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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