The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1891-05-30

much o., him If he watts. When tn
fever of speculatiug once gets starte
there is no telling where it will stol
When every b dy WHO has mouoy gets {
buying prices will keep going mp. specr
latI1n viii be EuGce Sstui, and the yer
fact that it is successful will make NOR
people want o speculate and send pric..
still higher. AID 80, with ALI this plenty
money will be scaE &C and hard to borrow
But what is the result OF this rise o
prices Oh the people who DON speculate
on the labOreTs aud the s4laried men, tn
physicians aud everybody who works 20
wages. They are the sufferers. Ever,
time they go to market they lind butte
a cent or two a pound higher, aud ever.
new suit Of clothes they have to bu,
costs them more Thus society Is Givide,
into two great classes. the grea: specula
tors making fortunes and the poorer
classes getting piEched. l. is true thai
there is more money than ever in cIrcu
lation, but more money is wanted, st
that really large amount OF money j!
of no more Use than small amount
would be-
| Now, in all this ain only telling you
facts that have happened. They hap.
pened in our country during ard after
the revolution, and they happened in
France at the time of the French revo,
| IL, ion, and az ain in this country ii 1887,
and again durIug the civil war In all
Cases the authorities and the public got
very angry and made all sorts of COM
| plants against the spectators, the
foreStallers aud the brokers. and threat
encd to do all sorts OF things with them.
| believe thai Napoleon actually hanged
some of them, and Washington was very
sorry that he could not hang them. But
all these complaints are perfectly silly.
You may just as well let food against
dam ard then complain because the
dam breaks aud the food destroys the
country below. The wage earners are
IhO P0oPiO oCl'", anu lho iuHhleu Cul-
rency is the food which they let into the
dam above them because they think it is
very nice TO have plenty of water.
But where does this speculation stop ?
You are building on a very narrow toun-
dation. The man who can build the
highest makes the most money, provided
he can get down before his ediice topples
over. SO they 60 on, brick by brick, but
as often as a prudent man steps down
another climbs up. But the inevitable
time comes when things topple over
Prices stop rising because the poor
people cannot pay them aud have to go
without. Then one speculator fails, and
then another fails, until at last the
whole thing topples over, aud the last
state of everybody is worse than the first
except in the case of those cautious and
lucky spectators who retired before the
crash came.
No" | must ask you to think very
carefully over another aspect of the case
in fact, | want you to think as closely
as if you had to do a difficult sum in
arithmetic. The problem is, Why are
people SO anxious to get money? Ii you
look at the case you will see that nothing
i'll the world is of less use than money.
You cannot eat it any more than poor
old Midas could eat his gold. 1t will not
shelter you it will not serve you any
purpose whatever You can answer the
question without difficulty. We all want
the money because with it we can buy
what we want. Now if you will always
remember and bear in mind in all dis
cussions of this subject that money is
good for nothing for it's own sake and is
useful only on account of what we can
buy with 1t, you will avoid one of the
greatest mistakes that are made III deal
ing with this subject. You have simply
to remember that the value of money is
not in having so many dollars, but in
being able to buy SO many hats, so much
bread and such a suit of clothes. This
being the case, you see at once that if
any policy is adopted oy which you buy
less bread for dollar and have to pay
more money for suit of clothes. your
money is worth less. An increase 81 one
third in the cost OF everything you euy
is not really an Increase of value at all !;
it is only reduction of your income by
% per cent. You have as many dollars
as you bad before, but you really do not
have as much value in money.
No doubt it will seem very paradoxical
to you at first TO talk about the value of
one dollar and to say that the value may
change You think that 81 is always
just 81 and $40 always just ten times as
much, no matter what happens, ard
therefore cannot see why it ls not an ill.,
variable measure of value. The trouble
is that you cannot see the value of d
dollar as plainly as you can see whether
a yard measure is or is not yard long.
Let me give you an illustration Suppose
ono foot rules were ali made of such
material that in the course OF few
months they would shrink up TO one
half, and that they all shrunk in the
same proportion. You might still call
their length one foot, and if the law re-
uuired that the measures should lie
taken and called one foot, no matter how
much they might shrink, you would have
to consider that that was their real
length. See also what would follow from
this. On measuring your height you
would find that you had grown to ten or
twelve feet that your house was twice
as broad and twice as long as before. So
long as you did not know that your foot
measure had shrunk, you might be in as
delightful state of mind as the men
sometimes are who have taken a dose OF
some drug which makes them imagine
they are the largest, strongest and hap
picst people that ever existed in the
world. Ii YOU saw a man who did not
recognize the fact that the measures
were shorter, and who boosted of his
immense stature, you would think him
very foolish in fact, every person would
who saw how the case stood. Now, when
in couse auence of having more dollars
and especially cheap silver or paper dol
lars, you make prices go up, you are
doing in values exactly what you are
doing in length when YOU make the foot
rule shorter. Things are really not worth
any more than they were before; it il
the dollars which are worth less. 1e
| people understand this so little that NJ
measures are at first more popular thar
those which initiate the currency. Every