Newspaper Page Text
VOL. VI.
NANCIAL CATECHISM
APTER ON INDEPENDENT
!i ACTION—PLAIN FACTS.
|«ler the Safeguards of the Democratic
Ltatform the United States Can Coin
h jree Without Fear of Foreign
fc-ator*.
ai.
But if we adopt free silver will
our foreign securities be thrown
upon the markets and how are we to
Pay our foreign obligations?
A. All foreign obligations falling due
mutt be paid, no matter whether we
hava free silver or a gold standard,
lnless they be extended. If foreign
securities, which are foreign debts, be
thrown upon our markets they will be
eagerly taken by our own people, and
no patriotic citizen will regret very
deeply such a change. From condi¬
tions brought about by “foreign in¬
vestments” so ardently loved by advo
eates of the gold standard, by which
30,000,000 acres of our domain—a ter
. ritory greater than New York or Penn¬
sylvania, belongs to foreigners, such
as the British Lord Scully, who owns
3,000,000 acres in Illinois, and applies
to it the pernicious system of British
landlordism; the legislature of Illinois
has thought it necessary -to protect us
by prohibiting the ownership of lands
in Illinois by foreigners. And I am
one of those who would rather use
home capital and home products for
the development of home lands and in¬
dustries. We will pay our foreign ob¬
ligations as we have always done, in
our own products, which consist of
gold, silver, wheat, cotton, corn and
manufactured articles, just as we paid
them from 1860 to 1880, when we had
nothing but paper money. And be¬
cause the burden will fail upon our
wheat and cotton and corn it is im¬
portant that the price of these articles
shail be kept up in order that we may
be enabled to pay our debts.
Q. Does the disuse of silver as stand¬
ard money affect the price of these
commodities?
A. It does. With 60 cents in gold
the English merchant, can buy from us
one ounce of silver. He can take his
ounce of silver to India. Russia or the
Argentine Republic, all silver coun¬
tries, and exchange it for a bushel of
wheat. By selling a bushel of wheat
for an ounce of silver the wheat-raiser
of Russia, Argentina or India is get¬
ting as much for his wheat as he ever
got, and his ouned of silver will ex¬
change in his own country for as much
as it ever would. Because he is com¬
peting with us for the wheat market
of the world we must sell our wheat
for the same price, 60 cents in gold, or
one ounce of silver. But an ounce of
silver will only pay 60 cents’ worth of
debts or buy 60 cents’ worth of sup¬
plies for us, where formerly It paid
$1.29 worth of debts and bought $1.29
worth of supplies. So if we must com¬
pete for the market of our most im¬
portant products with silver countries
we must use the kind of money they
use or get worsted. What is true of
wheat is true of all our products so
far as they compete for the markets of
the world. One result of thiB decrease
of prices is shown in the following
statement: To pay the national debt
at the close of the year 1895 would re¬
quire
646,778,584 bushels of wheat,
90,780,731 barrels more flour,
8,673,406,863 pounds more cotton,
51,339,540 barrels’ more mess pork
than it would have in 1866.
Q. But why do you take wheat, etc.,
for illustration? Has not the cost of
raising wheat and other agricultural
products been greatly reduced of late
by the invention of labor-saving ma¬
chinery, and are not the low prices due
to overproduction?
A. We take wheat and other agri¬
cultural products for example because,
as has already been said, they are im
portant in that we must rely upon
them in trade with foreign nations and
in paying foreign debts. They constl
tute 95 per cent of our exports.- We
are very much interested in them. The
period of great labor-saving invention^
Came before 1873. Prior to 1873 steam
was being utilized, the cotton gin, the
grain drill, tbe reaper and the thresher
had taken the place of hand work, the
cradle and the flail, yet prices had not
fallen as they have done since 1873.
Nor is the cost of production of whestt
being greatly reduced. According to
the report of the Illinois state board of
’agriculture for 1895, the average cost
of production of wheat from
1873 to 1895 was 72 cents per bushel;
1881 to 1895 was 75 cents per bushel;
1893 to 1895 was 69.4 cents pe£
bushel.
Nor is over-production the cause.
From 1860 to 1673 the production of
wheat in the world increased annually
at the rate of 2.8 per cent; at the same
time prices advanced 20 per cent. From
1873 to 1885 the world’s production
G-aly Increased 1.6 per cent annually, a
Lecrease of almost one-half, but prices
fell nearly 32 per cent. Under present
conditions, however, there seems to be
an under-consumption. In 1877 we
consumped per capita 5.01 bushels of
wheat when It was $1.17 per bushel.
In 1894 we consumed but 3.41 bushels
per capita, though it was worth but 67
THE RECORD . •
WRIGHTS Vi LLB.GA., THURSDAY, DECEMBER, 15, 1898.
cents par bushel. The conclusion is In¬
evitable that neither tthe reduction ot
the cost of production or an over-pro¬
duction has caused the decrease in
price, and it is also shown that a great
deal more would be consumed if the
people had the means with which it
could be secured.
Q. Is there not a possibility that
some one or some “business interests”
may be injured to some extent? e. g.,
may not persons or corporations who
receive fixed incomes, salaries or
wages be compelled to pay higher
prices for what they buy and receive no
more than they now do for their ser¬
vices or any increase of income?
A. The class receiving fixed incomes
incapable of being advanced is alone
the beneficiary of a single gold stand¬
ard. Blaine put the case very clearly
in 1880 when he said: "The destruction
of silver as money and establishing of
gold as the sole unit of value must
have a ruinous effect on all forms of
property except those investments
which yield a fixed return in money.
Those would be enormously enhanced
in value and would give a dispropor¬
tionate and unfair advantage over
every other species of property. Few
incomes, however, are absolutely fixed.
Almost avery line of business and
every product of human endeavor
must be affected advantageously by
the general prosperity of the masses.
If it be insisted that some will suffer
at least some inconvenience if not
slight actual loss, I can reply in no
better way than by using the language
of an old soldier of my acquaintance:
‘When the war broke out I was lead¬
ing a pleasant, prosperous life. My
country called me to face the dangers
of flying shot and shell and whistling
bullets. Did I heed her call I must
give up my peaceful, pleasant career
and risk my life. I must give up my
$40 per month to receive $13. But the
welfare of my countrymen, the fate of
a nation hung in the balance, and I
shouldered my gun.’ Almost the same
condition confronts me today. Ten
million ill-paid or unemployed labor¬
ers, my countrymen, are appealing to
me. I hear the complaints of fifty
millions of homeless men, women and
children. I know that tens of thou¬
sands in this land of abundance are
in want. The future welfare of my
country is at stake. My duty Is clear,
and though I and some with me be
reduced to bread and water, I will
vote for bimetallism and a return of
prosperity to my country.” Because a
man has % fixed salary or income to¬
day is no indicattion that his condi¬
tion will be the same next week or
next year. At the caprice of an em¬
ployer he may be dismissed at any
moment and be supplanted by one of
the dozen or more who are waiting for
such a place. Nor is a present fixed
Income an assurance to any man that
his good fortune will descend to his
children and possess them of a like
advantage.
Q. Do not the Republicans favor the
free and unlimited coinage of silver?
A. They say so In their platform,
but affirm that we should wait for in¬
ternational agreement.
Q. Well, if it be a condition to be
desired at all, why not have it at
once?
A.
Q. And if it be not desirable, why
attempt to promote it by international
agreement?
A.
Q. Or, if It be in any measure neces¬
sary, what are we to do while waiting
for international agreement or in case
of failure to secure it?
A.
The platform does not answer these
questions and I leave them to the
reader.—J. J. Thompson’s Financial
Catechism,
Now ITse for Oilcloth.
Oilcloth is the new material for pa¬
pering ceilings, the term “paper” be¬
ing used at present In a very elastic
sense, signifying anything that can be
put on walls or ceiling. The advan¬
tage of an oilcloth ceiling is readily
discernible, as dust, like good actions,
is sure to rise, and if one’s home is il¬
luminated by gas or lamps there is only
the recourse to the unsightly chande¬
lier protectors to keep the ceiling from
getting smudged. The oilcloth can be
washed frequently and be kept, by the
aid of a daffip cloth, as good as new for
infinite spaces of time or until one
moves tq a newer apartment. The task
of putting on the oilcloth requires an
expert, as the joining is not the easiest
thing to do. Jf you think so, try it.
The patterns of oilcloths seem partic¬
ularly well adapted for ceilings, with
their scroll and line effects, which do
not conflict with the patterns of the
wall paper or its monochromatic effect.
Going: Too Far.
Pilgarllc—My wife promised ever to
be true to me. Stiffins—Well, so shj is,
isn’t she? Pilgarlic—Yes, but she goes
too far. This morning she told me
I hadn’t the sense of a yalier dog.—
Boston Transcript.
Between Friends.
Edith—He told me I was so Interest¬
ing and so beautiful. Julia—And you
will trust yourself for life with a man
who begins deceiving you even at the
commencement of his courtship!—Tit
Bits.
TRE OUTLOOK IS GOOD
FOR A SWEEPING REFORM VIC¬
TORY. IN 1900.
How the Republicans Made Gains Tills
Tear In tbe West—The Adoption of
Direct Legislation In South Dakota a
fopulUt Triumph.
All along the line the opponents of
the gold standard and the allied mo
nopolies are expressing their confi¬
dence that in two years more, when
the Hannaites now in full control of all
branches of the national government
have shown their hand, there will be
a complete political overturning and
the people will be in the saddle.
The Kansas City Star, in crowing
over the Republican success in Kansas,
unwittingly proves that the result was
no popular repudiation of free silver,
and that the small Republican major¬
ity was secured simply through thor¬
ough organization and unlimited cam¬
paign funds used to bring to the polls
every Republican voter, while nothing
of that kind was even attempted by the
fusionlsts, who merely stated their ar¬
guments and left the people to vote or
stay at home, as they saw fit. In any
off year the minority party can always
win if it makes the effort and spends
the money necessary to poll its full
vote, while the majority party relies
upon the usual campaign methods.
Chairman Hanna conducted a still hunt
in all of the western states this year
and furnished the money to get the
whole Republican vote to the polls.
The Kansas City Star says: “All this
was done so secretly that the fusionlst
committees had no idea what they were
up against until the votes were
counted.”
In a presidential election the voters
all vote, and in the west and south the
majority for free sliver and aga'inst
monopoly control of the government is
as great as it ever was, while the elec¬
tion returns showed that in the middle
west and the east the goldbugs have
decidedly lost ground.
In South Dakota the direct legisla¬
tion constitutional amendment, sub¬
mitted by the fusion legislature, carried
by a decided majority, thus establish¬
ing forever Populist government in
one state at least—government by the
people. The only reason similar
amendments have not been submitted
in Kansas and other western states is
that the fusionlsts did not have enough
votes in the legislatures. They will
have the votes two years hence.
The organs-of the pawnbroker’s par¬
ty assert, with a good deal of self-com¬
placency, that they have the senate
“fixed” for the next twenty years, so
that no matter how much the people
may struggle for relief from the ruin¬
ous single standard, they can accom¬
plish nothing during that long period.
It would Indeed be a dark and hopeless
prospect i! this were true, but the con¬
ditions do not warrant so gloomy an
outlook. We shall have a
majority in the senate after
March, but the size of that majority
cannot yet be predicted. There will
a change of 30 senators, 15
12 Republicans, 1 Populist and 2
Republicans. Several of the
Democrats who retire are for the
standard, and in changing them
Republicans we lose nothing, as
represent the same principles. In
ting rid of them, therefore, we are
ply clearing the field for action and
posing of a dangerous and
element.
In March, 1901, there will be
change of 30 Senators—11
17 Republicans, 1 Populist and 1
Republican. The legislatures that
choose these senators will be elected
1900, and that is where the great
for freedom must be made. We
to apd must elect a president, a
of representatives, and gain control
enough legislatures to insure a
ity in the senate after March, 1901,
the Journal of Agriculture.
revolutions have taken place under
less vital necessities. Some of the
ators In this list who are classed
Republicans will vote for the
interest on any reasonable proposition
for financial reform, .while we shall
certainly replace quite a number
with true bimetallists. Among
latter are Wolcott of Colorado, Ba¬
of Kansas, Carter of Montana, Cul
of Illinois, Elkins of West Virgin¬
McBride of Oregon, McMillan
Thurston of Nebraska, War¬
of Wyoming, and others. In fact,
is impossible to predict the result,
the-force of the revolution prom¬
to be so great that it may make
a clean sweep.
A Thriftless Habit.
What an oversight it was on the part
the Creator to make sleep necessary
poor folks. Sleep Is a non-produc¬
thriftless, unpatriotic -habit, and,
property, was certainly never
for the masses.—Coming Nation.
PRODUCTION, CONSUMPTION.
False Assumptions and Self-Evident
Propositions.
Xt is often urged that business must
be good and everybody prosperous be¬
cause we as a nation can and have pro¬
duced so much; in the way of agricul¬
tural products and manufactured ar¬
ticles. Production of itself camiot
make business for any length of time,
unless there is a sufficient outlet for
that production in the way of con
sumption. The farmer does not make
money, and cannot purchase supplies,
no matter how many bushels of wheat
per acre he has raised, until a market
for that wheat is found and if is turned
into money. Nor can the manufacturer
make a profit by mere production, if
he could all that would be needed in
a dull period would be to start 1iis ma
chinery and forthwith he would be¬
come wealthy. These propositions are
so self-evident that it seems a waste
of space to present them, but as long
as false assumptions are put forward
as facts it will be necessary to com
bat them. The same people who are
now pointing to our ability to produce
as an evidence of our prosperity were
not long ago laying depressed busi-,
ness, idle factories and fifty-cent wheat
to “overproduction.” At a great risk
of being accused of mixing politics and
agriculture, says Farm, Stock and
Home, it must be said that it seems
strange to an ordinary observer that
the same conditions of production un¬
der one administration, made tor ruin
and desolation, while under another
they stand for happiness and prosper¬
ity, and low-priced wheat today is con¬
sidered a blessing, when two years ago
it was a curse.
Prosperity -Notes.
On a single page of a New York
daily newspaper last week appeared the
following items of news:
Charles Schmidt voluntarily deliv¬
ered himself into the hands of the po¬
lice, requesting that he might be com¬
mitted to prisen for the winter. “I
have answered countless advertise
ments,” he said; “I have walked miles
every day. I have performed menial
services for my meals and lodging.
But, despite my constant search, I have
been unable to obtain a position that
will keep me from starvation. I have
no friends or resources. The cold
weather makes sleeping in the parks
an impossibility. I am hungry, weary,
half ill.” The magistrate granted his
request and sent him to prison for six
months.
Hugh Deany walked the streets of
New York until he fell exhausted. An
ambulance was called, but before it
arrived he was dead. "Starvation was
the cause of his death.”
A company of striking tailors march¬
ed up Fifth avenue, bearing aloft a
placard which all might read. Upon it
appeared the words: "We are the tail¬
ors who have made the coats and
gowns for the richest ladies in the
country, without being able to keep
ourselves and our families from starva¬
tion."
Wages at Home and Abroad.
A Boston manufacturer’s organ, after,
making an exhaustive comparison of
the wages paid in cotton mills in Eng¬
land and the United States, is forced
to admit that “English weavers are as
well paid as American, and in many
cases better paid!” The same paper
also finds that it costs the English
manufacturer more for spinning than
the American! And yet our cotton
manufacturers must be highly protect¬
ed against the products of the English
manufacturer, and our operatives must
be protected against the "pauper la¬
bor” that Is getting better wages than
they are! These are. only added evi¬
dences that we are reaching or have
reached European conditions, the in¬
evitable result of the adoption of a'Eu¬
ropean system of money.
Two Kinds of People.
Industrially, I divide mankind into
two great classes—wealth-makers and
wealth-takers. A farmer, a mechanic,
a laborer, is a wealth-maker. A mil¬
lionaire, a usurer, a capitalist, is a
wealth-taker. A tramp is a wealth
taker on a small scale. He begs for
what he gets; the other fellow simply
takes it without begging.—J. A. Edger
ton.
Reaps What He Has Sown.
Wretched old John Sherman says
that Hanna and McKinley buncoed him
out of his seat in the senate and bit¬
terly complains of their treatment of
him. John, how about that little bunco
game you played upon the American
people in 1873? Are not these men you
complain of pupils of yours?—Silver
Knight-Watchman.
Bonds Are All Right.
Issue lots of bonds, but don’t make
them over 7% inches long and 2 Inches
wide. Then make them full legal ten¬
der, and pay no interest on them, and
there you are.—Pittsburg Kansan.
They Have It in South Dakota.
Direct legislation will give the peo¬
ple any reform that they want. Rep¬
resentative government will give the
monopolies anything they will pay for.
—The Sentinel.
LABOB AND INDUSTBY
SOME ITEMS OF INTEREST TO
UNION WORKMEN.
Negro (education—Whs the Training
Should fit: Industrial and Not Literary
Georgia ami the Currency Question—
The Textile Workers.
The Mail Who Is Beady Now.
I want to join the army
And wear a uniform;
I want to be a soldier, since
There are no forts to storm.
I*want to have brass buttons,
I’d like some shoulder-straps.
So that I might look down upon
All ordinary chaps.
X want to be a soldier,
I want a sword to wear;
I want to ride a horse and smash
The hearts of maidens fair;
I’d like to join the army
At the present moment, for
I’ll be a long, long time before
AVe have another war. •
—Cleveland Leader.
Negro Education.
“One of the most serious mistakes
that have been made all over this
country in the treatment of the negro,”
the principal of one of the colored
schools said’to a Baltimore Sun man,
“has been the establishing of schools
in every way like the schools for white
children. The white children have the
inheritance which have desceneded to
them through generations of cultivated
and intelligent ancestors. The ne¬
groes have'no such Inheritance. The
education that is adapted to the higher
intelligence of the whites is too high
for the negro in his present state.
Three or Your generations hence he
will be ready for the kind of education
that is offered him now. What he
needs now is industrial training, com¬
bined with some literary training.
“The present system of training Has
a tendency to qualify them for clerical
positions, but nine-tenths of the color¬
ed people earn their living by manual
labor, and for many years to come will
have to do so. It is true that we have
a polytechnic institute for colored boys
here in Baltimore, but more attention
is given to the grammar grades to pre¬
paration for the high school course
than for the polytechnic course.
“I don’t want to give the impression
that I think they get too much literary
training in the primary and grammar
schools. What they do get is too much
in a certain space of time. They can
not accomplish the grade work as read¬
ily as the white children can and the
two schools ought to be graded differ¬
ently. Longer time ought to be al¬
lowed for the accomplishing of the
grade work, and the course, by all
means, ought to include manual train¬
ing.
After nearly twenty years’ experi¬
ence as a teacher in colored schools it
seems to me that it would be wiser to
reegonize the existing conditions—to
recognize the dense ignorance which
prevails among the majority of the col¬
ored people; to recognize the fact that
the standard of living is not thb same
among the colored people as among
the whites, and to make allowance for
it in our school system. Neither the
Income nor the intelligence of the col¬
ored people enables them to live as
the majority of the white people live.
Why not recognize the fact? Some
of the colored children must add to the
family income. Instead of making
rules which refuse to recognize this,
why not rearrange the system so that
they can have the advantage of the
very necessary training?”
Consol Stowe's Advice.
From Chicago News; In his report
to a Chicago export association Consul
General Stowe confirms what has been
said in these columns about the neces¬
sity of American manufacturers’ study¬
ing the requirements of foreign trade.
On the subject of fly screen Mr. Stowe’s
expresses volumes in a single para¬
graph:
“I received a bid recently,” he says,
“for four cheap screen doors and seven
windows (lower sash only), the wire
on the windows to be simply tacked
on, and the price was $27.50. The peo¬
ple here know nothing of fly screens,
though they are as necessary as in
America.”
Mr. Stowe emphasizes the fact that
the best plan would be for some one
posted on the manufacturing of doors,
windows and similar parts of a house
to go to South Africa and see how the
houses are built, as they differ from
those in this country. Lumber is
scarce and very high in that part of
the world and the Americans could
monopolize the market if they wanted
to.
That there is money in the project
is evident by the price Mr. Stowe paid
for his window screens. In Chicago
the order would be filled for $5 or $6
at the outside and probably for less,
as Mr. Stowe says the wire was cheap
and had large meshes and the lumber
Was poor.
"One of the lessons,” Mr. Stowe sug¬
gests, "to be learned by the American
manufacturer is that he must adapt
his products to the wants and needs
of the foreign buyer. You cannot
force upon the foreign buyer what you
may honestly believe is the article he
ought to buy, but after willingly sup¬
plying him with tfhat he wants you
NO 40.
can gain his good-will and cofidence
and finally convince him that you are
right and he is wrong.”
If American manufacturers hope to
keep pace with the American expan¬
sion policy they must study the for¬
eign trade. When they do that they
will control It.
Georgia Currency Reformers.
Evi4ently the Georgia house of rep¬
resentatives is composed of advanced
scientific currency reformers of the
Carlisle-Gage-Etcetera school. The
difference between the Georgia legisla¬
tors and the reformers who have had
their theories promulgated from the
treasury department is that the Geor¬
gians are the more logical and candid
of the two. The Georgia house has re¬
enacted a latfr permitting any bank in
the state to issue circulating notes to
the extent of 75 per cent of its paid-in
capital and inviting would-be benefi¬
ciaries of the law to test the constitu¬
tionality of that clause of the federal
bank law which imposes a tax of lb
per cent on state bank notes. The
Carlisle currency bill and, to a less
extent, the Gage bill, aimed precisely
in the direction of a condition which
would follow upon the Georgia law it
it were carried into effect. Both the
Carlisle and the Gage bill proposed.
that banks should be permitted to is¬
sue circulating notes based solely upon
their credit; and the proviso that the
federal government should guarantee
the payment of such notes served only
to emphasize the weakness of the pro¬
position. If we are to have a currency
which is based simply on the credit of
the issuing banks and which will be¬
come worthless when the banks fail,
save as the national government gra¬
tuitously steps In and pays the insol¬
vent bankers’ debt, why not go the
whole logical length and invite all and
sundry to hang out a bank sign and
start their printing presses? The Geor¬
gians head the procession of this style
of currency reform. Both plans will
do more to educate the people on the
financial question than was accom¬
plished in 1896.
Electric Wire In Africa.
According to advices from South Af¬
rica, no sooner was the British flag
floating over its ancient dervish capi¬
tal than Mr. Cecil Rhodes at once took
steps for expediting his scheme for a
t.ransafrican line of telegraph from
Cape Town to Cairo. Mr. Rhodes’ lieu¬
tenant, R. D. Mohun, has already left
Bombay with an expedition, bound
either for Zanzibar or Mombasa. The
party will take advantage of the Agree¬
ment latdly come to between the pro¬
moters and the Congo Free State, and
will construct a telegraph line from
Lake Tanganyika to Stanley Falla, on
the upper Congo, the work being car
rled out under the commission of the
state. W. CaVendish, the well known
explorer, is already carrying the line
northward through the extreme north¬
ern territory of the Chartered com¬
pany, and it iB confidently expected
that he will form a connection with
the Mohun line within the next two
years. By that time the Tanganyika
line will have reached Stanley Falls,
and Cape Town will be in telegraphic
communication with the chief town on
the tipper Congo, or, in other words,
half the length of the line which is
to connect Cape Town with Cairo will
he complete. On the other hand, ad¬
vices from Alexandria are that the line
is being pushed southward as fast as
possible. The Sirdar kept up complete
communication between the front and
Cairo, and now the news comes that
the line is being carried toward Fa
shoda from Khartum at tbe rate of
four miles a day. Among the members
of Mr. Mohun’s party is Dr. Castalottl,
who went out from Europe two years
ago for plague duty in India. He sub¬
sequently returned home, but has since
returned to Bombay to Join Mr. Mo¬
hun’s party, for which he acts as med¬
ical officer.—New York Times.
Textile Worken.
The general executive council of the
National Union of Textile-Workers of
America met in the Hotel Cadillac,
New York, the other day, and discussed
the advisability of making a demand
for fewer hours of work and higher
wages all over the country. The union,
it was said, may soon have a fight upon
its hands in the South, where the
wages of employes have already been
reduced. A member of the executive
committee was directed to confer with
the local leaders in Augusta, Ga.,,
where trouble is expected in the King
& Sibley mills.
Local Union No. 120, Wool-Pullers,
of this city, was pledged.to the finan¬
cial and moral support of the National
Union in its endeavors to obtain
shorter hours and better wages.
The council issued a statement, call¬
ing the attention of manufacturers to:
probable danger to the cotton Industry
of this country, in the event of tbe :
annexation of the Philippines. The
council said that if-tor-eign capital were
to build factories there the southern
manufacturers will suffer greatly.
Cleveland (O.) bakers use 409,000
union labels weekly.
There are 12,000 women trades un¬
ionists in Great Britain.
Philadelphia bricklayers get 45 cents
an hour, eight hours a day and have
a half-holiday Saturday.