The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1893-11-24
Friday. Nov. "a, 1898.
Good Times Haven't Come.

Have you seen anything of that good times
which was TO come in like tidal wave after
the Sherman law was repealed? The
promised "good times" revival of bust
ness" &c., &C., have not materialized, but
instead we have the old cry of wolf. Factory
hands out of employment with no prospect
of work and wages before them.
The daily humbug papers which, in the
interest of Wall street, New York, and
Threadneedle street, London, promised the
public everything that was lovely if the
Sherman law was repealed, now tell their
dupes such stories as this extract unfolds
We clip it at random. Hundreds of similar
dismal records fill the daily papers:
"The president Of one steel company, with
capital Of $50, 000,0 900 and employing last
year 8 500 men, to whom was paid in 1892
$6,522000 in wages, informed the Ways
and Means Committee that in consequence
of this proposed policy he had gradually
closed his mills, until on October l, 1898,
instead of $500 men actively employed at
good wages only 100 at reduced wages
were at work. What is true of this COM
pany is equally true of others. paralysis
of the iron and steel trades has produced
untold hardships in the iron ore regions and
in the great iron and steel producing dis
tricts throughout the country"
Who paid the high prices for the iron
which enabled the employment of these now
idle men? The consumers of course. And
those consumers are the people of this
country, the farmers, mechanics, the wood
choppers, the stone breakers; 10 short all
manner of laborers in other lines of business
whose wages the government has no means
of Increasing by tariff laws. These people
paid the extra price for the iron, which put
the high wages into the pockets of the men
who did the manual labor, and also the
profit into the pockets of the mill owners.
These people who supported the iron bust
ness and all other branches of manufacture
by paying more for the same class of goods
than they sell for in other countries, are
able no longer to Go it. Their labor and the
price of their products haye been so reduced
they have not the money out of which to
pay this extra price or bonus over other
similar goods in the world at large. If the
people who buy and consume baye not the
money with which 10 buy, all the tariffs
which the ingenuity of man can frame will
not enable the consumer to buy at higher
price or to purchase the goods at the lower
rates. Hence while such conditions remain
the mills cannot run on full time or employ
the idle workmen at the old line of wages
or even give them steady employment at
reduced wages.
There is but one remedy, which is not
tariff, but more money with which TO tran
sact the business of the country. The wind
money, or credit, of the banks will not do
1t costs too much. Real money is necessary,
which costs no interest. 1t is the credit or
imaginary money hypolhecated on real
money which costs the people who make
wealth, the crushing interest which devours
both manufacturers and consumers.
When the government takes the business
of distributing the money of the country ont
of the hands of private corporations, and
does it impartially for less than one per
cent interest, our manufactures will be able
to down the competitor of the world.
Remember this central fact, all who
attempt to study this question of money and
prices, that the consumer, the last person to
handle the goods must pay in real money.
All others can pay in credit money. The
manufacturer can borrow from the banks.
The wholesaler can borrow from, the hanks
to pay the manufacturer. The jobber and
retailer can borrow from the banks TO pay
the wholesaler, but the consumer must pay
IN real money, money he has purchased
with the products of his labor. That money
reimburses the jobber and retailer. They
in turn pass it along TO the wholesaler, and
the wholesaler to the manufacturer who
squares his account with the bank, which
had loaned him, not money bnt credit, for
which it charged him heavy rates of interest,
and then cashed the checks he sent into the
bank with depositors' money, because the
bank has no money Of its own. 1t has
nothing in the shape of money except the
money of the public deposited for safe
keeping and distribution.
Hard WnrLx Row r ;%klo Do-