The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-04-03
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
The Immortal Poet Painted In
1863 the Conditions of the
American People in 1895.
Unknown Clipping,

o~"JNNo VI iouu V0AoutIy anu us con-
comitant nditions, as then applied to
Great Britain and Ireland, are thus
portrayed:
Ill fares he land to Fastening ills nrev.
Whete wealth. accumulates and men de-
Princes and lords may flourish, or NAV
A breath can make them as a breath Ia
made.
Out OF the ills born of princes and
lordships Of Europe, the founders of
the American republic believed. when
that immortal document was tri-
umphant, which reads, "We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that
ALL men are created free>and equal"
that they and those to follow them
had escaped forever the imposition of
tyranny. The year of grace 1895
dawnS on condition in the United
States scarcely less deplorable than
those prompting Goldsmith to write
the deserted Village"
Before making inquiry into the
causes of landless and hopeless condi-
tiOn to which the masses are brought
we shall quote from the same poem.
After deprecating the extremes of
penury and poverty, it reads:
But verging to decline, its splendors rise.
While scourged by famine from the smi-
ling land
The mournful peasant leaves his humble
And while he sinks, without one arm to
The country blooms-a garden and a
Where then. ali. where shall poverty re-
To escape the pressure of contagious
+ to to- the city sped what waits him there?
10 see prOfuSlOn that he must not share;
bined.
To pamper luxury and thin mankind;
To see each joy the sons O. pleasure know,
Extorted from his fellow creatures VICE.
This sounds as if it were writ
ten from an experience of present
facts: but no doubt it is in the main a
picture of century and a quarter
ago, before the liberty of 1916 had
been achieved-long before the ap-
planes Of steam and electricity had
come into service-before the i'm
proved methods of machinery that
render many fold greater the ability
change in other things the same
causes operate in our midst. Usury is
the one curse stalking through all
the centuries. USury transfers la nds,
takes possession of machinery, binds
the limbs of labor with a chain that
continually grows tighter and more
grievOuS to be borne
No evil is more severely denounced
in the Bible than that of usury.
Usury is the sphinx demanding a So
luton or the death of Christian civil
ization. The way to get rid of usury
is very simple; have the government
issue all money without any inter
vention OF bank corporations or in
dividuals, at cost sufficient to pay
expense of furnishing it to the people,
the government is going to set the
printing press going and allow any
and every body currency as much as is
wanted. oh, no, not so free as all
that, but if money is wanted from the
Government, ample and safe securi-
ties must be forthcoming or value
received handed over to the govern
ment. Business method shall be
used, and only those products of
wealth mOnetZed that experience
and sound Judgment approves. eyes.
but every kind Of value changes 50
suddenly and extremely, that the best
judgment fails" Now, my dear read
er, have you failed to see the cause of
this, and what would prevent it,?
That which changes is price, and
price is the shadow Of the thing called
money. If there is but little money
there is but little shadow or price
When there is large quantity of
money there is big shadow, or price
Or, as John Stuart Mill puts it,
Increase the volume of money one
half, and the price Of all products in
crease one-half, or decrease the vol
ume of money One-half and all pro-
ducts will decrease one-half" This
accounts for the sudden and extreme
changes in price that wreck so many
in business, that affords the opportun-
ity for wholesale confiscatiOn of prop
critics, makes paupers and criminals,
beggars and prostitutes, fills asylums,
outrages those just, kind. generou S
and lOvable sensibilities that are to
give birth to the kingdom of heaven
among men. .
1t is proposition as clear as the
MONDAY sun. that if the price of all
labor and products are falling, that
there is too little money; therefore
the supply should be increased; but if
the supply of money is controlled by
corporations or individuals interes ted
in making these things cheap by max
ing money scarce, they are sure to
regulate the supply for their own
profit, and so they have and are aggre-
eating very rapidly all wealth into
their few hands; wages are decreasing
to suit their own sweet will. IF the
Government issued the money,
wouldn't dishonest men in office abuse
the governmental privilege and dis
eliminate or recklessly destroy the
value of the peoples money by issuing
on worthless properties" l might an
swer 10y asking: 'Are the people
capable Of self-government?" There
is not an office from the gift of the
people that dishonest incumbents
may not abuse. 1t were infinitely
better that privilege or preroga-
tive of our government be abused
rather than usurped completely by
usurcrS, eXtortioners, whited sepul-
chres filled with dead mems bones, re-
sponsible 10 neither man nor God,
amenable for the time to no law,
either human or divine.
The observance of the simple law of
supply and demand would maintain
uniformity in prices and the value OF
money. Suppose prices had an upward
tendency under government issue OF
money, the easy, simple and only
thing to do to stop it would be to call
in loans and refuse for time to issue
on securities. However. with any