The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-05-16
COMICAL.
A String of BIunders.

their utterances would have less
weight. The St. Paul Globe is an able
newspaper, but every now and then
something appears in it's columns that
takes the breath away from all we'll
informed readers. Recently it said:
"When Senator Morgan secured a
leave Of absence from the senate, ex-
tending well into May, lie made mis-
take. He would have done better to
have remained at Washington saving
wood. The purpose of his absence was
to take hand in the state campaign.
In speech made by him at Birming-
ham he said, eff the United States
had as much money as France the peo-
pie would not suffer from the effects
of the Mckinley law" The senator
referred, of course, to the fact that
the per capita of currency (money) in
France is $40, in the United States $24.
That circumstance affords no ground
for comparison. Mr.. Morgan took an
Indirect and equally foolish way to
show disapprobation for the repeal of
the Sherman act and the veto of the
Bland act. He should have come out
squarely and said what he meant"
Now Mr.. Nondescript, ut
tering oracles from behind the imper-
sonal shelter of lot of type,-why
don't you tell the truth? 1t is just as
easy as lying, to most people. You
know, or you ought to know, that the
per capita of France is not $40, but
SIS; and that the money in actual cir
culation in this country, outside of
bank reserves, is about S. per capita.
But taking your own figures, why
should this great republic have but
$24 while France has $40? The Globe at
tempts to answer, thus:
"As between France and the United
States, the systems of business are
radically different. One dollar here
accomplishes as much, in commercial
transactions, as at least three in
France. Checks, drafts and the like
in the American system perform SER
vice in fully nine-tenths of the trans
actions, while in France they are
scarcely employed at all, never except
in limited instances and in large deals.
There is no value whatever to Nor
gan's comparison, and he ought to
have been too sagacious to have made
it. The per capita circulation in Eng
land and Germany is much less than
in the United States yet those coun-
tries are fully as prosperous as
France"
This is all nonsense.s This country
has tremendous crops of wheat, corn. .
cotton, tobacco, meats: and they are
bought with money every year, not
with drafts. France has no such de-
mand for currency. A year or two
ago there was not money enough to
pay for the wheat crops of the Da-
kotas, and the elevator-men fell back
on bank checks as temporary expedi-
ent, but they did not work. Every
year there is money-famine when
the crops have to be moved. Moreover
the use of checks and drafts pre-sup-
poses that there is money behind them.
If the writer of the Globle article un-
dertakes to use checks as money, with
out the money to redeem them, he will
have chance to study political
economy in Saltwater, under the kind
ly tutelage of Warden Wolfer. And
he would do less harm there than
scribbling nonsense in the Globe edi-
torial rooms.
And as to whether England and Ger
many are as prosperous as France we
would refer this imperfect young man
to the testimony of no less person
age than Mr.. James J. Hill, who said
the other day, on his return from a
transatlantic trip, that France was
the most prosperous country in
Europe: and that the rest of the con-
tinent was so hard up that the people
were driven to bi-metallism, because
there IS not enough gold IN the ecorld to
furnish sufficiently large basis of credit"
Mr.. Hill evidently thinks that credit
to be abundant requires an abundant
supply of money of some kind. The
profound writer for the Globe. (H.P
Hall would never talk such nonsense J
holds that bills and drafts have no re-
lation to money; and that you could
wipe out all the currency Of country
and run it's business with checks-on
sand banks!
And then the writer continues:
Forty dollars per capita would be
no relief from the effects of the Nc
Kinley law. The senator knows this
perfectly we'll. He should be ashamed
to offer such cheat to public audi
ence. There is honest money enough
in this country, all that is needed for
safe and sound commercial transac-
tions. 1t is not probable that Mr..
Morgan is in favor of an imitation of
fiat currency for the purpose of rails
inc the amount per capita, as are
Allen, PETER, Stewart, and cranks like
them. If the per capita of currency in
the United States was $40 or $50 per
capita, it would not mitigate the op-
preston of the Mckinley law an iota.
That is not where the shoe pinches."
All! Indeed.
"There is honest money enough in
this country, all that is needed for all
safe and sound commercial transac-
tiOns."
Indeed!
Then how comes it that the Globe is
in the hands of one receiver, and the
Pioneer-PreSs just ready to drop into
the grasp Of another? Are they not
"safe and sound?' And what does it
avail the owners of those journals that
there are $S0,000,000 of surplus money,
locked up in the banks OF New York?
1t is like the proverbial "Dutchman's
anchor;' which was good anchor in
deed. but it was a thousand miles
away from where the storm was ra-