The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-05-27

4
making progress in the West during the last
six months, and there are good reasons TOR
hoping that the popular errors and miscon-
captions on which Western demagogues prac-
tise to keep themselves in office will gradually
Weld to the force OF demonstration Even
before President Grants veto the best informed
classes in the West were pretty well cured OF
the imitation delusion. The Boards of Trade
in the chief Western cities did what they
could to withstand the imitation mania, and
the ablest and most widely circulated news
papers Of that section protested against it with
remarkable intelligence and vigor. The veto
came opportunely to reinforce their influence.
1t reached hundreds Of thousands who were
deaf and impervious to the arguments of the
Boards of Trade and the anti-intiation jour-
nails. II not only discouraged effort and
silenced claInor by rendering expansion hope
less, but put the whole political weight and the
whole moral authority Of the administration
in the opposite scale. 1t had also the great
advantage of reaching the readers Of the in
hation newspapers, who had not before been
permitted to see any we'll put arguments on
the right side of the question We therefore
venture to hope that there will be growing
disposition in the West to listen to the reason
ing by which the skein of imitation fallacies is
disentangled, and that the progress of this
discussion will bring increasing recruits to the
supporters of sound principles.
1t is not difficult to understand the process
by which the rural Western mind has been
misled. The Western farmers have put too
narrow an Interpretation on their experience
during the war. 1t is fact which, in reason
ing with them, it would be vain to dispute,
that the greatest prosperity they have ever
known was when the initiation of the currency
was at its height. Instead of disputing this fact
the advocates of sound views must admit it, &C
count for it and show how the West has been
deceived by it. 1t is beyond all question true
that the enormous expansion which took place
during the war was of immense temporary
benefit to the West but that was the acct
dental consequence Of combination OF cir
cumstances which passed with the war and
cannot recur Although prosperity and ex-
pansion for time went hand in hand it would
be fatal mistake to expect renewal OF that
FICTITIOUS prosperity by new imitation of the
currency in totally altered circumstances The
highest point of imitation was reached about
the time the war closed, when the maximum
of greenbacks was out and the South
was not yet open to commerce to alb
sorb part of the redundancy. Up to
that period the prosperity of the West
was without q parallel even in its own
wonderful history. A great portion of the
debts owed by the Western farmers at the
beginning of the war and secured by mort
cages on their property had been paid off at
an average rate of about fifty cents on
dollar, in consequence of the depreciation of
the paper legal tender. But the chief cause of
the prosperity of the West during that period
was the immense home market opened to its
products by the war demand. A million Of
men were taken out Of the producing and
added to the consuming population by the
conversion of laborers into soldiers. At least
another million of men were withdrawn from
the ordinary avocations OF industry and made
subsidiary to the war in the manufacture,
transportation and distribution of military
supplies. ALI these people had to be fed by
the diminished agricultural population who
remained at home Even had the currency
continued sound and been kept at par with
gold this state of things would have brought
harvest of wealth to the Western agricul-
turists. The railroads made more money
then than they have since, but the West did
not complain, because its chief market, in
stead of being at Liverpool, five thousand
miles distant, was along the border which
separated the Northern from the Southern
States, and the cost of transportation bore
but small proportion to the value OF
commodities. When the army demand
ceased, when the soldiers returned home
to become producers. and the in
creased supply of grain was again dependent
on foreign market, the Fictitious prosperity
created by the war began to ebb. Unfortu-
nately, the West had been SO seduced and de-
luded by its experience during the war that it
is not yet able to disjoin the ideas of imitation
and prosperity which had been so closely asso-
ciated while the currency was most redundant.
But the West must recognize and accommo-
date itself to altered and irreversible facts.
The redundant currency which poured riches
into its lap during the war is the main cause
of its subsequent stagnation. The great want
OF the West is o good market, and the war
market, close at hand, cannot be enjoyed
again. When the West sold its products in
the war market the same currency answered
both for it's purchases and its sales. Butsince
the war it gets only gold prices for its prod
ucts and has to pay initiation prices for every
thing it has occasion to buy. The gold price
of wheat in Liverpool governs the price Of
wheat in every Western town. and an inflated
currency robs the farmer in every sale and
every purchase which he makes. We will not
at nresent undertake to explain why the