Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-02-22

belongs, has built up nonopolies under
the iron heel of which homeless,
struggling, tolling, impoverished hu-
mainly lies crushed. There are other
issues confronting the American people
of more vital interest, the solution of
which is fraught more of veal and
more of woe than is tn they taseented
by the tariff. l speak, rays beinest,
of the financial questions that have
been agitating the minds of this people
for the past number of years. 1t is
said that during the Seventies. when
the discussions were growing out of
the bond legislation of that period,
were rife. that two IrIshmen, the one
literate, the other illiterate. were talk
ing about the situation; Pat" says
the illIterate one, faith and what is
all this talk about the bonds?" why,
Jimmie" said the brighter, lit means
just this, that the poor man shall get
up at five-twinty in the morning, and
work hard until seven-thirty in the ev-
ening, so that the rich man may sleep
till tin-forty in the morning"
submit, Mr.. President, that howev-
er crude may be the formula in which
Pat expressed himself, that he never
theless summarized in its smallest pos
sible compass the financial legislation
that has cursed the industry, and snap
ped the vitality of this people since the
inauguration of this legislation thai
has aimed at nothing, Sir, but to en-
nance the value of money, and to give
TO the class enjoying fixed incomes the
power to purchase or to buy more of
life, more of toll, more of happiness,
more of the sunlight that belongs by
every law OF right to the possessor of
the American home.
We hear much from the gentlemen
on the other side, and the Senator from
LeavenwOrth has not neglected to IN
clude it in his remarks, about the sub
treasury. These gentlemen invariably
speak of it as scheme" as if there
were some dark conspiracy behind all
this by which we would imperil the
rights and the liberties of this people.
l am prepared to believe that what is
known as the subtreasury idea, has
many, and more or less varied interpre.
tatiOns; for myself, l want to say that
the sum and substance is embraced
within the idea, that the American
people should do such volume of the
banking of the country, through duly
l
authorized and salaried, and bonded
agents, according to the rules and regu.
lations to be made part of the enact
ment as shall forever make it Impossi-
BILE for the ''ShylOcks" of this country
to extore from the toiling masses of the
nation from ten per cent per annum to
i've per cent per month, for the use of
| that, without which, not one dollars
worth of business could be transacted
in this far country.
hold, Sir, that money is nothing
more than medium of exchange; that
1T is the universal solvent in which may
be dissolved and by which may be rep
resented all values of whatever charac-
ter, and Sir, whether the dollar be of
J coin or whether 1t be paper, | maintain
I that Its value is fixed solely by the peo-
! pie through their representatives, and
that as money, it can have no other.\ Is
it not strange, Mr.. President, that this
great nation should create money, be it
much or be it little, that which is as in
dispensable tn the transaction of busi-
ness, as indispensable to the inter-
change Of all commerce, as is the car on
the track; and after having created this,
that after having given it all the value
it possesses, and having made it tor the
sole purpose of serving the needs and
the interests of the people who bring it
into being, and who endow it with
whatever virtue, and whatever power it
may possess, that then, Mr.. President,
they should establish, here and there.
private individuals all along the stream
of commerce and endow these men
with the right to dip the hand of greed
into the stream and take from it the toll
of avaiice as 1t flows up and down
through the land.
There is no law, Mr.. President, writ
ten or unwritten, stating why this
people shall not engage IN any enter
prise that will accrue to the benefit of
the great masses of this people.
If the interest rates of this nation
can be reduced to basis commensu-
rate with the increase IN national
wealth. it will create new enterprises,
old ones would no longer languish, and
the hum of industry would be heard
through the length and breadth of the
| land.
If the wealth of this nation be taken
at any decennIal period, whether it be
i'll 1880, when this government went in
to existence, or whether it be at any
subsequent period, and the interest be
calculated upon it at two and one half
per cent per anpum, compounded semi
annually, it will be found, Mr.. Presi-
dent, that the amount SO calculated
will far exceed the wealth of the ma
ton at any period to which such calcu-
latiOn may be carried. In other words,
Mr.. President, if the capital of this ma
ton be taken as an Investment at any
given time, and upon such investment
we calculate interest at the rate of two
| and one half per cent, it will be found
in our actual experience, we have failed
to earn such rate; if then it be true,
as the late reyered leader of the repub-
lican party, James q. Blaine asserted
IN the committee room, when in his in
dignation at the passage of the McKin-
ley Bill, he crushed his hat, and made
the statement that the total indebted
ness of this nation was thirty one bill
lions OF dollars, upon which we as a
people pay an average interest rate of
from seven TO eight per cent per annum
aud our total wealth Is but double that.