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THE CONYERS WEEKLY, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1895. HOW DEFRECIAHON WOULD WOKE, I r 11 SEP SIHII im rnmmmm i_ J m ■ fl I ; ar 1 M 1 m im\ ii tt I m V MSS!®'' ! v i in mm m I I hi 1 m ConfrfitHcffi; A m i m 1PP1 ill omm • ..... 1 m fill I i a PTU i im. & •V ..U !gTRWE.S 8 f' 3 ' lll M l east ■I trr-t 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 Kg ~ /iSt 7 ) v ii Am 0 v CJ LM --V 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 # * £ r |* % II 1 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»