Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1896-08-28
The Divergence Of Financial
Thnnrht.

upon the streets upon topics
connected with financial policies and
principles show nothing so forcibly
and so fully as the almost universal
ignorance of the people. Boys who
have never studied work upon po-
litical economy can talk longer and
louder upon the theme than men who
have devoted long years of thought
and study upon the subject.
All writers upon political economy
regulate the value of money solely by
it's quantity. The value of money is
itsmeasure compared with the things
it exchanges for. If every species of
property is cheap then the value of
money is dear, and if the price of
property rates high in exchange for
money, that is cheap. Bear this in
mind when you hear people scott at
the idea of cheap money that, unless
they do it through ignorance it means
that they favor low prices for all that
you would exchange for money. The
men who own the money understand
this, if the half-clad and half-fed and
poorly housed people, who repeat
their cry, do not.
1t is some times profitable to recur
to the opinions of men who were stu
dents not only in law and history but
in the abstruse theories of political
economy. Such a man was Salmon
P. Chase, first secretary of the treas
ury under Mr.. Lincoln. Mr.. Chase
had been democrat under the teach
ings of such eminent democrats as
Jefferson and jackson, leaving that
party for the free soil doctrines of the
barn burner democrats and with
them drifting into the republican
party.
In his report as secretary of the
treasury on pages 1S and 10 Report of
1868 discussing the question of prices
as being attributable to the character
of the money in use-greenbacks-he
afiirms the truth when saying the
saying the same would have been the
result had the amount been in coin.
His words are as follows upon this
point:
1t is an error to suppose that the
increase of prices is attributable
wholly or in very large measure to
this circulation. Had it been pos
sible to borrow coin enough, and fast
enough, for the disbursements of the
war, almost if not altogether the
same effects on prices would have
been wrought. Such disbursements
made in coin would have enriched
fortunate contractors, stimulated
lavish expenditures, and SO inflated
prices in the same way and nearly to
the same extent as when made in
notes. Prices, too, would have risen
from other causes. The withdrawal
from mechanical and agricultural oc-
equations of hundreds of thousands
of our best, strongest, and most
active workers, in obedience to their
country's summons to the field, would
under any system Of currency, have
increased the price of labor, and, by
consequence, the price of the pro-
ducts of labor, while the prices of
many things would have risen, in
part from other causes, as, for ex-
ample, the price of railroad bonds
from vast increase of income through
payments for military transport alton
and the price of cotton from deficient
supply. ca.+a;n
| ly there ought to be no difference in
favor of coin, when it is remembered
that United States bonds bearing six,
or even five per cent coin INTEREST are
| intrinsically worth y more
than their amount in coin; and yet
such bonds can now be had for their
amount in United States notes.
John Sherman fully understood
that the value of money was regu
lated by the gu antity available FOL
use among the people of country.
Before Ernst Seyd came to the Uni
ted States the bearer of 100000 to
bride an American congress to con
tract the circulation Of money among
the people, in a speech in the EniteG
States senate he said:
"Sir, it is not possible to take this
step without sore distress. TO every
person except a capitalist out of debt
or to the salaried officer or annuitant
it is period of loss, danger, lassitude
of trade, fall of wages, suspension O
enterprise, bankruptcy or disaster.
1t does not require any extended
argument to convince the farmers
and laborers of America that join
Sherman's prophecy has come true
to the letter. These dire calamitie:
were to come through wipine out the
money of the country as was done by
the act of 1878. For the paltry sum
of $500, 900 John Sherman was willing
to infiict these predicted evils upor
his country and now after having
taken the retainer from the English
emissary Ernst Seyd, he stands in de
fence of this wrong until such time
as the piratee Of Lombard street
London, shall give their assent to the
change of policy. There is no tariff
nonsense in this utterance of Johr
Sherman; the coming of these Gala
mites is based upon contraction O
the money, and they followed as
surely as night follows the day.
From 1873 to 1894 the business fail,
ures In the Gnited States have beer
2O5, 55S, with losses aggregating the
vast sum of $2,701, 273,2l7. How fear
fully true they make the statement
of John Sherman quoted above. And
the millions of tramps in the country
and the thousands of tenant farmers
oreatad since W, OOO of the latter il