Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1893-08-04
THE CHEAP MONEY RACKET.
What 1t Is Costing and Will Cost the Wag


What 1t Is Costing and Will Cost the Wage
Garner
There are thousands and perhaps mil
lions OF poor people who imagine that
all the country needs is more currency,
and they think that the free coinage Of
silver would increase the number Of dol
lars per capita and make times better
What now would be the inevitable eff
fects upon the poor, Woodworking peo-
pie Of the free coinage Of both gold and
silver as proposed by the bimetallists
who domineer the Peoples Party and
who hope to hold the balance of power
between the two old parties?
They propose to have this nation coin
gold at about it's actual value and silver
at about twice it's actual value in the
markets Of the world-that is, to make
silver dollars worth about half as much
as gold dollars, at least outside of this
country. They say that we will then
have more currency, because we will
have both gold and silver in circulation.
How will this scheme work?
In the first place, we cannot have 8
double standard of currency any more
than we have double standard of yards,
bushels or pounds. One must give way
to the other. If q merchant should have
two yardsticks, one SO and the other 20
inches long, and attempt to sell cloth by
either at the same price, he would soon
have no use for the 20 inch stick. If a
grocer should attempt to sell bushel of
red apples for So and bushel of russell
apples worth equally as much in all 9th
er markets for 81, his red apples would
be likely to rot on his hands. Men will
always get as much as possible for their
money-that is, buy as cheaply as posi-
BILE. An intelligent farmer will not pay
5000 for a moving machine when he can
get another just as good for $1O0. HUI
man nature is the same when it comes
to money.
If this government should declare that
a cheap dollar should have the same pur-
chasing power as dear dollar, the dear
dollar would soon be discarded, and the
cheap one would have the field to itself.
We should not have enough gold to pur-
chase all of the silver of the world and
to make gold and silver interchange
able at our minis, and hence gold would
soon be at premium and would be
withheld from circulation. We would
have snapped gold for silver money and
would not have increased the amount of
currency in circulation. This is exactly
what will occur at present if Secretary
Carlisle is unable to pay gold for the sill
yer which he must purchase each month.
AS soon as he must pay out silver for sill
yer, gold will go to a premium, and all
who are fortunate enough to possess any
will hold on to it. Cheap silver dollars
will be the only ones then used as cur
rency, and Of course prices will go up,
some at once and some later on.
And right here is where the rich spec
ulator gets in his fine work at the ex-
pense of the poor laborer. Prices of
commodities, provisions, manufactures,
etc, which the laborer has to use every
day, will go up at once, and the shrewd
spectators who have capital to pur-
chase large quantities of these commodi-
ties just before the break will make for
tunes by selling just after the break at
the increased prices. If wages would
go up at once so that the price of days
labor would purchase as much as be-
fore, the workingman might not lose
much by the change. But the price of
labor-all the workingman has to SELL
is the last thing to adjust itself to the
inflated values. Wages can be forced
up only after strikes, lockouts and labor
troubles extending over months, and
perhaps years. During this period la
borers will be paying increased prices
for what they consume and will be get
ting only the old rate of wages. The
total loss to wage earners of such
change would be hundreds of millions
of dollars. 1t would be pocketed by
capitalists and spectators.
Would there ever be any gain to the
workingman, the farmer or the salaried
clerks and professional men? On the
contrary, the loss would continue to in
crease. If half of the civilized nations
of the world were doing business on
silver basis it is not unlikely that silver
would make as good and as stable cur
rency as gold. But little, half civilized
Mexico is now about the only country
still clinging to silver. If the United
States should discard gold and adopt
silver, it would practically ALLEVIATE itself
from the rest of the world and would be
at war with the financial systems of all
of the countries with which it has i'm
portant dealings. Commerce would be
handicapped by the change, and the loss
would in the end fall on the laborer and
farmer. This is great country and
can do many things single handed, but
it would be foolhardy for it to attempt
to buck against the financial system of
the rest of the world
BYRON w, Holt.