Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1896-01-08
BRADSTREETs ROT.
WANTS FOREIGNERS TO LOAN
US MORE MONEY.
Common Sense Would Say That No
Honest Man or Nation Can Borrow It
self Into Riches-Borrowing Means
Greater Trouble to Pay.

Bradstreet's of Dec. Z, says: wall
street seems at last to appreciate the
fact that as long as grounds for distrust
in the currency of this country are al
lowed to exist, European investors and
spectators will give our railroad and
other securities the cold shoulder"
Then that journal proceeds to say
that such has been the case snce 1890,
and it ascribes it to our silver legisla-
ton. Bradstreet's is considered to be
very reliable in it's statistics, but its
ideas on the monetary question are
about as shallow as they can be and re-
ceive expression in very good English.
1t actually seems to think that the sure
road to national prosperity in this coun-
try is to borrow abroad" That is also
the Wall street idea, and it is not new
one with that money center, by any
means, although Bradstreet's seems to
think it is.
II speculation in American securities
is only rife, the Wall street manipulate
or is happy, no matter what the condi-
ton of American labor may be.
We believe that Bradstreet's state
ment is wholly without foundation. 1t
seems unreasonable to believe that the
securities of Mexico, China and other
silver countries should be snapped up
with avidity in Europe, and the same
investors turn the "cold shoulder" on
Americans" because of silver legisla-
ton here. But concede it to be true by
way of argument. Does it prove that
we should discard silver and plant our
selves solidly on the single standard OF
gold? Certainly not, unless we are pre-
pared to claim that we can borrow our
selves rich. The principal trouble is
that we owe too much abroad now. Our
foreign debt already amounts to six or
seven billions of dollars. Of this, about
four is the result of mere COM
pounding of interest, year after year,
since 1869. az shown by General War
ner's monograph on "Our debt abroad
which appeared in No. 8 of this paper
The interest and other charges which
we have to pay amount to not less than
$500, 900, 900 annually. This we have
to meet with silver, wheat, cotton and
almost everything else which we eX-
port, selling at about half price on a
gold basis. Still Wall street and Brad
streets cody assume that all we need
to give us national prosperity is to go
on borrowing year after year. Do they
think that there is no end to such a
process? Do they think that either
man or a nation can continue to in
crease his borrowings forever? Do they
not know that the more we borrow in
Europe the more of our products we
must surrender to keep down the in
terest account? Do they not know that
we can only sell in that market, in the
closest competition with other sellers,
including the Asiatics, who produce and
sell on silver basis?
So far as the Wall street business of
mere speculation is concerned, it makes
but little difference whether prices are
''high" or low considered abstractly.
Notwithstanding and falling-ls
what is wanted. But when it comes to
paying our debt abroad the range of
| prices is of the utmost Importance.
A bushel of wheat at IS cents will
go just half as far as bushel at $1.30.
| Therefore the true remedy is the adop-
ton of a policy which will check the
terrible decline in prices, both at home
! and abroad This can be accomplished
by restoring silver to it's former posi-
ton as standard money. Not only will
it have the effect of raising prices gen.
orally by increasing the volume of pri-
mary money, but it will deprive the
| competition of silver using countries OF
the peculiar severity which comes from
the disparity between gold and silver
in international trade.
1t cannot be done by lowering the
value of everything we have to sell in
Europe, destroying our money and the
borrowing more. Still that is the spe-
cific prescribed by the champions OF
sound money" and right upon the
heels of proposition which is an insult
to common sense, with unparalleled sell
assurance, they denounce the advocates
of bimetallism as "wild-eyed cranks.'-
National Bimetallist.
Leave 1t to the Bankers?