The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1878-10-03

We have not said much about the
financial question this campaign, for sun
dry reasons, but the Democracy seem dis
posed to urge the matter, and make their
annual senseless appeals to poor men and
laboring men Now here is an editorial
from the New York Tribune, which
seems to US to be q full and complete an
swer to all their gabbIe on this question:
THE Poor MANS FRIEYD-Will it pay
the poor men of this country to turn
back, now that we have virtually reached
specie resumption, and overcome all diff
ficulties and endured all losses that re-
sumption can involve2 This is preemi-
nently poor mans question. There, at
least, the Greenback men are right. If
resumption is bad it is bad mainly for
the poor, and especially the laboring
man. If it is good, it is to him more
beneficial than to anybody else. For
men of capital, OF trade, of credit or of
fixed incomes use checks and credits
largely, and notes but little; they buy
largely at wholesale and have less cause
to care when retail prices are suddenly
showed upward because the purchasing
power of the currency has diminished.
pockets the great proportion of circulat-
ing notes; who have no bank accounts, or
use few checks; who live upon daily or
weekly wages and buy mostly at retail
to them every change in the value OF the
dollar means serious gain or loss. Can
these people afford. now that resumption
is here, to turn back again over the
weary way trodden since the war?
About $500, ,0O0,0 600 Of paper notes are
in active circulation, mainly in the pock-
cts of the poor. Every dollar that the
poor man now holds is worth 993 cents
in gold. 1t matters not to him whether
the note is from the United States itself,
or from a bank secured by deposit of
United States bonds. In either case it
is virtually the same to day, to the poor
man or laboring man who holds it, as the
gold which the note promises to pay. In
small transactions the difference is iusig
nificant-so small that it can neither be
measured nor exacted He can pay any
debt with his dollar as we'll as with gold
and to the full satisfaction of a creditor.
He can buy just as much with it as with
gold in the retail purchases which con
stitute nearly all the dealings of the poor
and the laboring classes. No one charges
him more for meat or bread, sugar or to-
bacco, clothes or house rent if he pays
paper dollars. than would be charged if
he paid gold dollars. For all the uses of
the wage Garner, paper dollars paid to
him on Saturday are as good as gold dol
lars, and would be preferred by most be-
cause more convenient to carry. To the
poor man, resumption has virtually come
already; prices have generally sunk to
the specie level, and the notes are as good
in his hands as the gold itself.
But the Greenback agitator proposes
to rob the poor man by making his dol
lars less valuable. He proposes to make
every dollar in the poor mans pocket
worth less than gold, and how much less
no man can say. Less in the bargain for
rents; less in the purchase OF clothes; less
in the buying of anything at the store or
in the market. Every intelligent man
knows that large increase of the issue
OF notes must cause them to fall in value.
If Smith has given but one note to a
creditor, and that note far within his
known means of payment, men may take
it as good If he begins to flood the
street with notes they grow less in value,
until at last nobody will take them. So
it is with a government, as with any in
dividual; the more promises to pay it has
out the less those promises are held
worth. By issuing more greenbacks it is
openly proposed to make greenbacks
cheaper, and that will rob the poor man
who holds them. The baker will want
"war prices" for his bread again, the
butcher for his meat, and the clothes now
bought for So or s. will cost once more
$40 or $50, as they did not many years
ago. Retail prices always jump up swiftly
when there is the least excuse. The
workingmen, who hold in their pockets
the greater part of the 100000, 900 in
notes outstanding, will not only lose by
the depreciation of those notes-by being
unable to buy as much with them-but
will lose far more because wages never
advance as quickly or as far, and can
never by any combinations, leagues or
unions, be made to advance as quickly or
as far, as the retail prices of the markets
and the shops. For months, if the dollar
sinks in purchasing power, the wage
earning class will lose the whole differ