The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1877-03-13
GtreGmteltiQennr.
Real and Imaginary Wealth.

II anybody has taken for granted that
Mr.: James NJ. Laidley Of KanawhA has
ceased TO write for the Charleston papers
on the currency question, they are great
ly mistaken. Heis still the indefatigable
representative Of Peter Cooper in West
Virginia, and his cry is still for "more
money and lcss misery" In the course
Of an article in the last RdnaPka Gazette
on "oar monetary condition." he makes
the following point in regard to the ruin
that has been wrought by the refusal OF
the country to adopt the Peter Cooper
theory Of finance:
The decline in the market value Of the
property Of people during the last eight
years can not be less than eight thousand
millions. In the city Of New York, the
centre OF the money supply, and there
they have two or three times more per
capita than the country has at large, II ia
estimated that real estate has deprecated
in value, during the last three years, five
hundred millions, The individual and
national losses and destruction OF pro.
perty incurred by our late civil war do
not approach in magnitude the loss OF in.
dividual and national wealth entailed
upon the country by its financial policy
since the close Of that war. Famine Is
certain 10 follow an insufficient supply OF
food, and decrease in the value Of pro.
pcrty is Just as certain TO follow an inauf.
ticient supply OF its representative
money"
Mark Twain givea in one OF his letters
an account Of his experience in finance
on the island Of St. Domingo, during the
days Of the rebellion there, that Mr..
Laidley ought to read. He converted
few gold pieces into n bushel or two Of
paper money, and It took pound or
two OF this paper money to buy few Or
auges, or few cigars, or drink or two,
and it would have taken ton or more Of
it to buy good house.
Alter cutting down the exaggerated
features Of Mark Twain's experience in
San Domingo, we can apply it to our
nexperlence in this country. There
was no loss Of real wealth in San Domingo
when property fell several thousand per
cent. in nominal value. All that was
valuable remained. No conAagration,
food or hurricane had destroyed it.
Those who held it through the rise and
iAll landed just where they started from.
And so it has been in this country with
the holders OF real values ever since the
panic Of 1873.
BY this we do not mean that thousands
Of property owners have not suffered since
the panic, or for that matter, been totally
ruined. There have been thousands Of
people ruined for the lack OF that "balm
oi Gilead' which Peter Cooper and Mr.
Laidlcy know 80 well, theoretically, how
to apply. Ifsuch people could only have
kept up the standard Of nominal val
ues as it existed four years ago,
they would not have been forced
into liquidation. Their property
was once good for the mortgage that
rested upon it, and for perhaps margin
besides. As soon however us slime" was
called on all debtors at once throughout
the country property began to shrink,
and only the mortgage coverings pre-.
served their proportions. The parts Of
the country that had been covered with
mortgages by owners who were am
bilious to spread out on credit, very soon
became embarrassed, but wherever a
conservative policy heldsway, and people
did business within their means, the
solvency OF individuals and communities
remained unimpaired.
But, says Mr.. Laidley, why was not the
blow inflicted by the panic warded of by
the Peter Cooper policy? That is the
point where the saving QuDlities Of Coop.
erism always come in. All Jay Cooke
needed was plenty OF Cooperism. Could
he have had it hG would still have been
selling Northern Pacific bonds and pay
ing interest with the proceeds. As long
as man can borrow he has no need
to fail, 1t is only when he is com.
PEELED to pay that he begins to feel the
pinch. But why have any pay days
Why not have a universal and perpetual
reign of confidence established by law?
Or, what is the same thing, why not have
amachine that will, at the first symptom
OF halt in confidence, commence emit
ting more money, and not only thereby
keep up values, but boosting them up
still further? upward and onward,
forever upward, ,"is the motto OF the Peter
Cooper people. Their philosophy is
very simple. Some people express it
by saying that "the hair Of the
dog is good for the bite" Others
express the same idea by saying that
when your nerves are unstrung by liquor
the way to remedy it is to string them up
again with more liquor.
Mr.. Laidley and men Of his class write
about financial matters al ii we had dnever
had panic in this country before, and
as il there was something new in their
theory. He can get no patant on such
healing balm as he offers 1t heals only
the surface, and leaves the blood as much
disordered and the vital parts as fatally
involved as ever.