The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-08-08
OWEN ON NELSON.
CANUTE's ARGYLE SPEECH.
The Next Governor of Minnesota
Makes u Reply


this evening requested for talk in reply
to Gov. Nelson's speech at the opening Of
his campaign. Mr.. Owen. though busy pre-
pairing to leave on a three weeks campaign
tour found time to furnish the following
statement:
1t is to be regretted that Gov. Nelson
saw fit to open his speech with the usual
f1ippant and undignitied assertion that he
who takes a different view of existing sys-
TENS and conditions from that taken by
him or his party is "demag ogue" is try
ing to 1ncite "clasS against class" and is
altogether despicable and dangerous. 1t is
both natural and inevitable that upon such
serious and important questions as those
now pressing for solution there must be
honest differences of opinion, and it will
not facilitate the solution nor make it
more correct by calling our opponents hard
names.
For instance if, as the governor says in
1860 the proportion of farmers to popula-
ton as II to 81, or 800 900 more than
one half, while in 1890 the proportion was
as % to g. or 100000 less than one half
and if in the meantime the relation of
agricultural wealth has shrunk from one
half to 20 per cent of the whole, why
should a man be called dema gogue or an
unworthy citizen for believing that with
a largely decreased number of farmers
their profits should have been correspond
ingy increased? That would be true at
least of any other avocation. Largely de-
crease the relative number of merchants,
manufacturers lawyers, doctors or
ANY OTHER WORKERS,
and those would be strange systems in
deed that would prevent them from doing
more business and making money
than before But this whole matter of
profits, of wealth accumulation and posses
sion is not worth discussing save in con-
nection with the debts of the people.
Space will not permit analysis CT
this factor, but it will at least show the
significance of it by calling attention to
the fact that in 1860 the individual ndebt-
edness was very light; in 1865 it was still
smaller, while in 1890 it was appalling In
that year, according to the census, the
private debt alone was $19, 900, 000,000 an in
crease in 10 years of $4,000 0OO, 900, over 200
per cent. And farmers all over the Union,
in old states as well as new, are carrying
their full share at least of that debt. Is
the man crank or demagOgue who fails
to see any good reason why in the money
making decade of 1880 to 1890 the masses of
the people should not have been getting
out of debt instead of deeply in? And
strangely enough, in old parts of the coun-
try under the best agricultural conditions
and systems, farmers have been compelled
to wade deeply in this pool of debt. To be
able to form intelligent estimate of the
wealth of farmers or any other class their
debts must be considered. And when
private debt alone of a nation is $500 per
capita, $1,000 to the family of five, on an
average, it is a factor that no political
economist can and no statesman should
ignore.
The governor gives the relative produc-
ton of crops in 1860 and 1890. but it is
strange that it did not occur to him to
give the relative value as well as guam
tity, for value is the essential thing after
all. In my haste 1 canrfot look up values
for 1850 but it will be more instructive to
come within our present era, since the
war: In 1870 we produced 1,094, 255, 900
bushels of corn, worth $601, 1893, 030; in 1880
we produced LII, 543, worth $679, ia, 499.
In 1898 production 1,619, 1876, 131 bushels, worth
1891, 625,627. Please note the factor of
production here. In 1870 we pro-
duced of wheat 235, 700 bushels, worth
$245, S65 045; in 1880 produced 49S $40. 1868 BUSH
els, worth $474, POI $50; in 1893 produced 1885,,
49, 725, worth $213 171,3S1. Again note the
absence of "over-production." The aver
age acre of wheat yielded in 1870, 1924 in
1893, $6.16. The average acre of corn yield
ed, in 1870, $14.02; in 1893, 1921, oats 1870,
1928, 1898, S. So Of corn, wheat, oats, rye,
barley and buckwheat we produced in 1870
1929 027 600 bushels, worth 1897, 423, O18; in
1880. 271S,1 sol bushels, worth ST. 1881, 497. 7O4;
in 1893, 1854 481 900 bushels, worth 1892 1873 10O
Here again the factor of over-production,
said to be the only cause of low prices,
should be noted. Surely something is at
work calculated to discourage the farmer,
or at least make him disconnected and
solicitous about the future when he is now
producing over a billion more bushels of
grain than 20 years ago and getting less
money for them than he then did,
Gov. knute, Nelson evidently regards
extensive railroad building evidence of
agricultural prosperity, for he speaks with
much apparent satisfaction of the 10000
miles of road in the country, capitalized at
$40, 900, 900, OOO-s60, 900 mile. This is one of
the most justifiable causes of popular COM
plant. At least $4,000 mile of that cap
italization is water, or wind, yet every dol
lar of it draws interest and much of it lib
eral dividends. 1t is true beyond doubt that
productive industry is annually paying at
least $450,0000O0 to watered railway stocks
alone, a tribute that American citizens
should be ashamed to pay, even if every
rich Vanderbilt. 1t will
not answer this to say that transported ton
is cheaper now than ever before, for while
1T is high enough to pay one cent tribute
to 81 of fictitious value, it is too high.
Laws, commissions, better methods of
agriculture, more diversifcaton of farm
ing, all calculated to benefit the farmer,
are much to be desired, but it is much
more to be desired that their benefits shall
accrue to and remain with the farmer, to
the end that he may enjoy larger
PURCHASING POWER
and thus contribute more largely to the
country's volume of business 1t is the
country's restricted purchasing power of
the farmer that causes the business and
industrial stagnati ton of the times and
that power has been destroyed by financial
manipulation, by trust and combine, by
tribute paying to fictitious values, but most
of all by the decentralization of silver,
whereby the measure of all values was rad
gpd-SO CHANGED IA
double the quantity of farm products to
buy dollar it did 20 years ago. yet the
dollar will pay no more debt than it would
then. eb
In the space and time at my command
L cannot take up Gov. Nelson's silver
argument as a whole. He seems to have
fallen into the common error that this
government did everything it could to sus-
tain silver when it was purchasing 5i,O00,-
900 ounces a year. One might as well say
that the government was doing its best to
maintain the price of wheat by buying it,
storing it ''in sight, making no use of it
and issuing corn cakes in payment for it.
The only way to sustax silver is exactly
as gold is sustained, coin all of it that
comes to the mint and let the owner have
the coin to do as heiwill with it. That was
the rule from the founda ton of the govern
ment down to 1873, when the rule was
broken, and so was the back of the ma
tons industries. So far as profit making
is concerned, except by the privileged
classes, we have been on toboggan slide
ever since. In proof of which again note
the figures in relative crop values.
Another error is that silver was not
stricken down because it is still in use.
But 1t is not in use as a money metal of
ultimate redemption, measure of
value. Gold alone now performs those
functions. There is just about one-half
the money metal now in the world that