The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1893-07-21
Through American Spectacles.

LII OuHA kolAOtIChA oPSCldClCSs
Statisticans have recently estimated
that foreign holdings Of American
railroad and municipal stocks and
securities amount to not less than
| 5000, 100000 Stocks and securities
of mortgage and mining companies,
calculated upon the dividends and
interest paid, are held abroad 10 very
nearly the same amounts. Add the
industrial and commercial investments,
and total Indebtedness of The producing
power of the United States to Europe
rises to figures Of astonishing mag
nitude.
Western municipal bonds are owned
largely in the East and in Europe.
Western railroad stocks and bonds are
similarly owned. Ia the newer parts
of the West bus ness of all kinds is
operated to great extent with capital
from the East.
These facts and figures prove the
necessity of sound money as an encour-
agement to credit.
At the same time they prove the
necessity of a currency which will not
demand of the debtor at the time of
repayment pore than he engaged to
pay. 1t is apparent that legal tender
which works constatly to depress The
prices of commodities produced by
debtors may become grinding oppres-
sion.
Some of the ablest economists have
been led by the imperfectons of
previous financial theories to study
money as e standard of deferred pay
ments. The instant Western or
Southern public man glances at the
volume of Indebtedness from this
country to Europe and from three
+! fourtLs Of these States to the other
fourth IN the Northeast. be must as an
honest representative Of his eoasti!p-
ency conclude that the point Of view
from which he is required to study the
money question is the effect Of each
proposed system upon deferred pay
ments.
Looking only to the relations between
cash buyer and seller the settlement OF
money system is comparatively easy,
The statesman would ask Only that the
money have the qualities of uniformity
and convenience.
Even the English economists admit
that the use of one metal causes lower
average of prices than the use of two
metals. If we give the money function
to one metal and that one the scarcest
and most valuable, it seems inevitable
that as the volume of business increases
money will become dearer and debts
harder to pay. Not only justice but
safety lmpe!s people TO ask for the
legal tender which will enable a debtor
to get release with value equal to
the value he received. Certainly the
United States, and most emphatically
the West and South, must suffer
demoralizipg injustice if a mistaken
money theory establishes a Legal tender
which imposes at the time of payment
an additional burden of which the
debtor was ignorant when he undertook
the obligation.
For the West and South money must
be correct standard of deferred pay
ments. 1t is the duty of every West
ern Congre' sman and Senator 10 see
that his constituents are not compelled
by q contracted money 10 undergo
greater sacrifices than justice would
prescribe. In taking firm stand on
that principle it is not necessary that
he be rhetorical and emotional. Money
is not a subject for poetic fancy and
Sentimental eloqueEce. The West and
South do not need rhetoric. They
SAP resist the overbearing dogmatism
of the Eastern gold bugs with a calm
insistence upon looking at American
money from an American poin: of