The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-08-14

All commerce is an exchange Of prop
erty, one property for another, and when
You SO legislate that the man owning one
class OF property can enhance the ex-
cnangeable value Of that property in ex-
cnange Tor your property so as to make
his Extraordinarily more valuable
than yours you have legislated in the in
terest Of that class. But you have done
a more serious thing in this instance be-
cause this class of property to which I
now refer, money, Is class of property
which you must have. You can do with
out wheat because you can eat something
else. You can do without beef, you can
eat pork or mutton. You may exist with
out all those articles lave named, and
yet you can - HAPPY and prosperous.
But he-5 is legislation that has enhanced
ia exchangeable value of class ofprop-
erty that you must have. You might as
we'll talk about doing without air and
water as to talk about doing without
money.
There is no condition of civilization
that you can imagine by which you can
be part Of that civilization and yet do
without money. (Applause) 1t is the
blood of civilization. It is the life fluid
OF civilization, and it is property, and
instead of our national laws protecting
and seeing that it ran in the channel
where it belonged to feed the social or
ganism it has been diverted and boarded
by these men who own it under laws enl
cOuraging them to do so. And by the
legislation in 1873 it has been enhanced
in exchangeable value with your prop
erty. That is the crucial point in this
financial discussion. (Applause.) A man
loaning money in 1872 that 1000 bushels
of wheat would have paid, you must now
give him 1000 bushels of wheat to pay
that debt. (Aplause.) That is true as
applied to the price Of wheat compared
with 1884 and 1894. And that is the
main point in this discussion. These
men who own bonds payable in money
and securities, payable in money aggre-
eating more than all the assessed value
of the property in the United States, have
legislated SO as to enhance the value of
their property until you have got to give
up twice as much to them when they
come to buy your property as they give
up to you when you go with your hard
earnings, with the product Of your loom
and your field, to buy their property"
(Applause) !
Mr.. Horr-"Now I want to call the at
tention of my friend to the fact that he
can't get at how farmers are doing sim
ply by selecting one article which hap
pens to be cheap"
THE ALLEGED RUIN OF THE
FARMER.
Where, Mr.. Harvey, in these averages
involving thousands Of millions Of dollars
worth of arm property say where ia
the evidence of ruin for the farmer and Of
decline in farm prices of which your
inspired boy, without knowledge Of
mathematics and the facts, has been tell
ing the country so much? That ruin and
that decline, save in exceptional cases,
exists only in the hooks and crannies of
diseased imagination and in the brains of
boys like Coin, who borrow their inspira-
ton from sources of which no man has
any knowledge. I want to present this
table as part Of my remarks where l have
compared the rates of tons-the price per
ton showing the condition as l claim.
The agricultural department only gives
figures for these staples for the last two
years of the latter period. The figures
for that period have to be estimated upon
the basis of those given in 1893 and 1894.
"A comparative exhibit of the produce
ton in tons and the valnue of the lead
ing agricultural staples for the two periods
of 1875 to 1879 and 1890 to 1894: