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4
WATSON’S GREAT SPEECH.
(Continued from page 1.)
of wage earners. These were the vic
tims of battle, of the march, of the
hospital. Besides, property to the
value of from $1,000,000,000 to $3,000,-
000,000 had been destroyed; yet,
when, we come to cast up accounts in
1870, we find that in spite of the losses
of the war, both in men and in prop
erty, the farmer has increased his es
tate to $11,000,000,000. How do you
account for this? There is only one
way under the sun by which it can be
accounted for. Just as the plentiful
paper money, issued by the govern
ment during the war, fed and clothed
and equipped three great armies for
battle, so the same currency flow
ing into the shrunken veins of com
merce, inspired the body politic with
new life and vigor and enabled it to
throw off the debility of four years of
civil strife.
Let us take another ten years.
From 1870 to 1880 the farmers go for
ward again, increasing the number of
hands employed, vastly increasing the
amount of product. In 1880 we find
that they own wealth —thei agricul
tural classes —to the amount of $12,-
000.000,000.
What! An increase of only $1,000,-
000,000 in a decade! Why such an aw
ful drop off? Why such a frightful
comparative loss? By the ratio of in
crease established in the two decades
between 1850 and 1870, the agricul
tural -wealth should have been at least
$22,000,000. What has become of the
$10,000,000,000 that they should have
piled up? If we look into the statute
books we will find that the money
power enthroned in Wall street has
been burning up hundreds of millions
of dollars of that paper money which
the government had issued.and that the
horror of falling prices has come upon
the farmer and has struck the light
out of his life. Just as in Great Brit
ain, whose paper money conquered
Napoleon, because of the fact that he
adhered to silver and gold, refusing to
issue paper, our statesmen, servile
tools of the money trust, began to de
stroy the currency which had come to
their relief in the hour of trial, when
silver and gold, the cowards, had hid
their heads. The historian tells us
that there was more suffering,
more business failures, more headlong
falls from affluence to poverty, more
wide-spread ruin and havoc, more
beggary and starvation, in Great
Britain during the years that folio-w
--ed the overthrow of Napoleon, while
the money power was destroying all
paper currency and resurrecting the
tyranny of gold, than had ever been
known in Great Britain during all the
terrible years of actual warfare.
In this country, a glance at the Sta
tistical Abstract will show exactly the
same conditions. In spite of the war,
in spite of the million wage earners
who lost their lives or their power to
work in that war, in spite of the desti
tution of the farmers, in spite of the
burning of great cities, like Atlanta
and Columbia, the cold census reports
reveal the astonishing fact that by
the aid of paper money, the farmers
of the Union, north, south, east and
west, had shaken off the losses of the
war, as the lion shakes the dewdrops
from his mane.
But in 1870 it was as though some
irresistible power had sent forth the
mandate to agricultural progress:
“Halt! Thus far shalt thou go but no
further.” We have the pathetic fact,
the almost incredible fact, given to us
in the dry statistical tables compiled
by the government that here was the
limit. The eight-and-a-half million
wage earners, peacefully and indus
triously at work in the field for ten
years with a capital of $11,000,000,000
employed, and yet after the ten years
have passed they can only show an
increase of $1,000,000,000 —not enough
by three fifths to pay decent wages to
the men employed, to say nothing of
taxes, repairs, and interest upon the
capital invested. Your common sense
will tell you that some awful cause
was operating against the farmer.
What was it? Contraction of the cur
rency. More than one thousand mil
lion dollars had been destroyed. This
money being made scarcer, it. was
harder to get and when the wage earn
er went into the market, either with
his labor or his product to sell, in or-
der to get dollars to'pay taxes and debts
fixed charges of the living, it took a
greater quantity of his labor and his
product to get the dollar than it ever
had taken before.
Let us take another decade, that
from 1870 to 1890. Conditions had
adjusted themselves. Earnest, true
hearted, statesmanlike men had in
some measure come to the relief of
the farmer. That noble old Roman,
Richard Bland, of Missouri, had so
persistently fought against the “crime
of 1873,” the shutting out of the silver
dollar from the legal coins of the
country, the reduction of the currency
to a panic basis, finally succeeded in
compelling congress to reopen the
mints to the coinage of silver, and
thus began to increase the currency
by something like $4,000,000 per
month. Immediately, the beneficial
results were apparent. The figures,
as given by the government in the
Statistical Abstract, are more elo
quently convincing than any mere
rhetoric could be. From 1870 to 1880,
as I have already told you, the farm
ers were able to increase their wealth
only one billion dollars. Between 1880
and 1890 they did four times as well,
increasing their wealth to sixteen bil
lion dollars. From. 1890 to 1900 there
is another increase, that being four
millions again, running the estate up
to twenty-and-a-half million. It should
have been twice that amount, but it
would have been the same story again
as that which we have heard with
reference to 1870 and 1880 had it not
been for the enormous increase in the
last decade of gold, thus giving to the
currency a natural expansion, which
to some extent, counteracted the dia
bolical plans of the money trust.
But let us now make a comparative
examination. In 1850, as I have al
ready told you, the agricultural wealth
of the country amounted to $4,000,-
000,000. What did the entire wealth
of the country amount to? $7,000,-
000,000. In 1860 the agricultural
wealth, as I have already said, amount
ed to $8,000,000,000. The entire wealth
of the country amounted to $16,000,-
000,000. Thus, you will observe the
farmers were keeping step in the
grand march of material prosperity.
They had doubled their estate, in
creasing it 100 per cent in that decade,
and they had 50 per cent of all the
wealth in the United States.
In 1870, after the four years of war,
what was the relative condition of the
farmer and all the balance of the
Union? The farmer held property to
the amount of $11,000,000,000. The
entire national estate amounted to $30,-
000,000,000. Thus, still, you see, the
farmer was keeping well up in spite of
the fact that the war, in destroying
so many wage earners and dislocating
the industrial system, had put him at
a great disadvantage.
In 1880, as we have already seen,
the agricultural classes possessed $12,-
000,000,000. How much was possessed
by all the others? $50,000,000,000
For the first time in the race the
farmer has dropped far behind.
In 1890, the agricultural classes
owned $16,000,000,000. All the other
classes owned $62,000,000,000. Aw r ay
behind, are the agricultural classes.
They are losing their estate —steadily
—steadily. Who is getting it? Who
is reaping where they sow? Who is
gaining where they lose? We shall
find that out by and by.
In 1900 the farmers owned $20,500,-
000,000. All the other classes owned
$76,000,000,000. The gap between the
agricultural class and the others is
becoming wider and wider, the yawn
ing gulf more impassable year by year.
Who is getting what the farmer is los
ing? We shall try to find out by and
by.
Let us examine a little further into
this Statistical Abstract and probe a
little more deeply the true condition
of the agricultural classes. We will
begin with 1880. In that year, as you
have already seen, the agricultural
classes possessed $12,000,000,000. In
other words, this is the amount of cap
ital which they had invested in their
business. They are working, in round
numbers, five millions of hands, near
ly six millions, indeed. After the
year’s work is over, after these six
millions of men, women and children
endure the heat and the cold, brave
the wind and the rain, frequently suf
fer in the sleet and the snow, the
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
gross value of their entire product is
$2,212,000,000. Do you admit that the
laborers in agricultural pursuit are
worthy of their hire? Surely. Will
you concede them the same rate of
pay that is given to the 2,700,000 mill
operatives who work during stated
hours of the day within the shelter of
walls and roof? Surely you will.
Then, what startling fact will confront
you? This: that you will not have
enough from the gross proceeds of the
agricultural products to pay the
wages by $372,000,000. There will not
be one penny for taxes, not one penny
for repairs, not one penny for interest
upon capital invested, and not enough
to pay the same wages paid in the
manufacturing industries. But on the
other hand, you will be lacking $372,-
000,000 of enough to pay good wages.
Examine the account as given by
Uncle Sam for the year 1890: Capi
tal invested in agricultural industries
$16,000,000,000, number of hands em
ployed 8,500,000, and gross product
sold for $2,460,000,000. And again the
awful fact stares you in the face, al
most paralyzing your intelligence,
that the entire gross product did not
sell for enough to pay to agricultural
laborers the same wage that was paid
to manufacturing laborers, but fell
short of that by $498,000,000. Not a
penny for taxes, not a penny for re
pairs, not a penny for interest upon capi
tal. Truly an awful situation, crying
aloud to a just God for remedy and re
form.
But let us come on down the line.
Let us see what Uncle Sam tells us
in his Statistical Abstract was the
condition of things in 1900, the date
of the last general census. In that
year the amount of capital invested in
agricultural industries was $20,500,-
000.000, the number of hands employed
10,500,000. In that year, owing to the
enormous expansion of the currency
in the increase of the output of the
gold mines of the world, and the dis
covery of a cheaper process by which
low grade ores could be worked at a
profit, the farmer got a much better
price for his product. The entire gross
product amounted to $3,374,000,000.
That year there was enough to pay
wages; there was something left over
after paying wages. How much?
$132.000.000 —about 5 per cent on the
$10,500,000,000 that were invested.
From this 5 per cent you must deduct
something for taxes, you must deduct
something for necessary repairs, and
by the time you have done this, the
utmost profit which you can say has
been earned by the labor of 10,500,000
workers, representing an investment
of $20,500,000,000, is a beggarly one or
two per cent.. And this is the very
first dividend that we have been able
to declare in twenty years, and you
will see at a glance, that it does not
begin to fill up the deficit of preced
ing years. Now it is perfectly clear
from the actual official report that the
farmer has been losing regularly and
losing rapidly. Somebody has been
getting what he has been making. Let
us take a search warrant ind try to
find that somebody. Let us look for
him through the cold, dry, official
tables published by Uncle Sam him
self. On page 110 of the Statistical
Abstract, I think we find one of these
big somebodies who has been making
off with some of the product of the
toil of the agricultural classes. He is
known in the Statistical Abstract as
the National Banking system. I find that
Uncle Sam says that in the year 1882
the national banker was making every
year a net profit of $54,000,000. My
own private opinion is that Uncle Sam
has put the case very mildly when he
says the national banker was only
earning $54,000,000 a year clear profit,
in 1882. What business does the na
tional banker follow for a living?
Why, the national banker is using for
his own personal and private benefit
the great sovereign prerogative of
government, known as the creation
of money. The national banker, who
is personally, in most cases, a most
elegant and excellent gentleman,
whose private and personal character
is usually above all reproach, and
against whom personally I would not
wish to be understood as saying any
thing harsh —enjoys the enormous ad
vantage of issuing his own notes to
be used by the balance of us as money,
and thus, the national banker—a most
excellent gentleman usually—gets rich
on what he owes. Surely, if there be
such a thing as a special privilege,
this is one example of it, a very spe
cial privilege indeed.
Let us glance at his condition again,
say in 1890.
By that time, we find that he has
increased the yearly, profit by using a
government prerogative for the bene
fit of his own private business until
Uncle Sam says he is making $70,-
000,000 per year clear profit. In 1900
the national banks are making SBO,-
000,000 clear profit and in 1905 they
have increased it until it is $106,000,000
per year net profit. Now I see what
goes with a part of the losses of the
farmer.
Let us dig and delve a little fur
ther into Uncle Sam’s Statistical Ab
stract. We come upon the loan and
trust companies, the savings bank
companies, the private banks and the
state banks, and we find that each of
these gentlemen may be described as
Shakespere describes the Thane of
Cawdor, each one of them is “a pros
perous gentleman.” They are all mak
ing huge, clear profits. In the aggre
gate, we find this most astonishing,
and rightly considered, alarming fact
—that in 1903 (and the condition is
practically the same today), these va
rious banking companies, including, of
course, the national banks, had avail
able cash assets to the amount of
$833,000,000, whereas they had loaned
out and were drawing interest upon
ten times that amount, to-wit, $8,333,-
000,000, more than twice as much as
all the money of every sort on the
North American continent. No won
der the Thane of Cawdor (?) is “a
prosperous gentleman,” when he can
hold in his hands one dollar and make
ten paper dollars, based upon that one
dollar, bring him in ten times as much
interest as that one dollar, by any pos
sibility, could earn. It would be an
amusing thing, indeed, if the Thane
of Cawdor were not a prosperous gen
tleman. I think we have found some
of the men with the goods on them.
Here is where some of the farmers’
money has been going.
But, there are others. Let us hunt
a little further. In Uncle Sam’s Sta
tistical Abstract I come upon the re
port of the railroad situation. In
brief, here are the facts. In 1880, the
railroads of the United States were
earning, in net profits, the stupendous
sum of $255,000,000. In 1890 these
net earnings had increased until they
reached annually the sum of $372,000,-
000. In 1900 the increase had gone
from year to year until in that year,
they had climbed to the pinnacle of
$483,000,000 and in 1905 so rapid had
been the growth of this profit that
they had $639,000,000 to draw interest
upon. You don’t need to be told that
the railroads have got a part of what
the farmers have lost. In the reckless
endeavor to earn dividends upon fic
titious values, watered stock, fraudu
lent issues of bonds, the Railroad
Kings have stopped at nothing. They
have paved the road of their conquest
with the wrecks of human fortune and
the blood of human sacrifice.
But let us dig and delve a little fur
ther. Let us examine into the condi
tion of the manufacturing industries.
In 1880 we find that the amount of
capital invested in manufactures was
$2,790,000,000; number of hands em
played less than 3,000,000. The prod
uct sold for more than five and a quar
ter billion. After paying off every
man, woman and child an average
wage of about $348, and after paying
for every dollar of material used in
the mills, there was a net profit re
maining to the manufacturer of sl,-
024,000. What! How much capital
employed? $2,790,000, and net earnings
of one year—how much? $1,024,000,
nearly 40 per cent and during that
year twice as many workers were in
the fields of agricultural industries,
five times as much money was invest
ed, and instead of making a single
dollar of clear profit, they fell short
of actual waaes, according to the mill
standard, $372,000,000.
Let us come down to 1890. The
amount of capital invested in manu
factures has been increased until it
is $6,525,000, the amount of employes
has been increased until it lacks only
250,000 pf being 5,000,000 (using round
numbers). The entire product sells
for nine and one-third billion, after
paying wages to every man, woman