Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1879-07-17
A Sweat and Blood Basis,


From thc Ierrc HRUlc fNUreas.
There is clan OF men called the Money
Power, who use the government and leg
islation as tools. or means toabsorb, with
out consideration, the products of labor.
The instruments used to extract these
products are interest bearing obligations,
the efficiency of which depends upon the
cheapness of commodities and the relative
dearness Or purchasing power of the inter-
est they receive.
As nine-tenths of the interest due the
Money Power is payable in curreNcy, it
was important to them that the currency
should become as valuable as gold, and
this could be effected only through specie
resumption.
Most people labor under the false i'm
preston that resumption is based on coin.
That the gold and silver boarded in the
vaults of the national treasury is the basis
of resumption. But such is not the fact.
Resumption is based upon the poverty
of the people.
1t is based upon the tramp and the
bankrupt.
1t is based upon shrinking values, de-
preciated farms, a dollar day for labor,
and bread and water for diet. 1t is based
upon ruinous prices of products, compell-
ing farmers and manufacturers to labor
for the bare cost Of production, in order to
increase our exports, compete with the serf
labor of Europe, and maintain q balance
of trade in our favor. Secretary McCul-
loch, in his report to congress in 1866,
says:
1.-The secretary has also been clear in
his convictions that specie payments are
not to be restored by an accumulation OF
coin in the treasury, to be paid out in re-
demption of government obligations, but
rather by quickened industry, increased
production from necessity and low
prices"
Lower greenback prices here than gold
prices in Europe keeps greenbacks at par
with gold without gold basis-resun
tion is on a cheap product basis. Thus
the hard times, low prices, shrunken val
ues, and general commercial ruin have
been purpOsely brought upon the country,
so as to appreciate interest currency to an
equivalency with gold, and in order to
maintain this equivalency the balance of
trade must be kept in our favor so as to
make no foreign demand for gold, and in
order to prevent a foreign demand for
gold, our products must be so cheap thai
foreigners who have demands on us can
make more by investing their claims in
our bread stuffs than in gold
Resumption then is based upon the in
dustries of the country. The industries
of the country rest under it, and bear all
of its terrible burdens, that the usurers'
income may double. London, Berlin and
Hamburg capitalists own thousands of
millions of our corporate, state, munich
pal and railroad bonds, whose interest is
PAYABLE in current funds in New York.
Before the days of RESUMPTION when they
collected their greenback interest, they
had to pay the difference between it and
gold in order to get it converted into their
home funds. If they invested it in wheat
at $l,50 per bushel, they could realize but
81 in gold for it. But by bearing hown
the price of commodities in this county,
they have brought the greenback up to
gold, and still greenback dollar will go
no further in paying the farmers debts
and taxes than it would ten years ago,
when his crops would bring him twice as
much
Hence our resumption does not rest up
on coin basis, but upon the sweat and
toll of unpaid labor. The laboring and
producing classes have permitted them
selves to become hewers of wood and
drawers Of water that foreign money
oligarchy may double their interest har-
vests. The laboring, producing Republi,
cans have voted themselves tramps and
banrupts, that Shylock's interest may be
worth its face in gold.