The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1893-08-23
HEREsIES UNHINDERED.
Some Of the Causes Which Have Contrib
uted to Mako FInsncial Depression
Why We Want q Money BASIS Ac-
cepted by tho World.
lGreenville News

The people of the South have eve,
since the war been occupied with their
State and local affairs and have given
little thought or attention to federal
politics. To many of them the great
problems and questions of political
economy and the national life are rev.
Citations Of new fields of thought and
hope. Therefore they are easily de.
ceived and misled by false but plausi.
BILE theories and schemes as impossible
of practical use as they are brilliant
and attractive in appearance.
All attempts to explain the present
financial conditions in this country by
attributing them to any one cause fail
because several causes have contrib
uted to bring the results we see and
feel. We believe one of the most po.
tent of these causes is the evidence
found in all parts of the country that
the people have gone wild on financial
matters and are prepared to follow
reckless financial leaders and to de-
stroy values in an effort to bring about
a millennium. Politicians of more or
less prominence in their eagerness to
60 with the crowd and to use popular
movements for their own advantage
increase the danger and stimulate the
fear of those who have possessions to
lose. With men in the United States
Senate supporting theories which are
practically communism it is no won
der that men turn all they have into
money and hoard it away. No invest
ment is safe while at the command of a
secret order of men supposed to be
statesmen are favoring the confscation
ofrailroad and telegraph lines. No loan
can be secure while Congress threatens
to provide tor the payment of all debts
at sixty cents on the dollar. It is full
time for men and newspapers with the
courage to express their opinions to
bestir themselves in exposing the folly
of some ideas now being urged upon the
people, already doing vast harm and
likely to do more. That is work in
which men of all degrees and occupa-
tions are interested, for violent popu-
lar movements once started in a wrong
direction invariably 60 to extremes
and usually injure most those who
have helped them with honest pur-
pose.
The Populists say they favor the free
and unlimited coinage of silver "as a
measure Of temporary relief" The
truth is they favor it as a measure of
temporary agitation. BY their theo-
ries and by the theories Of the free sill
yer advocates themselves talk of ratio
has no part in the pending discussion.
II the government can take sixteen
ounces OF silver and by applying a
stamp and mould make it worth an
ounce of gold while the market price
is twenty ounces of silver, for one of gold
the government can as we'll by the
use Of the same mould and stamp
make an ounce of. silver worth an
ounce of gold. The Greenbackers and
the Populists are working together
and seem to accept each others theo-
ries, although they are exactly op-
posed. The greenback theory is that
money should have no intrinsic value
that by taking tin pie plate and
stamping Oh it the name of the United
States and Zone Hundred Dollars"
and putting behind it law that says
it shall be legal tender for $l00 we
can make it worth as much as five
gold twenty dollar pieces. They claim
that money should have no intrinsic
no real-value. They seem to forget
that we must trade with people who
need not regard our laws snd interests,
who want value for value and who
accept our paper money how only be-
cause it contains promise to pay gold,
or silver which may be exchanged for
gold on demand. Silver and gold are
intrinsically valuable only because the
world is agreed in accepting them as
valuable and they may be used every
where in the world for buying; but
paper and tin have no such value nor
has the assurance of "the faith and
credit of the people," Where people can
not sell they will not bly. When we
make money which the English and
French will not accept for their goods
the English and French will not buy
cotton or grain from US.
The populists and alliance people
concede that money should have some
thing behind it-something which the
holder may look to for redemption.
They split from the greenbackers there,
and they propose to have "non-per;sh-
able farm products" as the basis-the
security. Yet foreigners may not want
non-perishable farm products at all
times or may decline to accept them at
our valuation.
We are told that the purpose is to
break down the money monopoly of
the national banks. The monopoly
will be broken down by the extinction
of the bonded debt in course of time,
but as matter Of fact the national
banks are only conveniences used by
the government for the distribution
and storage of money and allowed q
profit in payment for their services just
as it is proposed to pay the sub-treasu-
ry agents for doing the same service. It
comes to the same thing after all, so
far as that part of it goes. Somebody
must do that work and be paid for it.
In the same breath, however, the pop.