Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-01-18
What Congress is doing.

House. so adjournment was necessary.
In the senate on the 23rd many bills
and resolutions were introduced.
Among others bill by Perkins to per-
NIT Oklahoma and the Indian Territory
to organize state government.
Petitions from citizens of Seattle,
Washington, were also presented for
the government to lend assistance to
the Nicaragua Canal project.
Chandler from the Committee on
immigration, reported bill favoring
the restriction of immigration for one
year, and asked that it be set for dis
cussion Immediately on the readjourn
ment of Congress on the 4th of Jan.
The discussion of the anti-option
bill was taken up and Mr.. PETER given
the floor. In the course or his remarks
he spoke as follows:
1t seems to me that the only difference
between this form and the ordinary
gaming which the law prohibits, and
where the persons engaged in such
habits have the doors of respectable
people closed against them. is that one
plays dice upon high plane where ali
the world sees him. and the stakes are
great, not a dollar, nor five dollars, nor
ten dollars, but thousands or hundred
thousand or million dollars, it may
be; that one has the protection Of the
law thrown about him. and the custom
of society to approve his conduct, and
the plaudits of admiring millions 10
encourage him, while the other is de-
nounced by the law, his practice is
prohibited, and his conviction is duly
followed by punishment prescribed in
penal enactments.
To destroy this business would re
lieve from responsible duties a con-
siderable number of Christian gentle
men whose solicitations are en-
barrassing at the business centers; they
must be heard and their business de-
Tended, though they produce nothing
and add not an atom to the wealth OF
the world or TO the comfort or happiness
of the people, while the men and women
whose toll supplies the arteries of trade
with the food on which commerce
thrives-farmers, mechanics, wage
workers generally-must be pushed
aside as unworthy or thought. To pass
this bill is to disturb the harmony of
the privileged classes who have so
long been petted by our lawmakers
that they have not come to regard their
special privileges as of first importance
in the economy of the Government.
The business of dealing in futures and
options has defenders in every body of
spectators in every great city and in
every line of bushes which is enjoying
special advantages by reason of oul
peculiar legislation. They are all but
parts of one stupendous wrong which
has grown up under our vicious laws
What effects one of them lnjuriously
arouses the opposition of all the rest
Attack one and the others fly to its
rescue. 1t would be impossible to
capture such an enemy by fhe firing OF
Single gun or by the use of single
battery.
In this connection l desire to call at
tention briefly to sone considerations
which have not heard referred to II
this discussion. They may not appear
to De altogether relevant, yet it seems
to me that they are pertinent. While
[ concur in the conclusions of Senators
who favor this bill with respect to the
evils of the business which it is intended
to remove, l do not believe the de.
preston in agriculture is wholly
chargeable to option dealing. We all
have observed steady tendencies of
prices upward or downward during
certain well-refneG periods when spec
ulatlon in farm products was quite as
active as it is now.
Take the cereals, for example. The
total number of bushels of corn, wheat
oats. barley, rye, and buckwheat raised
in the United States in the year 1861
was ,329, 720 400, of the value of 81 ,2S4, :
O37 80, an average of SO cents pei
bushel. That was the value of the
cereals in 1867. Coming down twenty
years, 1887, we find the total production
of the same crop to have been 9, $50, 457 :
QUO bushels, of the aggregate value OF
81 ,204 ,2S9 $40, being an average value
Of 46 cent per buShel.
But this great depreciation was not
a steady and regular decline during the
whole period of twenty years, and that
is Il point to which | wish to call the
attention Of the Senate. There was a
period of depr4ssson, then again a
rising period; and another period OF
fall. The amount of cereals in 1875
was 2,302, 254 $50 bushels, and the
aggregate value of the crop was S9l3,-
!75,920, equal to 40 cents per bushel.
The number of bushels produced in 1882
was 1888, 1894 400, of the value of 81
469 1893, 1893, or equal to 81 cents per
bushel,
1t appears that the value of the grain
had fallen nearly as low In 1878 as il
has been at any time since. 1t appears
further that IN 1882 the price had risen
80 per cent above the price in 1878; and
that from and after 1882 the price fell
to 45 cents hushel in 1887; and 1t has
been about that ever since.
In connection with that land this is
point to which call attention par
ticularly) l wish to state that during
the first period we had a very large
amount of money in circulation, be-
ginning, say, with 1866, when we had
$40 bonds outstanding amounting to
S722, 205,5OQ. Passing over to the report
for 1869 we find that the amount had
been increased to 1902 ,67I 100.
showing an absorption of currency in
the three years equal to $3.50, 465 900.
That amount of the circulating money
of the country had been withdrawn