Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1895-04-16
REPLY TO GROVER
From the Pen of the Head OF
the Birnetallic League.
OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT

Critfcisfng His Views on the Money Ques-
tion-siIver Ideas Advanced by w. II.
Harvey-Advantageso OF Cheaper Dollars
to the Debtor Set Forth-A Personal II.
lus,ration of the Effect of Falling Pr.c:s
A Corner on Gold.
CHICAGO, April 16-Mr. W. H. Harvey,
chairman OF the executive committee Of
the Bimetallic League, whose headquar-
tiers are in Chicago. has prepared the fol.
lowing reply to President Cleveland 8
letter to the Chicago committee of bust.
ness men. 1t is addressed to the presi.
dent and says, to begin with, that the com.
mittee which invited the president did
not properly represent the people of this
community, but was composed of capi-
talists and people with fixed incomes. He
then proceeds:
We respectfully submit that your
letter does present the true merits of this
controversy. You call the attention Of
farmers and wage earners to the fact that
rising prices, while enabling them to sell
their products and labor at a higher price,
will also cause them to pay equally more
for what they may purchase, but you
neglect to say that your statement is not
applicable to debts.
Increasing Volume of Debt.
"With prices coming down regularly
and steadily since the characterization of
silver, our merchants, manufacturers and
the people generally have been doing
business on a falling market, SO that the
time intervening between the purchase of
their merchandise or raw material and
placing it months after on the market
has removed the margin they would have
otherwise made. This shrinkage in
values, added to the ordinary risk and ex-
pense OF business, has led to an ever-in-
creasing volume OF debt-to n money
lending period-until it has increased all
told, public and private, to about forty
billions of dollars, or about two-thirds of
the total value of all the property in the
United States.
Money Growing More Valuable.
"Money and those debts payable in
money have been steadily increasing in
exchanceable value with the property OF
the people. A debt for $1,000 that 1000
bushels of wheat would have paid ten
years ago now requires the farmer to give
up :, go bushels OF wheat in exchange for
these dollars with which 30 pay the same
debt. Seventeen thousand bush.
els of wheat would have paid the presi-
dents salary of $4,000 in 1873, and it
now requires 10000 bushels of wheat to
pay your annual salary of $4,000. Taxes
have increased as expressed in dollars
and have doubled and ouadrupled as
measured in the property the people sur
render with which to pay them since 1878.
Would Help Pay the Debts.
"When you call the attention of the
farmer and wage Garner to the fact that
rising prices will make him pay more for
what he buys you should at the same
time call his attention to the fact that
it would enable him to pay his debts, free
him from a bondage in which he has been
unjustly placed, and again make him the
owner of a home and a free and inde.
pendent citizen. We mi ght say further
to him that rising prices cause money to
seek investment and would thus open up
the channels of commerce and trade and
give steady employment to millions now
idle =