The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1894-07-10

of power9
On the 22d of June the hundred mil
lion gold reserve in the U. s. Treasury
had run down to sol, 9O2, 745; and, like
an aa~ctioneer's plumber, it keeps on gos
ing. Before it reached that figure last
winter, our chambers of commerce,
boards of trade, and newspapers, who
take their financial fashions from
north of the Potomac river, were posi-
lively obstreperous in their demand
for the issue and sale of bonds as the
only business like course to pursue.
The reserve must be strengthened. So
Mr.. Carlisle issued $50, 600, 900 Of bonds
to buy gold to lay up in the treasury
to strengthen the reserve and keep up
the credit of the nation. Every reason
advanced for that issue would seem to
apply with equal force to the issue
now of a second $50, 600, 900. Yet the
newspapers and the chambers of com
merce do not seem to be alarmed at
the situation. Why is it that Mr.. Car
Isle does not at once issue another
batch9 Possibly there was something
peculiar about the first issue.
Mr.. Hill recently presented petitions
to the Senate against the imposition of
an income tax. One petition was
headed by VIM. D. .Hornblower, and
another was signed by Wheeler II.
Peckh Am, Mr.. Cleveland's rejected
appointees to the Supreme Court.
Evidently he knew his men.
The Washington Post quotes Senator
Ransom as saying: 1.-The best way to
learn whether a State is prosperous is
to look at the attendance upon its
schools and colleges. When hard times
come the average citizen, especially if
he lives in a rural community, takes
his boy or his girl out of school the
very first thing, and either puts them
to work or keeps them at home. When
good times come again-and not until
then-the boy goes back to college and
the girl to the academy. 1 want no
better indication of the prosperity of
North Carolina than to know that her
educational institutions are crowded to
the doors; and this has been the case
this season" And so we are prosper
Gus and didn't even know it, like the
Irishman's terrapin, dead but not
sensible of it." We are prosperous in
face of the fact that cities lose their
boom, and merchants fail, and fac
tories stand idle; that trade blossoms
like a withered rose; that the pauper
lists grow from year to year in every
county in the State; that the number
of sales of property for taxes and under
mortgage foreclosures is ever on the
increase; and that thousands of boys
and girls, sprung from parents edu
Gated and uneducated, grow up in
ignorance because of the increasing in
ability of their parents to educate
them. When it's citizens receive ade-
quate compensation for the products
of their labor, when their accumula-
tions increase rather than decline in
value, when by industry they can rid
themselves of debt, retain their homes,
acquire homes and educate their chill
dren, these a sensible man might
esteem as good indications of the pros
perity of the State. The fact that our
private schools are we'll attended is
evidence only that our people are
aroused to the need of education; and
this fact augures we'll for the future of
the State. 1t is no evidence of material
thrift. The representatives Of the put-
lie and of the private schools in the
State, and the existence of the Farm
ers' Alliance, have done a notable work
in developing the educational spirit
among our people; and many a boy
goes to college OF to the academy to-
day whose father, though more able
fifteen pears ago, would not have sent
him then. And after all how many a
promising boy and girl has been told
by fond parents, 1--WE did intend you
should go to school this year, but we
cannot send you without making a
debt we see no way to pay. Maybe it
will be better another year." And it
grows no better, Notwithstanding our
Senatorial prosperity. These are never
educated. They make up the indis-
tinct background of the picture of our
schools crowded to the DOORS" They
are the great body of the plant and our
teeming schools are only as the gay
flowers upon it.
If North Carolina is prosperous now,
what was she a dozen years ago9 Only
make her as prosperous as she was a
years ago, and the present facili