The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-09-02
TUESDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 2.

if the notes in use were those Of the late Con-
federacy. He is pleased to think himself rich
er, because he has 100 halves called dollars
instead of fifty dollars that are dollars. But
the dealer in Richmond who sold one pair OF
boots for $500 in Confederate notes had the
worst of it, fer the leather was worth more
than the paper, and lasted longer.
High prices in bad money are never SO good
as low prices in good money. The farmer
who could sell his bushel of wheat for 50 dur
ing the war thinks he is doing very badly if he
gets only 81 now. Bur the dollar which he
gets will buy fully as much as three dollars
would have bought in 1864. Bad money Wild
cns the gap between producer and consumer,
as has been shown; at every step the cost is en-
HANGED by the charges of dealers, middle-men
and TRANSFORMERS to cover their risk in using
money of changing value. 1t is as If every
man who sells should put more sand in the SUI
gar, more chalf in the wheat, and more water
in the wlliskey to make sure of profits. The
farmer would get an extra price for once mix
ing chaff with his grain. But he would pay
four extra charges in buying his whis&oy, for
the distiller, the rectifer, and the wholesale
anu ISl.til uSslCio NbUlu Cltll pour HIS pun VI
water into the barrel. The distiller, too would
get only one one extra profit by watering the
whiskey sold, but would pay all the profits of
the farmer and all the dealers who had ham
died the wheat, each mixing more chaff with
it. If tie farmer gets cheap dollar prices for
his cattle or WOOL he has TO pay cheap-dollar
prices for clothing, implements, sugar, tea, cot
fee, and everything else that he buys, and all
these things pass through many hands before
they reach him. Thus it was that farms came
to be thickly covered and houses thickly
matched with mortgages years ago. all produc-
ers were paying the cost of using bad money.
We have tried all this does any farmer want
to go back to war prices? If he could tax 9TH
ers when he sells, and pay no tax himself when
he buys, it would be very different affair. But
cheap money taxes everybody, and the produc-
er most of ALL
Men who have things to sell are apt to forget
all this. Cheap money, to them, means more
dollars for their wheat and cotton. their wool,
hogs and cattle. But how is it with the work
ing man? Does it pay him to have dull tools
to buy with? Plainly not, if it helps the seller.
Two boys locked up together cannot both make
themselves rich by swapping jack-knIves with
each other, and the use of bad dollars cannot
help both the buyer and seller If cheap mon
ey helps the seller at all, it hurts the buyer
just as much. The country can gain nothing;
it is only ''robbins Peter to pay Paul" But
the working people live on wages which change
very slowly. II the dollars paid to them grow
dull, SO that prices rise, the cost of living gets
higher. All the unions ever formed, all the
strikes ever planned, never yet have given the
workers power to push their wages up as fast
or as far as prices III dull dollars have risen.
The seller gets more money for his pork or
beef, but the workingman buys and pays mole
money. The world over, he suffers whenever
cheap money makes food, clothing and rent
cost more.
Then the committee of workmen waits on
the employer: ''it costs us too much to live;
higher wages, or we strike" The employer
reflects: III pay more wages, my goods will
cost more, and fewer people win buy them.
The markets of Canada the West indies, and
Europe will be, closed against me. Already
the material costs more in duh dollars, and in
terest is higher, and the dealer and transporter
charge more, for men will have pay for risk
when no man can tell what his dollars may be
worth tomorrow Higher wages mean ruin;
1t is better to close the mill" Or if he yields,
the higher prices bring fewer buyers, and the
mill can run only half time. What Shall the
poor workman do? Strike, and waste his saw
ings in barren struggle? Or yield, pinch
himself let the wife wear old clothes and the
children go without Shoes and try TO bear it
still longer? Cheap money has no pity
Prices will go still higher, and the sellers will
want still more money. Higher wages the
ought to have, If food, clothing and
rent cost more But higher wages mean fewer
buyers, fewer hours work in month, or the
closing of the mill. For the seller, as he counts
his handsome gains before he begins to spend
them cheap dollars seem very nice. But for
the buyer it is anything but nice, when higher
prices bring pinching or starvation, unless he
can get higher wages. And higher wages
mean less work.
The workingmen have savings for time of
need. With fair prices, the laborer knows
that his $50 in the bank will keep his family
from want six weeks, if he should be sick or
out of work. But men who have things to sell
clamor for more money, and it comes. Prices
mount upward. Soon the $50 will buy less
food or clothing than $50 would have brought
Instead of six weeks. the workman has but
three weeks between him and want. In this
very way, two-thirds of all the savings of the
of this country were taken from
them between 1861 and 1864. The dollars
were left, printed on the same paper, and in
number the same, but two-thirds of their buy
ing power had gone. Are we to have another
era of unredeemed paper and another whole |
sale contiscation of the savings of the working
people, by aid of their votes? 1t is bad for the
when his candle is burned at both
ends at once-bad if his earnings are taken
from him, and his cost of living increased at
the same time. But for him. that is the effect
of cheap money. Itwastes his savings, and
initiates bis expenses.