The advocate., 1892-03-09

SSAo AA1 AAS AA UA0 AeOON'N ~ - NAN-~
objection?
There was no objection.
The extracts referred to by Mr.. Davis
are as follows:
In order to throw some light on the
question as to who or what class of so
clety Is interested in a scsnty volume Of
money and low prices of labor and the
products Of labor, call attention to an
extract from the Inter Ocean of February
90, 1874, quoted and approved by General
Logan in his speech of March II, 1874.
The Inter Ocean said:
Slavery is only another name for greed.
The black man was not held in bondage for
the mere pleasure Of ownership, but that the
white man might subsist in idleness off his
labor. On the strength of this supreme
greed of few thousand owners of black
men, all the millions of the white men of
the south were wrought up to fury of pas
sion, pressing them forward to the saCri-
fee of their lives and fortunes on the altar
Of a false cause. What is the situation to-
day? The same battle is being wsged in a
different field, with different weapons. In
the national Senate chamber bitter con-
test is in progress by the representatives Of
the moneyed aristocraCy on the one hand,
and by the representatives of the masses of
the people on the other. The proposition
on the part of the capitalists is to grasp and
firmly hold the largest possible percentage
of the profits of all the labor of the country.
They want high rates of interest whereby
they may tax traffic, and low rates of wages
whereby they may tax labor.
By contracting the currency they secure
both of these objects, for they force traffic
to supplicate the banks for loans, and drive
labor to beggary; and as the necessities of
merchants render more pressing their i'm
portunities for loans, the rate of interest is
advanced to cover the increased risk, and
ss the demand for labor declines the price
also declines. On the other hand, the propo-
sition of the people, those who live by labor
and traffic, is to extend the volume of cur
rsncy, thereby cheapening money and so
stimulating manufacturing and other in
dustries into such activity as will insure en-
ployment to the lsboring classes at remu-
nerative rates of wages. No contest was
ever more clearly defined. At no time in
the history Of our country, not even in the
history of the rebellion, has it been more
evident that the interests of the many clash
with those of the few.
Senator Logan continues the discus
sion of contraction as follows:
There is another great fact connected |
with this question which appears to be for
gotten in this debate; that near the close Of
tho war, and for year or two after it, when
our currency was much more abundant in |
proportion to those using it, and before the
south was fully open to it's use, the system |
Of cash payments became almost universal
IN the interior of the country, and, in fact,
in most business transactions everywhere. |
But the increased demand tn supply the |
wants of the south, and in consequence of |
the system of contraction adopted by the |
then secretary of the treasury, forced the |
people to expand the credit policy in a cor
responding ratio, or to curtail all the works
of improvement and manufacturing which |
had been undertaken during this period.
Il was, therefore, the contraction and in |
creased want of currency, and not super
abundance, which produced the necessity |
for running in debt, of which there is 80
much said on this floor. Why, sir. the peo-
pie were never freer from debt in proper
ton to the business done than in 1865, at
the close of the war, when Mr.. Mccullough
began his system of contraction, and at the
very time eleven millions more people were