The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1876-04-08

son, 900, 900 D. 70 bonds, in thirty year AZ |
per cent gold bonds through the Syndicate; |
MIR. Chairman and gentleman of the com
mittee of Ways and Means, House of
Representatives:
l will detain you but few moments
We ask that our National bonds as far as
possible, shall be restaIned at home, not
only as vast economy in relieving US
from the irksomeness of foreign debt, al
ready in severe competition with our do
mestic industries, but that they may be re-
tanned at home. as a basis for full legal
sender currency, interconvertible with Ma
tional bonds, at low rate of interest, as
it shall be demanded Dy the exigencies of
industry. Ia connection with this subject,
brief retrospective view may not be map
propriate. Less than fifty years ago, civil
lization began a new area in its wonderful
development of steam in the arts and in
locomotion. In that time it has more
than quadrupled the production capacity
Of the world. While ON the one side
steam has stimulated an enormous pro
duction, surpassed the anticipation of any
in all former ages on the other hand, it is
taxing mans faculties to the utmost to
create and devise new wants, in order to
toned have we become to observe the
various daily new applications of labor
saving discoveries, that we cease to be
startled with their economy, nor do we
any longer pause to estimate the enormous
increase to production, which they occa-
sion. These great Developments, how
ever, are evidently in entire harmony with
great organic laws, intended to force
hight civilization upon man kind, and any
new device to cheaper and enlarge the use
Of products is surely working to that grand
accomplishment, and it is well worthy of
your highest encouragement. At the
dawning of this new era Of discovery, man
still held to his old fashioned IDEAS Of high
interest and usury with which he at first
Ell erged from barberism At each new
invention of steam, electricity, chemistry
and general discovery, demanded to be
made subservient to his use and comfort,
each called for larger uses of money. The
Capital of the world, not unmindful Of this
sudden and unexpected tax upon its re-
sources, through such large and rapid de-
velopement by inventing various devices
of banking and monopoly of credit-seized
upon the currency of the people to dis
tribute it with high usury to producers.
The money power has gone still farther.
In its aim to secure large profits, it has
usuFped the power to contract and Expand
both the credit and the circulating medium
of the people at its interest or pleasure,
aud IN the exercise of this unjustly
assumed prerogative, has been the fright
full source Of panics and distress, by for
cing industry to pay higher interest, rents
4 . /. =. i. ~
the increasing necessity Of the people for
steam highways, the money power saw still
larger opportunities. IL pushed its
shrewdly contrived system of banking at
extortunate interest rates on railroad Sc
curities, until to-day the rail highways of
the world chartered for public benefits are
doubled up, and mortgaged to capital at
such rates as 10 compel producers to pay
triple or quadruple, fair equivalent for
traffic and travel Within this short fifty
years Of bewildering development, the
money power has been ever busy, throgh
legislation, in perfecting its banking, rail-
road and various other class corporate
monopoly machinery. 1t has always
moved well drilled, and with directness
and intelligence to its purposes. While
modern civilization, under the auspices
Of it's discovery, has been too crude, too
new, too busy and undiscipliDed to have
yet found time to evolve and enforce well
digested thought in the interest Of the
whole people. This condition Of things
can not continue much longer. The issues
are even now squarely upon as, ana il be-
comes statesmen to contemplate then care
fully, thoughtfully and unbiased by blind
partnership. Steam, machinery, tele-
graphy, railroads, commercial chemistry
and general discovery have not been de-
veloped in vain. They mean great and
uncomfortable good ard benefit to all the
human race, in their powerful agency in
the general higher civilization of mankind,
and whether We will or not, this vast and
rapid increase Of commodities, which they
have caused, must be accepted as necessi-
ties, and be more largely utilized for the
benefit of the whole people. We cannot, if
We would, put out the fires Of labor saving
machinery and set man and civilization
backwards. There Is an irresistible force
which is pushing us forward There is no
middle course. This Inherent energy is
demanding from you an encouragement to
the industry Of the people, that they may
one and all produce commodities i'll larger
ratio than ever before, so that they may,
one and all, consume more generously in
the interest f advancing civilization. Nor
need you fear an over production Of di-
versihcd industries, for the people may
safely be trusted to produce no more than
they have the power of profitahly consum-
ing. Their general intelligence and indus
try may always be safely relied upon as a
true balance and regulator for production
What is the condition On one side,
through the power Of steam, man has sud
denly developed an enormous power to
produce commodities. He has invented
steam ships and steam roads to carry these
products to all parts of the country and the
world. Men need all all these products,
all these comOdities with all their prospec-
tive increase, to push forward civilization
and intelligence. They ask for the boon
OF earning, that they may be able to buy
them, and to do this, they only ask of you
that the volume Of money may always,
and at all times, keep pace with the vol
nme Of products They ask chat you shall
supply sufficient money to encourage in
dustry az it Leeds it, and not as hitherto,
to so restrict it that labor shall be the prey
of usurers and non-producers. To further
this end, | repeat, we ask OF you that the
national debt, as matter of economy, as
far as possible, shall be controlled at home
as a basis for an enlarged full legal tender
currency, to suit the exigencies Of trade,
and to be made inter-convertible with Ma
tional bonds bearing a low rate of interest,
as the pleasure of the holder may dictate
We believe that such course will ulti-
mately greatly encourage the activity of
labor by yielding to it higher rewards,
while at the same time it will lessen the
irksomness and burden Of foreign debt,
until the fruitfulness Of industry shall have