The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-05-29
Metal Money DespOtism.
Editor, Redwood Gazette.
May 2sth, 1879.

Editor, Redwood Gazette.
May 2sth, 1879.
In the effort being made for finan-
cial revolution, and consequent in
dustrial prosperity and material do
nestle independence, we recognize
the same hand of beneficent Prov
idence, which gave inspiration to
our Revolutionary Fathers, for the
work allotted to them, iberating us
from the yoke of political bondage,
and a kingly aristocracy. Thus in
our allotted time and space, by vir-
tue of the same Providence, prompt
ing us in the work of liberating our
selves from the financial despotisms
of a gold money standard oligarky.
This money power, has claimed all
through the ages, that there neces-
sarily can be no money, only y as they
allow, and that it must be based
now, on single metal, gold, and
that there can be no orderly, or sta
BILE financial system, without it,
everything else being the widest
vagaries, leading to inevitable dis
aster and financial anarchy. So per-
sistantly has this false theory been
taught, that it is honestly believed
by tens of thousands who ought to
know better. From our earliest
colonial times, many of them having
no gold or silver, were forced to Or
dain money for themselves, out of
such material as they had; beaver
skins, wampum, musket, balls and
real estate being made legal tender
in New England, tobacco being SO
used, furs in the western states and
cotton receipts in the cotton raising
states, and it is quite recently, that
the people of these states, have be-
gan to appreciate the various facts
and principles, that have been e.
volved on this subject within the
century. Our would be statesman
have blindly followed the lead of
the money power, have failed utterly
to see the meaning of our financial
experience, or to comprehend that
this people, having freed themselves,
from the political despotism of the
old world, are surely destined to free
themselves financially from, gold
despotism, by making their own cur
rency, as they made their own gov
ernment, and so making it that it
shall be tool of industry, instead
of being made a yoke of bondage
upon industry by the money power.
"Benjamin Franklin said, that the
estimation in which the precious
metals were held in foreign countries
rendered them too unstable and unre-
liable for domestic currency" Our
experience as a nation has fully
demonstrated, that this Inference of
that Philosopher and Statesman is
true in this regard. . So tickle and
unreliable are these metals, rendered
so by the bulls and the bears, gambl-
ing with them, subjecting all legiti-
mate business to untold losses, and
cmbarrassments. That comparative
ly small class of men, who control
the gold of the world, can at their
wish, bankrupt any people or state,
whenever avarice prompts them so
to do. The financial history of the
world is full, of the utter unreliable
ty of gold as money, notably, in the
case of Engiands' war with Napole-
on and in our late civil war. In
both cases, paper money was their
salvation. In both exclusive paper
money, afforded the brightest period
of universal prosperity ever enjoyed
by them. Aud in both, return to
a specie basis and its consequent
bankruptcies and general financial
distress followed. We are fast ro,fnd
ing up this future of our history, so
that the historian can duplicate the
bitter financial experiences of our
mother country in this regard.
Sir James Graham said; the bit
ter fruits of Peel's act, (the contrac-
ton and resumption act, were drank
to the very dregs, by all the indust-
rial classes, and the country was fill
ed with an insurrectionary populace,
without employment and without
bread; while the fund-holders, the
tax-eaters, the usurist, and the titled
arristocracy harvested. Statistics
show at that time, that farm prod
ucts deprecated 80 per cent: and all
manufactured articles 60 per cent.
Then and there, as now here, the cry
of over production was uttered by the
gold worshipers, to make Che people
believe that the unusual distress was
not the result of vicious legislation.
Then and there, as now here, they
would have us to be ieve that the
thousands that were starving, be-
cause there was to much to eat, and
squaled nakedness, because there
was to much clothing manufactured.
The National Bankers in our count
ry have taken the place of the Dukes
and Lords Of England; they subsi-
diss the press and manipulate the
party leaders, and they in turn, ap-
peal to old animosities and war. en-
gendered passions, standing on both
sides Of that impossible gulf frantic.
ally shaking the bloody shirt at each
other, hoping thereby to induce the
masses of the people, to stand by
their party leaders, and thus the
work Of destruction goes on.
e. p. G.