The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1878-08-31
Greenback Fallacies.
N. Y. Herald.
III.

III.
1t is a greenback-la fallacy that
irredeemable paper and plenty of it
is good for the workingmen. On this
head the history of the years 1868
and 1875 ought to be enough to warn
the workingmen. Citizen Schwab
summed up that experience so well
the other day that we can not do bet
ter than repeat what he said. A new
initiation of the currency would give
the speculator new chance, perhaps;
it would make the fortunes of mer-
chants with stocks of goods on hand,
but it wonld raise prices faster than
it wonld raise wages, and thus i'm
poverish and not benefit the working
men. Mr.. Schwab said :" The most
the national-labor greenback party
can do is to help the middle classes
of society, to bring back for q few
years the hollow prosperity of the
war times by flooding the country
with paper money and giving these
classes | refer to chance to specu-
late and make fortunes quickly. Tho
working people would not be bene-
fitted. Everything they eat and wear
would go up, but not as high as their
expenses. Badly off as they are now
they might be worse OFT then.
Though it might give them few
years of higher prices, the reaction
would leave them worse off than
ever.n
A correspondent, who is evidently
a greenbaek- labor man, writes us
Iu a recent visit to Massachusetts
Fall River, Lynn, Essex county and
Boston, find that the laboriRg peo-
| pie, who are living ON starvation
wages, the snlan dealers and shop
keepers who see the accumulation OF
years melting away before the dry
rot; the real estate men who nwe
mortgages on dead property-all, all
are in favor Of hhe Ohio idea on
the expansions OF the currency. Give
us another chance to make nseaey !;
give us few Years of prosperity
even if it is followed by another col
lapse. Things cam net be much worse
| than they are n0m.. We have tried
| the experiment of Boroed resumption
long enough That is the way they
talk down there, aud shqt is,the way
they will vote"
1t is fond and foolish saying w,
drunkards, when they waRs up witlA.s
headache, that ga hair Of the dog
that bit you is the Esest medicine"
But here are people WHO think they
had better eat the whole dog, VIfes
laboring people, the small sliopkespe
er, speak out of ignorance, and re-
peat what has been told them. But
our correspondent mentions one class
who undoubtedly are very influen-
tial, not in Massachusetts only, but
in all the other States, in urging n
| new imitation. There are /" the real es-
tate men who own mortgages on dead
property These are the men who
are everywhere the leaders in the
new imitation movement. Let an hon
est greenback labor farmer or work
ingmaa ask the leader of his party,
be it General Ewing, or General
Cary. or Mr.. Shupe, or whoever he
may be, whether he is not in debt for
real estate, and he will get but one
honest answer, " Yes.n In fhe last
Congress this was so notorious that it
became joke when any representa-
tive was especially Jealous for an in
| hation of the currency to ask him
how much real estate he held !; and
Senator Jones, of Nevada, who was
| one of the foremost leaders of the in
flation movement, did not even con-
ceal the fact that one of the main
| objects OF those acting with him
WAS to make market for. real es-
tate. But surely it is not the interest
of the mass of worllingmen that real
estate shall bear high price. That
means to them exorhitant rents; it
means that their families shall be
| stuffed into mean tenements it
means that they shall pay specula-
tors high prices for the little village
lots they ought to own. Cheap
lands has always aud rightly been
the cry of the workingmen in this
country, yet they are allowing them
selves to be deceived into policy
which has for its chief object to raise
the price of real estate.
Rnt even the real estate spectators
deceive themselves. A new Initiation
will not help them. Initiation will
not initiate. The balloon burst in
1873; !; it will hold no new gas. The
panic of 1873 and the succeeding de-
preston came about not by contrac-
tion, because paper money was then
most abundant, as we have shown it
came about because of oyer specula-
.tions, over trading and the deep
alarm which seized prudent men
everywhere as they saw whittier We
were drifting. Public confidence re-
ceived great shock; the men who
had anything buttoned up their pock
cts and the men who had nothing but
debts failed. Of late confidence has
begun slowly to revive; but new
, | ;,Aat;a,, 1vnt,lI aniy sand uS hack