The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-08-07
up to 1883. Statistics at all events. show
that wages in general did.


that wages In general did.
Now as to the decline in his wage.
Does 1t not date from even later than
1889? II certainly does If Mr.. Alexan-
der's case fairly represents the average
experience of his class. 1t dates not from
iSs9-for during the years 1890. 1891
and part Of 1892 the average wage
in this country, purchasing power con-
sidered. was higher than at any prior
time in the entire history of the coun-
try-but from the latter part of 1892,
when II became definitely known to
the business interests Of the United
States that an administration would so
into power on pledge to demolish Pro-
lection as a thing fraudulent" and
Unconstitutional" We repeat that
unless Mr.. Alexander suffered from
special and local causes, his wages
showed no marked decline until after the
election OF Grover Cleveland, and that
in the decline which followed that con-
sumated threat Of economic revolution,
all wages and all values shared equally.
Obviously, therefore, Mr.. Alexander Is
not a victim of the gold standard but Of
free trade. If free trade hurt him, the
restoration of Protection ought to help
him. Common sense clearly sustains
this argument, as II does the further re-
mark that Mr.. Alexander ought not to
let the leaders who undid him four years
ago with deceptive cry for tariff re-
form" repeat their taking in of him by
the new bunco cry of "free silver"
But there remains to be considered
much deeper point i'm Mr.. Alexander's
letter. We refer to his remark that
while the fall in his wages has on the
whole been counterbalanced by the sim
ultaneous fall i'm prices, the interest rate
on his debt has remained stationary.
This is generally true as to long-term
loans on real estate security, and 1t ex-
plains as much perhaps as any other
economic circumstance why the debtor
class today Is politically so i'll at ease
and so prone to advocate hazardous
legislative experiments. The interest
rate eXacted today in most transactions
between banks and farmers or between
banks and small urban borrowers on
first mortgage security is identically
the same rate that prevailed fifteen or
that the purchasing power of money, in
the interval, has greatly increased. In
other words, three per cent. interest to-
day will buy as much, roughly speaking.
as five or six per cent. would have
bought generation ago. and would
consequently he as fair price for the
use of money as five or six per cent was
then: yet the legal rate today Is as high
as it was two decades ago and ON most
small loans the full legal rate Cor more)
is still eyacted.
This condition of affairs cannot be
overcome by free silver coinage. There
is absolutely nothing in the prescrip-
ton offered by Drs. Byran and Sewall
calculated to remedy it. BY their own
admission, their treatment would bring
about still higher interest rates. while
the ability of the poor debtor to pay
would be in no sense increased, but
rather diminished. The remedy, so far
as it can be expressed in laws, is to be
sought instead in state legislation
tightening the borrowers burdens;
and in the working of 1t out there is
need, not of voluble empires and rattle
tongued theorists, but of honest, prac-
tical, level-headed craftsmanship,
trained to believe in and to act upon
the ethics of the Golden Rule.
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