar Crop di-
minishes and misery prevails. With insatiable appetites they
demand further contraction by retiring the outstanding green-
backs.

" Oh, no," says Senator Sherman, " the per capita of money
in circulation is larger than ever." And I let his statements rest,
with the plain admonition that they are Senator Sherman's words.
Nothing else is needed for their refutation.

The measure of values in any country is the volume of money
and not its substance. To maintain a stable measure of values we
must maintain a volume of money increasing with the population
and demands of commerce.

CHECKS ARE NOT MONEY.

When his false statements about the size of the Dollar Crop
are refuted, the frantic gold bug will claim that " not ten per cent,
of the daily transactions of banks and trust companies are settled
for in money. More than ninety per cent, is made up of checks
and drafts. There is abundant money for every possible need."

Checks are not money. Nothing is money but that medium
of exchange which is accepted in final payment; and anything
which is so accepted is money, whether it be clam shells or gold
coin.

Banks do not cash checks or drafts until money is first de-
posited.THE DOLLAR CROP

141

"When the poor can't get bread, let them eat cake." When
the people have no money let them use checks. When specu-
lators desire to corner the market, they select a period of short
crops. When bankers desire to corner the money market, they
reduce the Dollar Crop, which they have been systematically
doing so long that our people are nearly reduced to serfdom.

CHEAP RIDICULE OF CHEAP MONEY.

"Cheap money" has always been a subject of ridicule by
ignorant and designing people. The phrase has two distinctly
different meetings, and behind them the astute Gold Trust editors
and orators shift position and seek to confuse the people.

In a circular letter, broadcasted oyer the country, Mr. Geo.
D. Boulton, of the First National Bank of Chicago, says:

" One of the most urgent motives of the Silver party is that
they want cheap money. By that I suppose they mean money
they can borrow cheaply or earn cheaply. Now, the cheapest
money in the world is in the strongest gold country, viz., Eng-
land. For example, money in London to-day is 2 per cent, per
annum."

Mr. Boulton wilfully makes a mis-application of the term
"cheap money." When one bushel of wheat will exchange for
two dollars, that is dear wheat and cheap money; when it takes
two bushels of wheat to buy one dollar, that is cheap wheat and
dear money. This is a fact regardless of the rental value of the
dollar.

In fact, a decline in the rates of interest is the best proof of
an increase in the (purchasing) value of the dollar. When money
is rising in value (prices.falling), instead of putting it into use,
men lock it up or only invest it in gilt-edge securities. The con-
dition in this country clearly illustrates this point. The general
range of prices has been declining for a long period (i. e. the
dollars growing dearer), and Government bonds have been selling
at a constantly advancing premium with lower rates of interest,
while legitimate industry is suffering.142

THE DOLLAR CROP

The dollar worth two bushels of wheat is a dear dollar, and
yet it commands only two per cent, interest per annum in Wall
Street. If the dollar can be cheapened by increasing the number
of dollars, so that each dollar will buy less wheat, the increasing
price of wheat will increase the demand for dollars to invest in
its production. Then the borrower of dollars to invest in the
production of wheat, being reasonably sure of a profit in the em-
ployment of the money, can afford to pay interest for its use out
of his profit. So that abundant money—money readily obtain-
able, which is to say, really cheap money—is the money which
commands a high rate of interest. Nothing is more erroneous
than the statement so frequently made: "A nation is prosperous
and. healthy when its bonds command respect in the markets of
the world and sell at high premiums." When prices are falling
misery prevails, capital is timid and avoids investment in legit-
imate industry. While the people suffer, the demand for gilt-
edge investments is so great that they are forced to a premium.
The higher the premium on our Government bonds, the surer the
sign that legitimate industry, and consequently the people, are
suffering the hardest times.

MAJOR MCKINLEY'S CONFUSION.

In his letter of acceptance Major McKinley also speaks of
cheap money, as follows:

"No one suffers so much from cheap money as farmers and
laborers. They are the first to feel its bad effects, and the last to
recover from them."

The distinguished gentleman should have been a little more
explicit as to his meaning of the phrase "cheap money."

If he means such money as will pass current in commercial
transactions at a discount from its face value, such as the old
State Bank Notes, the (exception clause) War Greenbacks, or
the Trade Dollar, then all I have to say is that he is keeping com-
pany with the very men who Conspired so to cheapen thoseTHE DOLLAR CROP

143

dollars; men who spent millions to corrupt our legislators to give
them that very opportunity to fleece the laboring men and
farmers.

If Mr. McKinley referred to cheap money in its actual sense,
i. e., of comparative low purchasing power (i. e., high prices on
commodities), then he utters an untruth. The "farmers and
laborers" for whom he is supposed to have great sympathy have
never suffered from an era of high or rising prices, which means
cheap money.

Cheap money, in the true sense of the term, necessarily
means high priced wheat and high priced men, and we are so
used to hearing Mr. McKinley argue against "cheap coats and
cheap men" that I am astounded at these utterances.

THE INSURANCE POLICY.

In his recent speech at Columbus, Ohio, Agust 15,1896, Sen-
ator Sherman said:

"There is another class of creditors that the free coinage of sil-
ver will greatly injure. It is the depositors in savings institutions
and kindred organizations who, according to official statistics, num-
ber nearly five million people, whose deposits amount to more
than eighteen hundred million dollars. Will you cheat them by
reducing the value and purchasing power of the dollars they have
deposited? Free coinage will also wipe out nearly one-half the
value of life insurance, which provident people of the United
States have paid to secure in case of death, some support and pro-
tection to wife and children.

"It will affect injuriously the multitude of clerks and em-
ployes who depend upon monthly pay, and will reduce the pur-
chasing power of all salaries of officers and employes in the pub-
lic service of the United States, and every State, county, city or
township in this broad land."

The Senator is quite frank and honest in speaking of the
value of money as "the purchasing value." For many years he
fought behind the shadow of the "mint value being reduced one-
half by free coinage," until he is forced from it as all of his col-
leagues have been except the distinguished Mr. McKinley, who
still holds to the old dodge.144

THE DOLLAR CROP

Mr. Sherman or his colleagues cannot convince the American
people that a higher range of prices on commodities will be to
their detriment. Retail buyers seldom benefit by the lowest
wholesale prices. The pound loaf of bread to-day, with wheat at
50 cents per bushel, sells for five cents, as it did ten years ago,
when wheat was worth two and a-half times what it is now.

Senator Sherman's candid remarks are an emphatic corro-
boration of the claims that free silver coinage will restore prices
of commodities to a normal level by restoring the Dollar Crop to
somewhere near its size before he assisted the American Bankers'
Association in cornering it.

His frank statement that the purchasing value of the dollar
will be reduced, plainly means that prices will advance. With
advanced prices for labor and farm products, the class of creditors
referred to by Mr. Sherman will not be losers.

Ask a fence-rail philosopher for a good definition of " hard
times " and he will answer, " Falling prices." If Mr. Sherman
can convince the classes he enumerates that " hard times" are
beneficial to them, he is entitled to their support.

In the Report of the Sound Money meeting in Philadelphia,
on page 45, before referred to, you will notice that the Hon.
Michael D. Harter, of Ohio, makes that same specious plea to
insurance policy holders; but on page 40 of that Report you will
observe these remarks by that same gentleman:

" Its advocates talk as if free coinage would increase the cir-
culation of the country. It would reduce it largely. * * *
The result of such a measure would be, instead of increasing the
currency of the country, virtually to reduce the currency by one-
third. * * * It would bring enforced idleness to one-third of
the people, and of course lower wages to the other two-thirds."

While all of this is another admission that if the Dollar Crop
is diminished wages of labor and the prices of all labor products
must suffer, yet it is an open contradiction to the arguments
offered the insurance policy holder.

If the currency is contracted, "bringing enforced idleness to
one-third of the people, and lower wages to the other two-thirds,"
that certainly means a dollar would purchase more of their labor, or
the products of their labor, and how these gold bug orators thinkTHE DOLLAR CROP

145

one and the same dollar can be increasing in purchasing power
and robbing the policy holder and decreasing in purchasing power
and impoverishing the laborers, at one and the same time, I fail
to see. For bold misrepresentations, direct contradictions and
lack of truthfulness it is difficult to find in all creation the equal
of the simon-pure Gold Bug.

BLACK IS WHITE.

Sometimes these untruths are ludicrous, and were it not that
the happiness of the people, aye, the very life of the Nation, were
hanging in the balance, they could be brushed aside as jokes. A
clever instance of their self contradictions is contained in the
following press dispatch sent over the country.

It is a resolution passed by the New York State Bankers'
Association, only a few weeks ago. They openly charge that
reopening the mints to silver will inflate and contract the currency,
at one and the same time:

the contradictory resolution.

Niagara Falls (N. Y.), July 18,1896.—The following resolu-
tions were adopted to-day by the New York State Bankers' Con-
vention :

"We declare that the bankers of this State have not selfish
or class interest in the establishment of any particular kind of
money as currency, nor are we benefited as a class by the main-
tenance of one metal as the standard to the exclusion of others.

"In all countries where the gold standard prevails both gold
and silver circulate as money. In all the countries where the
silver standard prevails there is no gold in circulation as money.
The free coinage of silver means the repudiation of 50 per cent, of
indebtedness. This would be true only of existing debts. The
sagacious instinct of trade would correct this wrong as to future con-
tracts by doubling the price of commodities. Hence the free coinage
of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 means a great inflation of prices
without any increase of values.

"Just in proportion to this inflation would the purchasing
power of a dollar be decreased. It means a silver basis and silver
monometallism. It means that the $600,000,000 of gold now in
circulation would go to a premium, would cease to circulate as
money and become a commodity simply, whether coined or un-146

THE DOLLAR CROP

coined. It would 'produce a violent contraction of the currency to
the extent to which gold now in circulation ceased to circulate as
money. It would not only unsettle, but would thoroughly
demoralize business. All classes would suffer. Those would
suffer most who are least able to take care of themselves; that is,
the laboring classes. The crushing effect upon business would be
equalled only by the demoralizing effect upon public morals and
the public sense of honor, lowered and humiliated as they would
be by such an act of repudiation.

Any schoolboy will recognize the absurdity of the claim
made. Contraction is just the opposite to inflation. But they
don't mind little things like that; it is anything, everything to
scare the people. "Black is white," or "white is black" with
them, whichever way they can use it to hide their hideous
schemes.

The millionaire bondholders are slaves of avarice; in their
code of morals honesty is a myth. Equity in the financial trans-
actions of this Nation with its creditors and equity among men, in
their code of civilized brigandage, is "repudiation." Justice is
Anarchy.

To be entitled to the designation "honest," it is not enough
that a dollar shall be dear. It must be constantly increasing in
dearness. It must be a dollar that is becoming progressively
more difficult for debtors to obtain—a dollar which requires more
sweat and toil to obtain. The dearer and more difficult it is to
obtain, the more "honest" it is to them.

They heed not the cry of anguish arising from an oppressed
people. They will not look at the picture of millions starving
in the midst of plenty. "Extortion" is an obsolete word in their
language, and the "pound of flesh" contract in the "Merchant of
Venice" would be too weak for them.

To restore prices on commodities and restore the equities in
the farms and homes in this land, is repudiation of the debts due
them. For them to double those debts by legislation, contempt-
ibly foul and corrupt, is "honest finance," and "a sound mone-
tary system."THE DOLLAR CHOP

147

In all questions of meum and tuum their reasoning is the
essence of selfishness. Alas, they are evolved from the frailties of
our common human nature.

They would degrade the pulpit, to further work upon the
prejudices of the people, and ply their nefarious trade in human
misery, and upon the ruins of our free Republic would establish
an Empire.

But "Dinna ye hear the Slogan?"CHAPTER XV.

"DINNA YE HEAR THE SLOGAN."

Lincoln's Warning Against the Money Power—The Bankers' Re-
bellion—Clews' Circular.

"Do ye hear the children weeping, O, my brothers

Ere the sorrow comes with years?

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,

And THAT cannot stop their tears.

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;

The young birds are chirping in the nest,

The young fawns are playing with the shadows:

The young flowers are blowing towards the West—

But the young, young children, O, my brothers,

They are weeping bitterly:

They are weeping in the playtime of the others,

In the country of the free.

Thus wrote Mrs. Browning, whose great heart was moved by
the appalling sight of child labor in England, where hundreds of
thousands of little hands are prematurely set to labor to aid in
piling up the riches which enables the American admirers of the
gold standard to state that Great Britian is a rich nation.* A
country whose economic conditions the American people have
heretofore been taught to shun.

"Chains are not stronger than their weakest links;

Nor Nations richer than their poor, methlnks."

The shrewd Gold Trust editor freely argues that the demand
for opening the mints to silver is class legislation, in behalf of
the producing classes; the term is misapplied; the ignominy rests
with them. The demand is a defensive one; it is to prevent

♦Referring to the conditions of child labor in England, General Francis A. Walker, in an able
work upon "The Wage Question," says:

*'We know that mill owners are harassed with applications from their hands to take children
into employment on almost any terms, and that the conscience of employers have required to be re-
enforced by the sternest prohibitions and penalties of the law to save children 10, 7 or four years
old from the horrors of "sweating dens" and crowded factories, since the more miserable the par-
ents' condition, the greater becomes the pressure on them to crowd their children somehow, some-
where into service.

We know, too, that in the agricultural districts of England gangs of children of all ages, from
16 down to 10, or even 5 years, have been formed and driven from farm to farm, and from parish
to parish, to work all day under strange overseers, and to sleep at night huddled all together, with-
out disrinction of sex. (Page 201 )

Children were employed in the brickyards of England under strange task masters at years
of age. Account is given us, sickening in details, of a boy weighing 52 ponnds carrying on his
head a load of clay weighing 43 pounds 7 miles a day, and walking another 7 to the place where
his burden was to be assumed.—The Wage Question, page 202.THE DOLLAR CROP

149

further contraction of the Dollar Crop, restore the money volume
and general range of prices to a healthy basis, which does not now
exist, nor can it exist upon the present small volume of circulat-
ing medium. All authorities agree that the average of prices and
wages is still about 25 per cent, above the gold standard. We
would repel the attempt at further reduction as outlined in their
policies, fully known to the public from their debates in the last
two sessions of Congress, but carefully held from the arena of
public discussion at this time.*

It is the attempt of a further contraction which has caused
the uprising of these American people. In all ages the great
social disasters have occurred during periods of falling prices. In
this country the serious economic conditions, steadily growing
worse under the operations of widely differing tariff schedules,
have been hidden by the fictitious prosperity growing out of great
railway constructions, and occasional remedial financial legisla-
tion.

Such railway development operations being now largely over-
done and no longer possible, and the American Bankers' Associa-
tion having secured the repeal of the last and only remedial
measure, i. e. the purchasing clause of the Sherman Law, the
Dollar Crop has no source of increase, while the population
multiplies; the contraction thereby is indirect, but just as
deadening in effect upon commerce and industry, and the Ameri-
can people are face to face with the dangerous conditions arising
from falling prices.

The greatest civil commotion of all time—the French Revo-
tion—occurred after a period of seven years of persistent fall of
prices. That fall which brought to a culmination the miseries of
the French people, was a fall of but fifteen per cent., yet it was
sufficient to relegate to idleness and keep long in misery, enor-
mous numbers of men whose discontent and suffering finally
overtopped first the throne, and then the Republic.

The insatiable greed of the leaders of the American Bank-
ers' Association impels them to openly advocate further contrac-
tion. A charge which is too plainly apparent to permit denial

* The retirement of the remaining greenbacks and diminishing the volume of silver money
now in existence, as outlined in the New York Journal of Commerce editorial, on page 113.ISO

THE DOLLAR CROP

from them. The gold standard means nothing else than the
further contraction of our money volume. Can the agricultural
and commercial classes stand the reduction ? No ! The danger
point has been reached. Remedial measures must be adopted.

The demand for the reopening of our mints to silver is but
the righteous demand of an outraged people. It is a demand
that the corporate money power shall not further depress by arti-
ficial means the prices of the products of labor, (from which prices
alone can men receive the reward of their toil)—which is but to
turn men out of their homes into the highways to tramp—to
turn the mortgage of the farmer and rancher into a deed for the
mortgagee.

No matter how low fall the prices of wheat, cotton, fruit, and
other basic products of industry, there seems to be no lack of
subservient statisticians to put forth statements that this result
is not from any increase in the purchasing value of money, but
from various other causes.

The danger from these conditions grows on apace. He who
raises his voice in warning is an anarchist. They who seek by
cunning and fraud to enslave the whole nation in bondage to
Lombard and Wall streets, are "honest financiers !"

In only one direction, according to the Gold Trust henchmen,
can truth, honor or honesty be found. The terms of the bonds
mean nothing. Gold, and gold only, will save us, according to
them. If we agreed to pay silver we must pay gold or be "dishon-
est." If we agreed to pay lawful money, the law has been or
will be changed, so that gold is the only lawful money, and "what
are we going to do about it ?" Ignorance, prejudice, superstition,
bigotry, every argument but calm consideration, is hurled at us to
rivet the chains more tightly on the limbs of the poor, and to
compel them to pay the higher price to the rich for the thing the
people are taught they must have—gold. We must have money or
relapse into barbarism. If gold is the only money, then few can
have it. The many must pay the higher price to the few who
now have gold, or go moneyless and homeless.

The handling of money by bankers is as natural and honest »
as the handling of fruit by railroads, but the making or creationTHE DOLLAR CROP 151

of money by bankers is an assumption of governmental control.

The hordes of Wall street yell, "The Government must go
out of the banking business." And we answer, "Nay, nay; the
banks must get out of the Government business."

By their assumption of control, and directly from their in-
famous measures of contraction, they have reduced to ashes the
bright hopes of the largest, the strongest and the greatest Nation
on the face of the earth. Controlling a large part of the public
debt, they have sought to control all legislation; and measures
fraught with danger to the welfare of the people have been suc-
cessfully carried through, and more of their heartless schemes
are in contemplation.

A bank of issue is an economic error; it immediately be-
comes a privateer in money. Thoughtful men engaged in that
very profession see and feel the neeessity of remedial measures
for the people, but Wall street leaders of the American Bankers'
Association, removed from the scenes of distress, will not relin-
quish their position of unjust vantage, and are willfully defying
the people and the Government.

They would limit the elective franchise of the citizens west of
the Mississippi River and south of Mason and Dixon's line, edi-
torially claiming that these people are not fit for citizenship. All
this because the producers of these sections and the owners of
paralyzed institutions of industry are about to refuse politically
to settle their public and private obligations in a particular form
of currency that has no legal status in the laws of the nation,
and is so scarce that millions of people must sell their all and
then starve and die to get it.

This intimation of Monarchy coming from the gold caverns
of Wall street is not new or strange to our ears.

The great Lincoln clearly saw years ago what it has taken
the American people a quarter century to find out. In his last
message to Congress (App'x Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 2d session,
page 4), he said:

" Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge
from the power of the people. In my present position, I could
scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against
this approach of returning despotism, Let them (the people)the dollatt chop

beware of surrendering a political power which they already pos-
sess, and which if surrendered, will surely be used to close the
door of advancement against such as they, and to fix new dis-
abilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall he lost."

Extract from a letter by President Lincoln to his friend El-
kins in Illinois, 1864:

"Yes, we may all congratulate our-
selves that this cruel war is nearly over.
It has cost a vast amount of treasure
and blood. It has indeed been a trying
hour for the Republic, but I see in the
near future a crisis approaching that
unnerves me and causes me to tremble
for the safety of the country.

As a result of the war,corporations
have been enthroned and an era of cor-
ruption in high places will follow, and
the money power of the country will
endeavor to prolong its reign by work-
ing upon the prejudices of the people
until all wealth is aggregated in a few
hands and the Republic is destroyed.
I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of the country
than ever before, even in the midst of war."

True to Lincoln's warning, three years after the war the
united bondholders of Lombard and Wall Street, started
an official organ, a newspaper called The Imperialist. It was
published at 87 Mercer Street, New York. A crown for its figure-
head, its motto was this: "the empire is peace—let us have
peace." The Imperial Publishing Company was its sponsor, but
it gave no name of editor, proprietor or correspondent. The
advertisements told the story. Among them was the banking
firm of Morton, Bliss & Company, who also have a banking house
in London, under the name of Morton, Rose & Company.

In its maiden solicitation to the public, The Imperialist said:
"Though unannounced, this journal is not unexpected. The
platform of The Imperialist is revolutionary; its object is to pre-
pare the American people for a revolution that is as desirable as
it is inevitable. * * * We believe democracy to be a
failure. * * * We believe that the National faith, if leftTHE DOLLAR CROP

in the keeping of the populace, will be sullied by the sure repudi-
ation of the National debt, and that an Imperial Government only
can secure and protect the rights of National creditors."

The Imperialist did not continue long. Its mission was
accomplished when the Gold Trust secured control of both polit-
ical parties.

The lines have divided to-day and the issue confronts the
people. The head of that Lombard and Wall Street bank-
ing house whose advertisement appeared in The Imperialist
was none other than the Hon. Levi P. Morton, recently Vice-
President of this country, and now slated for the Treasury port-
folio, according to Gold-bug papers of prominence. A pleasant
prospect for the debt-ridden people to have a London banker for
Secretary of the Treasury.

THE BANKERS' REBELLION.

It is now conceded on all sides that a President and Congress
favorable to remedial legislation in our finances will be chosen
in November. The future is fraught with some danger.

Enthroned for years in absolute power, Wall Street will not
likely recede peaceably from its wonted domination. The great
serpent lifts its threatening head, and coils to strike.

BANKER CLEWS' UGLY CIRCULAR.

Wall street has issued its threat. It is the circular letter
sent out by the well-known Wall-Street banker, Henry Clews,
who is quoted far and wide in the Gold Trust press. The circular
was dated May 24, 1896, and reads as follows:

"Wall Street continues to lack any fixed basis of confidence
for transient operations. Material conditions are satisfactory,
such as the prospects of the crops, the earnings of the railroads
and the movements in the larger departments of merchandise,
and the exports of gold are viewed as but a natural movement.
Virtually the sole obstacle in the way of an active and rising
market is the condition of politics.

"With such an issue as now profoundly agitates the country
from end to end, an unsettled and waiting feeling in speculative
circles is perhaps all that may be expected. Wall Street is the
point at which the greatest sensitiveness of the silver agitation154

tke dollar crop

centers. The mere fact that a large portion of our people should
be intent upon forcing the acceptance of a debased and fluctuating
metal as standard money is a discouraging symptom, for it
shows to what dangerous ends an ignorant free suffrage may
be prostituted. That alone is enough to produce a deep unset-
tlement of feeling among responsible property-owning citizens;
for the same incapacity for judging upon complex money ques-
tions may easily, at any time, imperil the country under the set-
tlement of other large questions affecting the welfare of the
Nation.

"the danger from popular prejudice and ignorance in

connection with this silver agitation is, however, something
more than a conceivable evil possibility. it is a threatened

actuality. It is up for immediate decision; and, at this moment,
no one can feel absolutely certain that this worst curse of a nation
may not be brought to a conclusion within a comparatively few
months.

" Wall street is not in any degree insensible to this Crisis. It
can understand that the danger may reach a more acute stage than
it now presents; it is quite prepared for the possibility that
managing politicians may go further than they have yet dared in
the way of sacrificing sound-money policy in order to secure votes
for their candidates; it is aware that startling results may come
out of either of the party conventions; it would hardly be sur-
prised should the silverites be able to block sound-money legisla-
tion in the next Congress; all these things may be classed among
the possibilities of the next few months, but wall street has
learned to believe that there are greater potencies than
party platforms; than legislative subserviency to popular
ignorance; than the madness of a partisan infatuation, there
are situations and events which can instantly coerce and con-
vert the most reckless legislators into the willing servants of a
conservative sentiment that represents the real interests and
safety of the Nation. It will not be necessary to wait for any
after effects of silver legislation to remedy its mischiefs, although
that would be a perfectly safe course. The near prospect of the
authorization of free coinage—a counting of the heads showing a
certainty of a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate for 16 to

1—would evoke in wall street the kind of conditions that no

congress has ever yet dared to disregard, and the cause of free
coinage would be overthrown at the moment when its success
seemed most certain. It is this reserved power on which wall

street is now reposing."

There are many hidden meanings in these utterances which
I understand better than I feel inclined to explain. The threatsTHE DOLLAR CROP

155

are direful in their import. The language is carefully prepared,
and the insinuations that the American people will not be al-
lowed to legislate for themselves is directly apparent.

Will you think, oh, people? Will you compare that circu-
lar letter with the letter of warning by Abraham Lincoln to his
friend Elkins in Illinois, and tell me which man is the Anarch-
ist: Lincoln or Clews?

Answer back, good folks, so loud that your voices will be
heard from one end of the country to the other.

There are men today who take a very serious view of this
Clews letter. Men of marked conservatism, who are compelled to
announce that every evidence exists that the most appalling forms
of treason to the Republic are being hatched out. That Wall Street
intends, if the people win, to seize the Presidency under some
pretext, and at the proper moment have England's navy on hand
to sustain the cause of British creditors.

The history of the bombardment of Alexandria by English
ironclads "to enforce the claims of British subjects" from a peo-
ple impoverished by tactics no more cruel than have been
practiced in our legislative enactments of the last quarter cen-
tury, is fresh in the memory of the people, and gives rise to sus-
picion as to the hidden meaning of Clews when he speaks of the
"reserved power on which Wall Street is now reposing."

Shortly after the appearance of the Clews circular, the Phila-
delphia Press, one of the leading Gold Trust papers, contained the
following bit of news:

From the Philadelphia Press, June 26, 1896:

Wilmington (Del.), June 25.—The DuPont Powder Company,
this place, yesterday received several large orders from the Gov-
ernment at Washington, calling for shipment within a week.
The works are being operated day and night to fill these orders.
During the week the company has made several shipments of
powder to Washington. The action has aroused much specula-
tion here.

Following this a month later an unwise editorial utterance
appeared in the columns of the Germantown (Pennsylvania)
Telegraph of July 22, 1896:156

THE DOLLAR CROP

"The most important duty devolving upon the champions of
National honesty is to see to it that the reasons of their belief
are set forth in the clearest and most conclusive manner wherever
there has been manifest a tendency to heretical opinions. An-
other important duty is to make sure that only sound money men
are elected to Congress—for after all Congress is the law-making
power, and no Executive could accomplish much without having
the support of the legislative body.

"were there any probability of anarchistic success in

november the president should at once call congress in extra
session and quadruple the regular army. In the triumph of
Communism and its wild theories of government the regular mil-
itary force would be the principal agent to put down rioting and
disorder and preserve our liberties. There is little danger that
any such necessity will arise; it is only a remote contingency,
but it is worth remembering that the Democratic party now com-
prises all the foes of law and order, all the enemies of good gov-
ernment, and has defined freedom as meaning anarchy, and the
possession of capital as crime. Make the Republican victory in
November a grand one, and there will be no question as to the
Future of these United States."

This editorial needs no comment. Editor Raymond of that
paper, is, to my mind, a dangerous man. I deplore his lack of
wisdom.

While these remarks are fair specimens of the attitude of the
Anglo-American gold trust newspapers, yet I entertain the hope
that they will prove to be unwarranted threats of unauthorized
parties, made in the heat of political argument. But experience
warrants the American people to be on their guard lest they
awake to find the avenues of liberty closed to them. After the
election of Lincoln, when the slave-holders were making active
preparations for rebellion, the so-called conservative men of the
North scouted the very idea, only to find that through lack of
attention, a costly struggle was forced upon the Nation.

Such an attitude as expressed with daily increasing venom
in the Eastern Gold Trust papers, is worthy the serious consider-
ation of all thinking men, no matter how conservative they may
be.

The American people are not dishonest; they are not repudi-
ators, and will pay every dollar of their National debt in as good
and as honest money as was received therefor and as was agreed
to return, but I venture to caution the extortioners of Wall street
from pressing too arrogantly their unjust and illegal demands.THE DOLLAR CROP

I 57

THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS.

Clustered around the powers of Lombard and Wall streets, in
half-hearted, half-frightened support, are the smaller banking
interests of the country and the dependent commercial houses. The
present situation is an admonition to the honorable men in these
ranks to question themselves how far for the sake of business
associations they can give their support to such extortionate
demands ?

What does Wall Street offer the commercial interests of this
Nation? A gold basis!

How often has Wall Street slaughtererd and sacrificed the
interests of all commerce? How often have they stampeded the
commerce of the country and revelled in the ruins, 'taking in' the
securities and titles to vast millions of the property of the coun-
try at astonishingly low figures.

Hundreds of millions of our national and industrial bonds
are held in foreign lands. If we go to a gold basis, how easily,
by merely unloading a small percentage of the foreign holdings
in New York, they can drain the money channels of this country.
Think how dependent the whole commerce of the country would
be upon the actions of the bulls and bears of that plague spot.

With our bonds distinctly payable in silver or gold coin at
the option of the Government, why should business men give
their support to a policy fraught with such danger to the welfare
of the whole community?

Ah, why should they?

The contraction policy of the Anglo-American Gold Trust
has fearfully undermined and wrecked the commerce of the coun-
try. In 1865 there were but 500 failures in the United States,
representing a little over $17,000,000. In 1895 the annual num-
ber of failures has reached the enormous total of 76,000, repre-
senting over $2,000,000,000.

How long can the business men of the country stand the
pressure of the contracting Dollar Crop? Wall Street has preyed
upon the laboring and farming classes to such a point that they
must look for new fields and new spoils. The small grist has158

THE DOLLAR CROP

been pretty well ground between the upper and nether millstone,
and some of the business men who have joined hands with this
tyranny and oppression, shall not go free from the blighting
curse of contraction.

"DINNA YE HEAR THE SLOGAN?"

To Banker Clews' foul aspersions on American manhood, I
reply that the demands for the repeal of the Mint Revision Act
of 1873, and the repeal of other class legislation, and the separa-
tion of the legislative and executive department of the Govern-
ment from the control of organized banking interests, is not "the
prostitution of an ignorant free suffrage."

It is the demand of the highest intelligence and patriotism
to be found in this land. The demand of men who have bravely
stood up in defiance of the scoffings and railings of the enemies
of society in Lombard and Wall Street.

The producing classes of America are not an ignorant and
dishonest people, as Clews maliciously pretends them to be. Out-
side the horde of foreign scum imported to these shores by his
own colleagues, the plain people of America possess an average
education above those of any other nation on the face of the
globe. They are skilled in all the arts and, sciences, except the
practice of the corrupt politics and extortion taught by Wall street
alone.

They are capable of self-government in every way, only having
shown themselves too lenient with, and over-anxious to merit the
plaudits of the organized band of extortioners, by allowing bonds
purchased with fifty-cent paper dollars to be "strengthened" to
payment in 100-cent coin dollars.

Beyond this the people refuse to budge. Debts will be paid
in full 100-cent coin dollars as agreed. But the control over the
money volume cannot be longer left in the hands of such men
as Banker Henry Clews proves himself to be, by the infamous
circular he caused to be sent broadcast throughout the land.THE DOLLAR CROP

159

I contend for the maintenance of our sacred institutions.
Good people you must contend for it. Young men of America,
you must contend for it. The older men of America ivill con-
tend for it. Never before was this question brought so directly
before you.

American manhood thus challenged by the evil powers of
Wall street must answer back with unanimous voice that we love
this Republic dearer than life itself, and intend to leave it unim-
paired as a heritage to our children and a beacon light to the rest
of the world.

With the chains of the oppressors stricken from the limbs of
commerce and industry, this Nation will rise to a higher destiny
in spite of the opposition and cupidity of the creditor classes.

An impartial Administration of the Government will achieve
this result by a proper adjustment of the dollar crop to the
constantly increasing population and demand.

uWe are contending for holiest principle ;

What if our giant Republic should die?

Tyrants will say: 4'You have made the experiment;
Out with Democracy ! It is a lie !"

Future Republican effort will languish,

The heart in the Goddess of Liberty ache ;

Earth will unwind the reeling of ages,

Soul of the Nation—Awake ! Awake ! !

NOTE—This foot note should have appeared on page 55.

"The Canadian Bankers' Association have recently declared an arbitrary discount of ten per
cent, on American silver coin. This action is not for legitimate reasons, because Canadian mer-
chants can readily use them in transactions with this country. This is not the first time that the
Canadian Bankers' Association has conspired to influence legislation in this country. In May,
1893, they made a similar arbitrary order, in the face of which silver certificates and silver dollars
commanded a premium of 3 to 7 per cent, in all Eastern cities during the height of the panic that
year."This book is a preservation facsimile produced for
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
It is made in compliance with copyright law
and produced on acid-free archival

60# book weight paper
which meets the requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper).

Preservation facsimile printing and binding
by

Northern Micrographics
Brookhaven Bindery
La Crosse, Wisconsin
2015