The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1874-05-09

T The farmers can Judge by TINS expression
how much they have to nope from inc HEI
TRADER, in his fight with capitalists an,
, bankers. The FREE TRADER Is for wal
Street and monopoly OF the currency III
taxation Of the people for the dement, o
! the banks, the increase OF the dco's u'
. lnnople owe the banks, By increasing IN
rranic of the money these debts are paiC
with, It will even endorse Grant II II cai
J make money by doing So-EdHr'Hc IT"''
, script -,
When lawyer who If not bank or Fal'
roam attorney, is at least mighty wlIilh L
be one goes to talking dcmagogical tFasl
:, like that to the farmers, they had better iooF
ont for him. There never was a greater OUT
rage than this attempt to bamboozle the Tar
mcrs into the support Of q deprecated paper
money imitation scheme.
What IS the argument in favor OF thai
scheme? The Transcript says Is to depIc
ciate-chcapcn or bring down the value OF
the money of the people, 50 that they can Inc
more easily pay the debts they owe 10 inc
banks That is, it, for instance, Farmer
Jones last January borrowed thousand dol
lars Of his neighbor Smith, or neighborlns
hank and grecnbacks were then worth SS cts,
on the dollar, the Transcript now wants to
ioin hands with farmer Jones in getting up a
howl for cheap currency 50 that he can pay
back to neighbor Smith the one thousand
dollars of grcenbacks, worth $3.50 in gold at
the time he borrowed them, in thousand
dollars Of diluted grccnbacks, worth about
$500 in gold or real money, This would be
a nice operation for farmer Jones, doubtless
a clear gain of some $3.50 dollars; but would
il be honest? In point OF fact would it be
any more honest than to pick neighbor
Smiths pocket of that amount:
Very few Of what are even called long loans
are made to run more than seven years, while
the mass of every day business loans run
from 80 days to year, In the last seven years
greenbacks have varied in price less than 20
per cent, being at about 30 per cent. discount
in May 1861, and at IA per cent now. Men
who have borrowed money within the last
seven years, therefore, have little reason TO
that they borrowed cheap or de-
preciated currency which they are now com
PEELED to pay back in dear currency. In
the last four years greenbacks have hardly
undergone any permanent change in value;
so that the man who within that time has Dor
rowed money, is not asked today to pay back,
either to his farmer neighbor, if he borrowed
from him, or to the bank that accommodated
him, cents worth more of currency than he
borrowed Aud as no plan yet suggested pro
poses to resume specie payment before 1876
or ~, there is ample time for all those who
are now in debt for borrowed money, to pay
it up in greenbacks at discount of from 10
to Ia per cent before they are raised, by re-
to a par with specie. No honest
debtor, therefore, can advocate the initiation
scheme to enable HIM to pay his debts.
But if we are rightly informed, the farmers
of the west are not the debtor class who cx-
pect 10 profit by paying their debts with a
deprecated currency. The debtor class who
are clamoring for imitation are the specula-
tors in Chicago real estate in Iowa, Nebras.
ka and Kansas wild lands, in paper towns
along paper railroads in Western Kansas,
among the mountains of Colorado, in West.
ern Texas and New Mexico, in Dacotah,
Montana and Pembina; they are the John
Logans who have whole cities like swampy
Calumet for sale; Potter Palmers, who own
half of State street. owing more than it is
worth and the Tom Scots and Jay Cookies,
who try to build and gobble thousands of
miles Of railroad without putting in dollar
Of their own money The farmers can have
no fellowship with this class. They are the
hawks ard vultures Of society, who waste in
fare and riotous living that to
raise which the farmers toll and sweat.
The honest farmer IS the last man to be
and the first to be ileeccd by de
Dreciated or inflated paper currency, Sup
pose the government were to authorize the
ssuc Of 5000, 100000 more greenbacks to-mor
row. That would be an addition OF 33 per
cent TO the present volume, and of course
would result in an immediate depreciation of
30 per cent below the present value of green
backs, or, in other words, in few weeks, the
yreenback would be worth some 60 cts. on
he dollar. lmme diately dry goods, clothing,
coffee, sugar, tea, salt, iron, nals-everythIng,
in word, that the farmer buys, would go up
IN price from 90 to 35 per cent. Calicoes
now worth 10 cents would be worth IA cents,
nails now worth 5@6 cents would be So 10
cents and so on through the entire scale.
But how would it be with the farmers pro-
luce? Would corn Immediately so up to rs
cents or dollar; wheat to 1.50@2.00; cattle
rise 30 or 40 per cent? Let experience dc
eide. The Hon. b. C.. Cook, in one of his tar
i'll speeches three or four years ago, showed
by exhaustive tables that the price of wheat
and corn in the United States from 1850 TO
1860, when we Ind specie basis currency,
was higher than it averaged from 1860 to 1870,
during all the cxtravagant currency imitation
OF that decade. Our own files show that in