Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1878-11-06


he found that the new money, not be-
ing redeemable in gold or silver I'M
der any circumstances, and being
unable to perform 50 fully the
functions of money, was worth q lit
tie less. Therefore the grocer must
have a little more of 1t than he would
have needed Of gold or silver in order
to make his New York purchases.
Your next step is to agitate for an
increase in your wages. Perhaps you
get it, if your employer is able to sell
his manufactured goods at higher
price. If he is not, he fights against
higher wages or manufactures less or
stops. In a little time the operation
Is repeated. It appears truly to the
workman that the times are hard.
Everybody is asking him higher
prices for the necessities as well as
Injuries of life, and 1t Is very hard to
get wages raised proportionately. So
there is q cry that money is scarce
and a fierce demand that, in the lam
guage of the Connecticut greenback
convention, ''to-remedy and counter
act the evils complained of, the gov
eminent shall issue full legal-tender
paper money, adequate in vOl,mae for
the employment Of labor, the distri-
button Of its products, the require
ments Of business" etc.
There is unquestionably something
of an aaiai
! APPARENT SCARCITY OF MONEY,
for 1t takes more paper money to do
the same business than It did before.
Therefore to be true to its principles,
the government must issue more
money in some way. How? If there
be any bonds yet unpaid 1t can call
for them and pay them in new fiat
money. This is what our Connecticut
greenback friends demand, though
the payment of the bonds in coin was
clearly promised. The new supply
enables business to move easily for
the time, but, If history is good for
anything, 1t teaches US that the de-
probation soon advances another step.
Every man making contracts covering
an appreciable time, every man SELL
ing on credit, seems anxious to guard
against probable changes in money
values, and he adds something to
prices to cover contingencies. Each
man steps forward an inch that his
neighbOr may not get an inch ahead
of him, as you see In the eager crowd
on the days of great spectacles.
The depreciation steadily continues
until wages are 81, Sc, or $40 q day,
and the labOrer can buy no more than
when he was getting 81 or even 81
per day.
call your close attention to point
that appears but theoretically in what
I have said. If A owes you $40, tho
it may have been borrowed in gold,
he can tender you go of the fiat mon
ey and you must take that or nothing.
But when you take that $50 to buy a
barrel of -four that the dealer adver-
tises for $lOgold, you can't compel him
to sell his flour for ten or twenty or
thirty dollars of your fat money. He
will sell or not just as he pleases. He
may say, "gold is at 24O; 1 must have
$25 fat money, for / think gold will
be at $50 tomorrow. And you can
not oblige him to take your money
in exchange for his goods, though it be
legal tender, save at his own terms.
But in the meantime you must work
on daily for
MONEY OF SOME SORT,
or you and your family will suffer.
Have not some of you mistaken and
much over-estimated the value of the
words "full legal-tender," in giving
your adhesion to the absolute fat
money based on our faith and re-
sources? The legal-tender quality is
all powerful when q man is paying
you debt; it has no power of COM
pulsion when you are trying to make
trade.
Here comes the next step in the
downward road to ruin. The But
lers, Carys, and Kearneys of the time
will begin to denounce the bloated
capitalists, greedy monopolists and pi-
ratical fOrstallers, who have got con-
troll of all the food and clothing and will
not received the lawful money Of the
country in exchange. The legal ten
der character Of the new money needs
strengthening. So congress passes .
bill imposing . severe penalties upon
any who refuse to take the lawful
money. This old and worn-out de-
vice also fails, for . man cannot be
compelled by law to say that he is
willing to sell at any price.
The next stage 10 either an attemp-
ted redemption of the notes or . per-
centage Of them In real money or
reputation entirely-usually the lat
ter, and the restoration Of sound
currency comes mysteriously and sud-
denly and signs of health begin to ap-
pear.
have argued from supposed cases
in . speculative way, yet 1t would
need the changes of but . few words
to make this . chapter Of history
from the experience Of many nations
at many times. From TOO TO the
formation of the constitution in ITS
our colonies and our continental con-
gress and our confederation Of states,
spent the century in experimenting
with paper money in the directions
have indicated ending in the
grand collapse of confines tal money
in 1851.