The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1896-07-16
The Money Question.

u0I0 udS U6Gu IL ScuOIdl 1otI1 III
prices. Has the fall in prices been dis
astrous? Is there not much more of
good in the fall ofprices than of disaster?
Has gold been one of the causes of the
fall in prices or has it any connection
with the disasters of the fall in prices?
Let us consider the price of wheat,
an article of universal consumption.
The natural yearly demand for this
staple from the very nature of the
case is enormous. If there is an over sup
plyit can be safely stored in the granery,
and in its flour form for years, at the
cost of storage. interest and insurance.
The price of wheat has been gradually
falling for several years. The causes
are know. There has been both at
home and abroad largely increas-
ed production. The building of long
lines of railroad in the wheat produc-
ing lands of Russia and India has en-
abled the producers of those foreign
countries to place enormous amounts of
wheat in the markets of wheat buying
countries. The natural and inevitable
result is lowering of prices. No stat
ute laws, even if enacted by the Modes
and Persians, and backed by an army
led by Alexander the Great could pre-
vent the lowering of the price of this
great cereal. The great law of supply
and demand is superior and impreg
nable to any attempts against it by
statute of legislation. This lowering
of prices may be disastrous to Will
liam G.. Bryan wheat grower in Nebras-
ka who may be heavily in debt to
Arthur Sewall of Maine, the multimil-
lioniare. The Nebraska wheat grower
went largely into debt for his farm and
improvements. He figured on forty
bushels of wheat to the acre at dol
lar bushel and the debt seemed to him a
mere nothing. But the yield went
down to ten bushels per acre and the
price to forty cents bushel and instead
of William G.. Bryan's, wheat grower,
paying his debts he has to borrow
money to pay his interest and each sue
ceeding year finds himself deeper in
the tolls of Arthur Sewall's mortgage.
The wheat grower is very much in need
of help; very much in need of friend.
He thinks it would help him to have
the United States government loan him
money at two per cent and take
mortgage on his farm. But William G..
Bryan tells him all his troubles come
from the characterization of silver.
Don't you see' says William that you
must raise two bushels Of wheat now to
get one dollar in gold when a few years
back you could get dollar in gold for
one bushel. The crime of 1873 has
doubled the value of gold and the gold
dollar today is virtually two dollar
coin. Let US restore the coinage of sill
yer at the ratio of 16 to l and you will
never have to sell bushel of wheat for
less than one dollar"
The facts are the commercial value,
the bullion, the intrinsic value of the
gold dollar has not changed. 1t is it's
comparatively steady, unvarying value
that constitutes it so reliable measure
of value
The fall in the price of wheat has
been a boom of untold, unmeasured
value to the working classes. Cheap
bread may almost be said to be a gift
of heaven.
A kind of money that would go up
and down with the price of wheat or
the price of horses or the price of wool
would bring more disaster to the inter
ests of labor than almost anything else
that a demagogue could invent.
r. F. ROBERTS.
Woodwork, Wis.