The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1888-03-31
CONTRACTION AND DEPRESSION

business, the everyday mutterings
OF the working man, and the fire.
quent occurrence of labor strikes
is the continued contraction of the
circulating medium, or what should
be the currency of the people. Fol-
upwards of three thousand years
previous to 1875 gold and silver
were treated as money metals by
all civilized countries. Up to that
time in our own country % $40
grains of gold, .line-tenths fine,
could be changed for dollar
SO, also, 4124 grains of silver could
be exchanged for a dollar. But
by governmental action between
1871 and 1875 silver was refused
at any fixed price in each of the
civilized countries of Europe and
America, thus reducing it to com
modify, and as result depriving
1t Of its value. 1t would be better
for the representatives of the coun-
ellis OF the nation to restrain their
uneasiness about how to dispose
OF the accommodating revenue and
turn their attention more seriously
to the all-absorbing question of re-
monetizing silver. Make it cir
culating medium, liberate the peo-
pie from the oppressive tyranny of
legalized shylocks, bloated bond
holders, ETC., then would prosperity
make itself visible on every hand.
Give the people this circulating me-
dunn and relieve the producer and
laboring man from the terrible
pressure of contraction, consequent
low wages, poverty and starvation.
Let the representatives of the peo-
pie wipe out the iniquitous fraud
that was perpetrated upon them in
1879 in taking away the legal ten
der quality OF the silver dollar; let
them place silver on an equality
with gold; pass the bill now before
the senate to provide for the retire
ment of legal tenders and national
bank notes of small denominations,
and the issuing Of coin certificates
in lieu of gold certificates. Give US
more money, increase the circula-
ton thereof, and there will be no
more strikes and no more attempts
to reduce wages to starvation rates.
All existing enterprises would then
be revived, new enterprises started,
wages would be enhanced in value
and restored to what they were be-
fore the barefaced and nefarious
fraud of 1873 was perpetrated for
the purpose of filling the purses of
the Wall street gold bugs and bond
holders, and making the rich richer
and the poor poorer.
The great silver industry of the
country has been waning from year
to year and still languishes under
cloud of suspense and uncertainty,
occasioned by the blow it received
from the scheme inaugurated by
the holders of government securi-
ties in 1873, and since then every
movement of the bondholders seems
to have been to enhance the val
ue of bonds by destroying silver
and compelling the payment of
them to be made in gold alone.
Senator ingalls,, referring to the
secret" passage of the act of the
18th of February, 1873, demone-
tlzlng silver, says: "There is strong
evidence that the destruction of the |
legal tender power of silver was the
elimination of a scheme long en-
tertained by the holders of the pub
lie debt of this country, devised by |
them tor the purpose Of appreciat-
ing the value of their investments
regardless of the ruin and desola-
ton which it would bring upon the
laboring and productive classes.
He says further: ION one side is
capital formidably intrenched in
arrogant from continued
conservative, tenacious of
old theories, demanding new con-
cesslons, enriched by domestic levy
and foreign commerce, and strug-
CLING to adjust all values to it's own
standard; on the other is labor
asking for employment, striving to
develop domestic industries, bat
Ting with the forces of nature and
the wilderness; labor,
starving and sullen. in cities, reso-
lutely determined to overthrow a
system under which the rich are
growing richer and the poor poorer;
a system which gives to a Wander
bllt the possession of wealth beyond
the dreams Of avarice, and con-
demns the poor to a poverty which
has no refuge from starvation but
The prison or the grave" If the
bonds of this government are paid
hey will be paid by the labor of
he country and not by its capital.
They are exempt from taxation and
Dear none of the burdens of So
;iety."
The explanation of the cause of
lard times and depression in BUSH
hess is contained in nutshell: re-
ak the grip of the money sharks
md prosperity is assured. Return
o the good old times of high wages
md the laboring man is content