The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1890-05-22
Depression in Agriculture. Over
production.

Depression in Agriculture. Over
production
The American Agriculturist passes
Judgment and calls halt: LET pop
ulation catch up with production"
| Now this looks very well on paper
But overproduction has lost its charm
to the thinking masses. 1T is too
thin Let us look at things ms they
exist, and not through Shylock
glasses.
In his report in 1885, Mr.. Truesdale,
superintendent of the Chicago Relief
and Aid Society. said that there were
81, 900 men out Of employment in Chi
cago, that $4,000 OF them were heads
of families. Strong men came for re-
lief with tears in their eyes. Ninety
nine per cent of them were worthy Of
relief; they had come to want be-
cause they could get no work. Mr..
Truesdale said: I'VE seldom see BUM
mers or dead-beats now. Their
trouble is out of employment" The
Hartford Examiner says: I'm the Sc
verify of winter, young girls have
tramped from place to place in search
of work; have begged shelter and
food, slept in out-houses and barns,
and are to day the victims of hunger
and exposure. Wholly defenseless,
they are thrown into temptation and
the lowest forms Of vagrancy. The
males tramp further in the state and
become desperate and vicious; while
the old people and infants remaining
in the villages are starving by inches.
Common necessities of life are un-
known to hundreds Of fathers, moth
ers and children. All this in Christian
America
There is q cause for all this but it is
not overproduction. The present A.
nancial system is radically wrong. A
favored class by conspiring to get
the government to exempt the green
back from paying interest on bonds
and duties on imports obtained a
chance to depreciate the greenbacks
and speculate in gold (cornering it
and putting up its price, and by con.
verting gold into greenbackso obtained
bonds at all the way from IS to IS
cents on the dollar. In this way,
from 1862 to 1867 they obtained of the
government in round numbers g. OOO-
OOO, 900 Of bonds for 1890, 600, 900 of
coin. In other words the government
realized 81, 800, OOO, 900 in coin for ST.
OOO, OOO, 900 in bonds, standing shave
of 800, 100000. BY the contraction
act of May, 1868, the circulating me-
dunn was contracted from near g.
OOO, DOC, 900 to little over 5000, 600, 900
in ten years, causing loss to indus
try in failures of over 81, 400, OOO, 900.
From the people direct and through
the government the National Banks
have drawn in interest upon their
untaxed bonds and upon what they
owe (their notes. not less than q, OOO-
O0O,0O The credit strengthening act
added over 5000, GOO. 900 to the bond
holders pile and consequently loss
of that amount to labor.
The ruin of twenty-five years: LIST,
the two exceptions on the greenbacks;
End, the National Bank act; Bird, the
contraction act; 4th, the strengthen
ing credit act; 5th, the funding act;
9th, the demonetizing act; eth, the
resumption act. All cemented by the
clamorous lie, public credit, public
honor" These are some Of the foot
prints of that red-mouthed despot,
the money power, which is still forg-
ing chains for the limbs of American
Industry with the view of enslaving
the American populace by robbing
them of their homes and firesides, and
thus controlling their life, liberty
and pursuit of happiness by control
ing their wages through the control
and monopoly of money.
What is the result?
1t has driven labor to pauperism
and is fast concentrating the lands,
the machinery and the wealth OF the
nation in the hands of monied dig
archy whose headquarters are:.in:L Lon
con and Wall Street. Instead of bet
ter times we may look for worse and
as soon as money becomes more and
more under the control of the con-
spirators and as wages continue to
fall and prices to decline.
Prices and wages are kept down to
hard pan prices by limiting the mon-
ey to the coin basis, because when
prices are low the bondholder's inter-
est is able to absorb and eat all the
proceeds of labor and prevent the
people from ever Kidding themselves
of the burden. To perpetuate this
system, to keep the masses in bond
age to them, that they may relish
and luxuriate in idleness on the la
Dor of the masses, they tell us that
nothing but gold or silver is or can
be money, that anything else is a
humbug, snare and a delusion, and
will bring ruin upon the country,
that imitation is worse than the chol-
era or the plague.
And, notwithstanding they roll in
their millions with fabulous incomes
themselves, they tell us that an aver
age of fifty dollars apiece for the
common folks would lead to speeula.
ton, dissipation, recklessness and
wild extravaganza.
This sad condition will lcOntinue
and intensity until the people learn