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THE CONYERS WEEKLY, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1895.
HOW DEFRECIAHON WOULD WOKE,
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SMALL CHANGE.
It is a significant fact that in the
“States where the largest number of
skilled workingmen are employed at
the highest wages, the agitation for
dree silver met with no response. At¬
tempts were made by a few so-cal}ed
“labor leaders” to create a sentiment
:in favor of free coinage, but in every
(case their efforts were fruitless.
, That many of the farmers of the
United States are comparatively poor
is beyond question. Hundreds of
thousands of men are trying to get a
living out of inferior soil and are suf¬
fering from the competition of others
who are cultivating more fertile lands.
Under these circumstances the returns
for the labor of the former class are
very small, and there is naturally a dis
mositon to welcome any new promise
of relief from a condition which is be¬
lieved to be in some way or other due
i to the action or neglect of the Govern¬
ment.
To these men, ignorant of Ihe real
causes of their poverty, but dimly
feeling that the evils of which they
(complained kind, might the be demagogic cured by laws agents of
some came
of the silver mine owners ;#he cheap
politicians seeking the spoils of office;
and the one-idead enthusiast who was
sure that th > ii’n of poverty would
quickly disappear if only the country
was snppliod with more and cheaper
money. Glowing word pictures were
!painted of wealth iu abundance for
all, as soon as a free coinage law
would be adopted aud the mints set to
work grinding out a grist of silver
dollars. No promise whb too extrava¬
gant for the men who talked of riches
without working for them, and in lit¬
erature and speeohes cunningly com¬
posed of half-truths and whole false
; hoods, a vision of unbounded prosper¬
ity was conjured up before each
farmer’s eyes.
But soon there came serious doubts
and questionings. The advocates of
sound money spread abroad literature
tin which the free silver doctrine was
ridiculed as absurd, or denounced as
dangerous. It was pointed out that
merely cheapening the currency could
not increase the wealth of the coun¬
try, and that changing silver bullion
into coins would not make it easier
for farmers to get more of it. The
evil effects of tampering with the
measure of values on which the whole
business interests of the country rest¬
ed were clearly shown; and the results
of a policy which would oause another
financial panic given in plain language.
The men who had blindly swallowed
the free coinage mixture became
alarmed. They began to ask: “Is
it not possible that we are mistaken?
Will free silver really do what we have
been told about it? Have we been
deluded by the oheap money advo¬
cates?” The answers to these ques¬
tions settled the free coinage agitation
in so far as it seriously threatened to
be the controlling political issue.
Once the farmers refused to accept
the silver gospel on faith, the cause of
the silverites was lost.
A Spent Gale.
The free silver agitation seems to be
dwindling to a spent force. On all
sides can now be seen evidence of
popular sentiment based on sound
sense and pledged to sound money.
The cry for “more money” that re¬
sounded throughout the early spring
and summer is now a mere whisper,
and well-founded reasoning is on ex¬
hibition where but a little while ago
stood the spectre of financial folly,
Washington Star.
FREE COINAGE VS. FREE SILVER.
The issue under consideration is not
“free silver.” It is “free coin
age.” silver
Free silver would be a gift of
to the people by the miner. The peo¬
ple would like that immensely, but
the miner could not afford it, and, in¬
deed, he has not thought of suggest¬
ing to us anything so childish as “free
silver.”
The proposition he submits to us is
“free coinage.”
That is different.
It would mean that the miner could
carry to the mints 371J grains of sil¬
ver, worth fifty cents, and get a dol¬
lar for it.
The miner can afford that.
Can the people afford it?
It would mean that the United
States would pay for silver twice as
much as any man or any other Nation
would pay.
It would mean that this Government
would pay a dollar for a thing we can
buy for fifty cents, and buy an unlim¬
ited amount of it.
True, they tell us that this remark¬
able bargain is proposed in the inter¬
est of the people. What
Who are the “people?” does
the word mean?
Is it a word that can embrace all the
Populites in the world one day, and
next day apply only to a few Senators
who own silver mines?
Possibly we have done Senator
Miner injustice by insinuating that
he does not really love the people.
It may be that he is himself the
people. doubt his
In that case who can
love?
Has he not, in every official act,
shown a sincere desire to befriend
himself?
Senator Miner is not in favor of
“free silver.”
He is for “free coinage.”
The Gold Bug.
Touching Silverites on the Raw.
The Baltimore News touohes the
free silverites ou the raw when it says:
“The rise in the price of cotton is
a somewhat disheartening fact for the
silver prophets who were saying some
time ago that cotton was low because
silver was low; that'there could be no
rise of cottou until silver rose, and
that silver could not rise until we had
free and unlimited coinage. These
wise men now stand nonplussed, for
cotton has gone up and is steadily ad¬
vancing and bar silver is quoted lower
than it was when cotton was five cents.
The least logical mind must recognize
from these facts that silver does not
regulate the price of cotton; yet it
may be that there will still be
men who will find a way to make their
theory fit. ”
Pestiferous I liter meddling*
The advocates of free silver are
pressing for legislation to compel the
acceptance of silver, not by those who
do want it—no law is necessary for
that—but by those who do not want
it; and this at the importunity, not of
those who prefer silver, but of those
who, having it, or thinking they can
prooure it cheaply, wish to be enabled
by law to force it upon others who
neither have it nor want it. This
seems to me the most pestiferous in¬
termeddling possible.—Hon. John
DeWitt Warner.
Good Times Getting in Their Work.
The good times are killing the free
silver craze, and the people will see
to it that tree silver will not get a
chance to kill the good times. —Kan¬
sas City Star.
COSt OP BAD MDNEf
Falls on Wage Earners Because
Prices Rise Faster Thun Wages.
Mr. Edward Atkinson has contribu¬
ted to Harper’s Weekly an article ex¬
hibiting the effect of a depreciated
currency upon the working classes and
people of small means. It consists of
deductions from the experience of the
country daring the paper money
regime. The first thing shown is the
fact well known to all who re member
that period, or have familiarized them¬
selves with it, that wages did not rise
so promptly as the prices of commodi¬
ties. The average for seven years
after the introduction of the legal
tender notes shows an increase of
wages of 35.9 per cent, and an increase
in general prices of 71 per cent. This
amounts to much the same thing as a
reduction of nearly one-third in wages.
No fact is better understood by all
who have even a slight acquaintance
with financial history than that wages
advance less rapidly than prices, and
legislation which reduces the purchas¬
ing power of money therefore falls
heavily upon nine-tenths of the popu¬
lation. At a later period wages rose,
but that was when the paper dollar
was “appreciating” in value according
to the common phrase. The silver
and other cheap money men cannot be
expected to understand this, but it is
the fact.
After allowing for the increased
taxation to which the Government was
obliged to resort, Mr. Atkinson con¬
cludes that about a billion dollars a
year for seven years, 1862 to 1869, was
transferred from the many who live on
wages to the few who live on profits by
this reduction in the purchasing power
of the dollar. It is this perfectly well
established eflect of a reduction in the
money unit upon wage receivers that
makes the clamor of portions of the
working classes in this country for the
silver instead of the gold dollar in¬
comprehensible. The working classes
of Europe know better than this; in
Germany they have openly opposed
any attack upon the gold standard;
in both England and Germany the sil¬
ver men, who are the only international
bimetalists, are nobles and great land
owners.
Mr. Atkinson also figures reasona¬
bly enough that the cost of the war
was increased a billion dollars by the
depreciation of the dollar, and the in¬
terest upon that increased cost has
amounted to a billion dollars. Proba¬
bly both of these estimates are too
low. The purchases of the Govern¬
ment were especially large at the time
when the dollar was most depreciated.
Mr. Atkinson gives his reasons for
believing that for a term of years the
depreciation of the greenback amount¬
ed to a tax of forty dollars upon every
man, woman and child, or $120 annu¬
ally upon every bread winner.
He is quite justified in suggesting
that the foundations or many of the
great fortunes that now worry the
Populists and the Socialists were laid
by the depreciation of the currency
in the war period and the transfer to
profits of an immense amount of the
National production which would
otherwise have gone to wages. Yet
these Populists and Socialists are de¬
termined to bring about another and
a much more sudden depreciation of
the money unit.—New York Journal
of Commerce.
Not on This Planet.
A champion of the fifty-cent silver
dollar in this city (The American)
says: “In the silver-using countries,
where a bushel of wheat sells for a dol¬
lar, the wheat grower can afford to pay
more dollars to the farm hand than in
a country where he gets fifty cents or
less. ” It would be interesting to learn
where is to be found that happy land
of silver where a bushel of wheat sells
for a dollar, and where the wheat
grower can afford to pay so much more
to a farm hand than in the gold coun¬
tries. Is it Mexico, or China, or In¬
dia, or Japan? If not one of these
countries, possibly it is the Wonder¬
land which little Alice found in her
travels; or it may be in the moon.
Certainly it is not to be found any¬
where on this planet.—Philadelphia
Record.
Opinion of a Philosopher.
Uncle Ned—“I don’t adzaotly know
all de vantages of free silver, but if
it’s free, whut more does I wanter
know? An’ dat word ‘onlimitad’—hit
mean plenty for ever’body, an’ plenty
to snare!”—The Geld Bug.
Little Tee Wee
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Little Tee Wee,
He went to sea
In an open boat;
And while afloat
The boat bended.
My story's ended.
AN UNSOUND EGG ARGUMENf.
The 16 to 1 people tell us that the
coinage of silver will create unlimited
demand for it. They decline to give
us the howness or the whereforness of
this new-born demand, but with child¬
like faith, they expect it to rise in all
its beauty, as the fabled Venus rose
from the froth of the sea. They say
the demand will come, so the Seventh
Day Adventists tell us the end will
come, and if their picnic comes off
first, they will not need silver; the de¬
mand will be for free and unlimited
water. They contend, if this Govern¬
ment takes all the silver that comes,
at 16 to 1, silver will i»e worth par all
over the world, and they use an egg
argument to prove it. They say, if a
merchant advertises that he will pay
swenty-five cents per dozen for eggs,
to long as he has the ability to fake
all that come, eggs will be worth
twenty-five cents in all that country.
But suppose the merchant did not take
them ! Suppose when a farmer drove
up to his store the merchant said un¬
to him: “My friend, you have mis¬
understood me. I am not buying eggs,
I am simply counting them, certifying
that they are good and handing them
back to you.” What would eggs then
be worth? The same old ten or fifteen
cents per dozen. Under unlimited
coinage the Government would not
buy silver, nor guarantee the value of
the coins. It would stamp it “with¬
out recourse. ” Silver would come
from every country in the world, and
the Government would be a fool to
undertake to guarantee the value of
the coins by trying to preserve the
parity between the metals. If a herder
drove a lot of cow ponies through the
mint and tney were branded “$100
horse” and delivered to the owner at
the other end of the building, it would
not improve the breed of the ponies
nor create a wild demand for them at
the brand price. Our Government has
lost $200,000,000 trying to create de¬
mand for silver, for the sole and sep¬
arate use, behoof, and benefit of the
silver mine owner, by buying it when
it did not want it and had no need of
it; and the silver-mining “villain still
pursues” it! Uncle Sam has this sil¬
ver on hand now. It would load a
two-horse wagon train 173 miles long,
patting 1000 pounds on each wagon
and letting them occupy 30 feet Jjeach
in line; and 1 am mean enough to
want to see him get even with the
game before we start a new deal for
anybody’s benefit.—Hon. Geo. N. Al¬
dridge before American Banker’s As¬
sociation, October 16, 1895.
The Giant Masculine Intellect.
Mr. Wickwire- “Explain the silver
question? Certainly, my dear. It
really resolves itself into two proposi¬
tions. One crowd wants the man who
owes a dollar to pay two dollars, and
the other thinks he ought to only pay
fifty cents.”
Mrs. Wickwire—“But why shouldn’t
they make it so that he who owes a
dollar pays a dollar?”
Mr. Wickwire—“Because in that
case no one would make any extra
money. And still the women think
they know something of the science
of Government. You make me tired. ”
—Indianapolis Journal.
Both on the Right Road.
The free silver Democrats in Ohio
who refuse to vote for sound money
nominees for the Legislature mdy feed
fat their grudges by such a course, but
they cannot advance their cause. Hap¬
pily, a Republican Legislature m Ohio
is as likely to be right on the money
question as a Democratic Legislature,
Both parties in the past have made
some bad lapses, but both are now on
the road toward financial sense aDd
soundness. The cry for free silver
coinage is becoming very faint and
feeble in all parts of the country.
Poor Man Always Gets Lett.
Q. The free coinage men say free
silver would benefit the poor man
more than it would the capitalist?
A. That isn’t so. If property goes
up in price the man having most of it
will benefit most, the man having lit¬
tle will benefit little, and the man
having nothing will not benefit at all.
The same is true of silver as of any
other property. Bat it might not
hurt them as bad as it would some
capitalists. —Merchant.
The South’s Worst Enemy.
“I know of no more effective way of
crippling the South and its industries
than for our people to clamor for the
payment of debts already contracted
and hereafter to be contracted in de¬
preciated silver dollars.”—Hon. Hil¬
ary A. Herbert.
The Savannah News states the case
thus clearly and tersely; “The dead
free silver movement will be buried in
grave clothes made of eight-ceut cot¬
ton.”
Senator Mills is the last prominent
man to leave the sinking silver ship.
But Peffer and Blackburn are still left,
and mean to stay on the burning deck,
after all bnt them have fied.
Speech is silver, ana both are pretty
cheap juet now.
GOLDEN STAGE OF CIVILIZATION,
Since man become a trading animal
and had gumption enough to appre
ciate the advantages of moaey over
barter, the form of currency has
everywhere been an indication of the
degree of civilization attained. furs', I n
the hunting stage skins and and
sometimes shells, beads and other
substitutes for jewelry were used as
currency. In the pastoral stage sheen
and oattle were the usual, with tusks
and perhaps slaves the unusual
forms of currency. In the agricul¬
tural stage, wheat, barley, Indian
corn, olive oil, tobacco, sugar, ginger,
eggs, products dried used codfish, were some of the'
times and places. as currency Cotton at different
salt, cloth, straw
mats, beeswax, hand-made nails
have each served as currency.
By evolution aq^ progress the U30
of each of these commodities as car
rency has been discarded. It was
found that each lacked some essential
quality for use as money. Some were
perishable ; others too bulky and hard
to transport; others could not be
easily divided for the purpose of mak¬
ing “change;” others were not uni¬
form in size ; others were easily coun¬
terfeited ; and nearly all lacked stabil¬
ity of value.
The metals being peculiarly adapted
for use as currency most civilize 1 or
half-civilized Nations early recognized
these advantages and made money of
metals. Iron, lead, tin, copper,
platinum, nickel, silver and gold have
each served as money, especially
among manufacturing and commer¬
cial Nations, The civilized Nations
have practically abandoned the use of
all but silver and gold, and the most
highly civilized Nations have dis¬
carded, or are discarding, the use of
silver, except for subsidiary coinage.
Gold is undoubtedly the best fitted
of all metals for monetary purposes.
It is for this reason that it has sur¬
vived as money and has become the
standard of value iD all leading com¬
mercial Nations. We are now in the
golden stage of civilization and have
as surely passed the silver stage as we
have the agricultural and pastoral
stages. Those who are trying to pre¬
vent the completion of this process of
evolution are unnecessarily wasting
nerve tissue. They should read what
the Darwins and Huxleys, who have
studied the history of money, have to
say and they will dream less about
“gold bugs” and “Wall street” and
enjoy better health and make better
citizens of the modern world.
Free Silver’s “Ideal” Dollar.
The free silver men have invented
that “ideal” dollar, of which it will
require only a few for what we have
to buy, but of which we can get a
great many tor what wa have to sell.
If free coinage doesn’t reduce the pur¬
chasing power and increase the debt
paving power of the dollar, one part
of its advocates will be disappointed.
If it does do that, Others of its advocates
will not get what they want; it cer¬
tainly would turn out to be the worst
“boomerang” a sane people eves hain
died. —Merchant.
Called Dowd
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Dicker}*, ulckery, dare,
The pig flew up ia the air;
The man in brown
Soon brought him down,
Dickery, dickery, dare.
Only a Free Silver Soliloquy.
An exchange publishes a long arti¬
cle entitled “How It Feels to Die.”
We have not read it, but presume it
is a soliloquy of the free silver move¬
ment.—Atlanta Journal.
When the Crops Begin to Move.
It seems the way thet people act thet
trouble’s in the air, tney
Far all the big men’s faces look as ii
hcLd a scar©! be s0
But father says it is no use for folks to
glum, bag into
Far when the cro ij>s move
’Twit
Slake
Things
Hum!
Tiiay talk about the silver crare an’ skerst?
of coin ‘P arl ’
And wonder if there isn’t some new
But father thay kin it join! seems to him the peopl es
sez
going dumb, begin to move
Fer when the crops
’Twill
Make
Things Hum!
An’ father sez the feliars thst has nothin*
But set^around azl talk an’ t3lk on things
thet don’t came true. them and laak l ® 1
Had better get a move on
“kingdom come,” begin to move
Fer when the crop3
’Twill
Make
Things Hum'
—Olathe SIitr»