Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1876-09-01
For The Bulletin.
THE CURRENCY.
The Ultra Greenback Question Shown

1hOiO ID nv Wv" ny thaI 1iiO I'LL III
ers of the west were left in exceed
ing bad case by the imitation that
followed the war, and they are having
hard times now, but with the excep-
ton Of the results of a bad season,
from which l regret to say some
sections are suffering, the western
farmers are this day better off than
any other class in the country who
pretend to work for a living. They
are at least sure of good wholesome
food enough to keep them alive and
i'll good condition, whereas the me-
chanics and operatives who can get
no work or only halt work at insig-
nificant prices re,with their families,
counting up millions, compelled to
live on tainted meat and unwhole-
some vegetables, the very garbage Of
the swill pail, and without clothing
except such rags as they can beg.
But the condition of the farmers
is one of hardship for all that;strug-
Cling under heavy debts with small
crops andlow prices, they are well nigh
discouraged, and any plan that bears
a reasonable promise of benefit to
them should receive careful consider
atom and in this connection would
it be amlss to enquire how far they
may have contributed to the present
depression by causing the passage of
such railroad laws as cut off the pos
sibility of the weakest class of roads
earning apenny for their owners,
thus stopping the building of all
new roads and the disbursement of
large sums, and gripping all the en-
terprises fostercd thereby. And--I
write it in all honesty and good faith
what has been the result of the
workings of the order of Patrons
upon the fortunes Of the western
farmer? Their object is good; but
has its results met the expectations
of its promoters? Does not the
building up of n close corporation,
that concentrates its trade upon few,
tend to destroy the competition nee
essary to enterprise and business
activity? Does not the wiping out
of the middle men (ostentatiously
declared to be the object of the
Grange) drive numerous class from
being customers of the farmer into
being his competitors? Will it not
pay to consider these questions also?
But to return to the debts that
weigh SO heavily upon the people,
The debtor thinks it oppressive to
pay in better currency than that in
which he contracted his debt. The
point is well taken, and though at
first the creditor class suffered, being
compelled to take even forty cents
for hundred, yet | think the ac-
count is already balanced, and in
simple justice to the debtor class,
there should be law passed exempt
ing them from paying in any better
dollars relatively to gold than that
in which the debt was made, If the
reformers would agitate for this or
some similar measure founded IN
honesty and reason, they would soon
secure it, and without the loss of
honor; but to strike out and boldly
advocate, as Butler, Phillips and the
greenback conventions do, the pay.
ment of honest debts in a nondescript
paper having no intrinsic value and
founded upon nothing that has intrin-
sic value, however much YOU NAV
palaver over it, can only be called
honest by supernatural excess of
politeness. The heart that has not
been tempered with is shocked at
the thought of such a course. 1t Is
prccarious business to enact dishon-
esty into laws. Men are bad enough
at best, and then they have the devil
to contend with anyhow, and certain
ly we should not advocate law that
will complete their generalization.
If you instruct men to pay off their
debts at fifty cents on the dollar, You
teach them to repudiatc one-half they
oWe,-which half is it? Is the half
left any more sacred than the half
you authorize them to wriggle out
of? and if you thus summary relieve
them of half their debts, won't they
invent some dodge to evade the
other half? And still worse, if you
teach men by law that they may rob
their creditors, how long will it be
before they carry the principle little
further and rob their richer neighbor
Of any thing he may happen to have,
which they want? Then universal
agrarlanism is hard by, only one step
away. Inside the grcenback camp
things are working in that direction.
The Peter Cooper iron men of Penn
sylvania in their resolutions arraign
the old parties because they favor
''credit-monger" class, giving lis
plainly to understand that when they
iron men) get into power the credit
ors shall be extinguished, and when
they want money, instead of hiring
it, simply take it, or, what is more
likely, as it is attended with less dan
ger, make it. Aud this is in harmo-
ny with the utterances Of some OF the
most advanced labor rcformers in
Boston-also for Cooper-that the
laboring man by right owns every
thing and should not pay either IN
tcrest or rent. This is beyond doubt
the bottom of the ladder, as there
cannot be n lower depth; but when
you enact a law that tapers ever so
little from strict moral honesty, you
open the door for all these evils, even
il you do not formally invite them in.
1t is not forgotten that some green
hackers claim that their new money
will be equal in value with gold, and
some claim it will be worth more
| have no doubt it will be Just as
likely to be above gold as even with
it. Neither will ever happen. Hav-
ing no value of its own and repre-
senting next to none, it will float in
an humble state of chronic iGfpriori-
ty, worth much OF little, something
or nothing, just according as the
caprice of Congress or the interest
of money spectators shall determine.
The present intention of the reform
ers is to furnish an inferior kind of
money, and we may safely conclude
it will be5no better than the promise,
but rather much worse; for if they