Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1895-03-29

III lcIIlplt tN pipSloh j 10 -" dN'Iic
Revolutions lurk in such wholesale
misery a The working people of Europe
are enduring. There are no builder,
Of balricadc, SO terribly in earnest a~
hungry men. England remember,
1916 aud Europe ISIS, aud is wisely
afraid Of the existing situation.
III Nh Icklehemer should d,mur to
thi, he could Ice told that the great See
surity for stability in our finances is
said TO be gold reserve; that at one
time we had hundred million, as
gold reserve. For many yeSrs that
was undsturbeJ; but now we have
decided that 1t can be disturbed no
longer. When hc comes 10 take a >ec-
ond thought, he viii see how impos,i-
BILE it Will be To keep the reserve on
hand, and also TO pay il out when no
more j. coming IA. OF course, we
would not compel Mr. Icklehcimer or
his friends 10 receive silver dollars for
their treasury notes. If he and they
prefer 10 keep the notes and 90 into
some other business than the Que which
requires the government OF the United
States to buy gold on credit and swap
it with them for greenbacks when we
have good, honest silver dollars 10 pay
everybody who wants specie. This is
saying the whole case in nut shell.
The Wall street skylock, say that noth-
Ing but gold is money. The law of the
United States makes gold and silver
dollars of equal value and there is no
provision of law that require, the treas
ury to pay out the gold in the treasury
exclusively to benefit money sharks At
the expense of the people.
In 1870 the far-seeing Benjamin Dis
raeh said in a public speech; "Gold Is
every day approaching in value, and
a. it appreciates in value the lower be-
come prices.
The article on "Silver" in the edi-
ton of the Encyclopedia Britannica
for 1892 certainly not an authority
biased in favor of bimetallism) said:
The closure of the mint To silver has
enhanced the purchasing power of gold,
compared with either silver or other
commodities, about one-fourth.' That
was written about nine years after Sill
yer demonetilation.
To-day the appreciation OF every
species OF properly, saving gold only,
has reached the average of 30 per cent.
That is to say, since 1873 gold has
doubled in purchasing power, and half
the value of any other kind of prop
erty or produce has been wiped out.
The three leading authorities of the
world on the relative values of money
and commodities have been the tables
of the London Economist in England
and OF Mr.. Saurbcck and Prof. Scot
beer in Germany.
The London Economists tables are
based on the average value of p lead
! ing articles i'm the London market.
Mr. Saurbeck's were founded more
broadly on the prices of ID principal
commodities in Germany, and Prof.
Soetbeer took 100 different articles in
the Hamburg market and added II
others imported from England, so as to
cover the whole range of commercial
products,
While these tables were indepen-
IDENTIFY prepared by their learned auth
ors, year by year, they agree closely in
their general results, thus proving their
accuracy. And what do they SHOW?
The London Economist shows de.
cline in average prices from 1874 of it,
"indcx numbers" in 1873 to 90 in 1894,
or over % per cent. The SOetbeeI
| II
the Saurbeck table somewhat more
32 per cent.
Taking an average of these would
make the present value of singl9-stan
dard money in Europe about l45 com
pared with what it was in 1873. wher
the decentralization of silver started the
upward tendency of money and the
downward tendency of commodity
prices.
That is the story in Europe, but il
the United States the change has beer
even greater, as is obvious to all from
a comparison of the prices of the grea
staples which are most familiar, sucl
as wheat and cotton, on which the nv
erage reduction has exceeded 30 pei
cent.