Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-05-03
NOT "oVERPRoDUcTIoN," BUT UN-
DERCONSUTMPTIO

OGhCON0O M91ION.
That there is a very large element
among every class of manufacturers in
the United States opposed to the British
gold standard and in favor Of the free,
unlimited and independent Coinage of
gold and silver at the ratio of Is to 1, is
becoming more apparent every day.
These people are rapidly learning that
their prosperity depends in very large
measure upon the prosperity of the ag-
ricultural classes of the country and that
this can never be assured under the pres
ent financial system. They also realize
that high protective tariff is eventually
detrimental to all classes, and, coupled
with it's twin sister, gold recommendation,
is disastrous to the entire country and
Sll of it's commercial and productive in
dustrial interests.
We are indebted to the st. Louis Fur
niture News a journal devoted to the
furniture and kindred trades and the Of
fetal organ of the st. Louis furniture
board of trade, for the following extract
from a speech recently delivered before
the ST. Louis Manufacturers associa-
ton by Mr. j. A. ]. Shultz, president of
the Shultz Betting company, which APP
peared in it's last issue, with this indorse-
ment: eve publish it for the common
Sense and truth it contains" The ex-
tract is as follows:
There is another thing we can do
which will aid us very much in our bust
ness that is to help the agricultural
class by lending our strength to secure
such legislation in their behalf as will
afford them remunerative profits on their
investment and reasonable pay for the
labor expended There can be no pros
CT hn aor if9YIf tpaIi fap
ests of this country are depressed and
Improbable, and when we take into ac-
count that there are many millions of
farmers in this country we can realize
what a vast army of consumers this
would be II they were well paid for their
labor and had money to spend and buy
what we manufacture. But at present
prices our markets are very much cur
tailed; 10 cent oats, IL cent corn, 40
cent wheat and 5 cent cotton will give
these people very little money to spend,
and what little they have must be put
where it will do the most good, as taxes
| and interest must be paid before they
can use money for any other purpose.
| Add to this number the working men
| out of employment who, with their fam
] lies will swell the number by 5000 900
| more of people or over who are the real
| consumers of this country, who are the
| ones who make money circulate and
put life into business when they
|
| bilty to consume by the low prices of ag-
| rcultural products, and the unemployed
| labor, curtailS our market more than we
| ever dream of, and they need but to be
| looked into to find out the facts. The
| plea is made that low prices of farm
| products are the result of overproduction.
| There never was bigger lie than that
| chestnut. OYerproduction is not the cause
| of the low price of farm products, but 1t
| is overprohellsion, brought about by the
| goldbug and the gambler. You will see
| that had to coin new word to express
| my meaning as l find none in my yocab-
| ulary that fitted the case. A preacher
| asked me what overprohellsion meant.
| l told him it was hell turned loose.
| Now as to overproduction. The world
| has produced large crops for the last ten
| years. Where are they? If there has
| been this great overproduction we hear so
| much about, the granaries of the world
| would be bursting with the surplus by
| this time, and we would have enough
| ahead for a seven years famine But
what are the facts? If the wheat harvest
| had been delayed three months beyond
| the usual time this year there would not
| have been enough flour in the country to
| make each inhabitant loaf of bread.
| Had the corn harvest been delayed the
| same length of time we would have been
| without johnny cakes. There Is no over
| production of agricultural products,
| nor yet of manufactured goods The
| trouble is the underconsumption, caused
| by the millions not being "a BILE to purchase
| that which they need; caused by the ap-
probation of gold, and by the demoneti-
cation of silver, brought about by the