Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1876-08-25

they began to look about them and
feel for the foundation of things
The result was, they called halt and
the panic ensued and everything be-
gan to come down from the unnatu-
raj heights to which an irredeemable
and bloated currency had forced
them.
Now, during the time everything
was going uD in New England, every
thing was going up in Iowa; wheat
reached $2.4O, and wild land rose
and some men made fortune in a
day. know land that was bought
for six and quarter dollars in
the fall, and sold for twenty the next
spring-and to a speculator, too. I
saw a pair of mules sold for six hun
dred dollars. A kind of frenzy seized
upon the people. All kinds of prop
erty rose rapidly, and everybody said,
Il" Tomorrow will be as to-day, only
much more abundant" and desper-
ate spirit of speculation and extrava-
gance prevailed, and everybody run
in debt all they could, some for land
and some for buildings and some for
horses and some for farm machines,
and all men expecting to take up two
dollars for every one laid down.
During this windy epoch, few men
made money; but they were shrewd
men that always make money under
any circumstances, while the great
majority, who can only make money
by hard knocks, when the collapse
came, were caught unprepared, and
saw their hopes and expectations per-
ish, but their dreadful debts remain.
The country has been drunk. The
sensations of getting drunk were de-
licious. We are now SOLDERING off,
and we suffer the inevitable head
ache and nausea, but in our case
these are good symptoms and we shall
certainly recover altogether, if the
doctors will only keep their hands off,
but they won't. They say, "Give the
poor patient more whiskey, make him
drunk again" The irredeemable
currency is the cause of most of our
woe. They say, Give us more oft
and make it a little poorer" Can
you wipe out the effects of drunken
ness by making the inebriate drunk
again and keeping him drunk? You
will kill the patient if you try the
experiment.
We are to-day great nation, and
we must take our place among the
enlightened nations whether we like
it or not. When our present tacili-
ties for manufacturing are utilized,
we make third more goods than the
country can use. The balance must
be exported. The farmers will raise
third more food products than the
country can consume. The balance
must be exported. But the goods
cannot be exported without loss and
ruin, if they are made with all the
extravaganza and waste inseparable
from initiation, and the food cannot
be exported if raised on land costing
fifty dollars per acre, worked by six
hundred dollar mule teams and har-
vest hands at five dollars per day
We must have the same money foun-
dations as the nations with which we
deal, or we can't deal. And they will
undersell us in our own markets, I'M
less we build protective tariff high
as the Chinese wall; and, confined to
ourselves, we should eat each other
up. We may try any little hocus-
pocus tricks we please, and play that
wampum or beads or ships of paper
or Gas b. f. Butler has it) yard sticks
are money, but the play will have
but short run, for we are just as
certain eventually to settle down to
the basis of the enlightened world,
as the dancing rivulet is to settle to
the level of the lake into which it
plunges.
This must suffice for to-day.
MOODY Grow.