The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-09-18

On the other hand, despite the numerous
purchases of silver that metal has steadily
deprecated.
CAUSE OF HARD TIMES.
What then is the cause of hard times
in this country; why are prices so low
and why are men idle?" asked Mr.. Brooks,
Not because silver was demonetized for
it was not demonetized not because there
is less legai-tender money in the United
States now than in 1878, for there is more
of it now than then. 1t is because capital
is frightened and stays in hiding. 1t is be-
cause industrial conditions have been revo-
lutionized in the last twenty-five years.
why is capital frightened? Because 1t
has suffered enormous losses and is
threatened with losses still greater. When
L speak of capital, L refer to money and
credit, the means by which business is car
ried on and men are employed: and we
shall not see better times until capital is
assured il can come forth in safety. There
is a blind and senseless prejudice against
capital and demagogues live by creating it.
Capital and labor are set up as two mag
mary enemies, opposed to each other, each
trying to annihilate the other. The truth
is that each is worthless without the
other like the Siamese twins Capital is
dead until labor wants to use it; labor is
idle, helpless and famished until capital
wants to employ it: The laborer would
never pass from his door unless capital
met him at the threshold and offered him
without injuring the other The moment
you strike down one, the other becomes
CORPSE .rI2 IT, ;.
stay? It is kept in banks, savings socie
ties and trust companies; these institutions
lend it to merchants, manufacturers. build
ers contractors. and these men pass 1t
along to laborerS wages. Rich men do
not hoard money; they keep it in bank,
want to use it in buying and building I
once heard very rich man who did little
but loan money, say: 1 claim to be a ben
q Gt or Of r Il 11JIo
lay stone or brick, build a house, bridge
or railway, but have saved money which
L can pay to others to do this work He
was right; every man who can save money
and have 1t available for men who want
work, is a public benefactor If rich men
ate and drank so much that the food and
drink supply were diminished and other
mems portions were reduced the poor man
night dn complain; or if the rich man sat
lation, whereby labor could not get it as
wages then zen, the laborer might complain;
ways keeps his money in bank.
IMPORTANCE OF BANKS.
Banks come in for their share of abuse.
too, because they have money. Business
men do not abuse them but the dema gogue
does, and the laborer who does not think
beheVes the demagogue. Let us see what
part bank plays to a community. Its
stockholders are a numerous body of per-
sons, male and female old and young who
have saved some money, many of them too
old or too weak to work and need income
from their savings to keep them alive. It's
depoSltors are often people of the same
kind as its stockholders but more fire.
quently men in business who do not need
money to-day but will need it tomorrow
u, Ine n1frchant; the contractor, the
lated savings Of a great many people, con-
centrated in one place where they can be
reached by men who are carrying on bust
have 0f
own. They borrow money as they need it.
pay for materials and give wages to labor
ing men, Suppose there were no banks
and each person hid his savings Could
merchants and manufacturers get at them
as at the bank? Would the laborer who
depends on daily work for daily broad be
as steadily employed and as regularly paid
II there We're no banks? Business could
not be conducted without the aid of ac-
cumulated earnings, circulated in banks;
every employer of labor will tell you so.
Therefore the laborer who denounces banks
and people who have money is like child
that strikes it's mother; it abuses the best
friend it has in the world
Why, then, are laboring men idle? Be
cause people who have money are afraid
to spend it, and because employers are
what kind of money they will get for what
they produce. or whether they will be able
to sell at any price what they make. Con-
at the money now in existence rather than
to have more money manufactured.
Advocates of free coinage declare in
cessantly that the fall in prices of land
and commodities has been caused by de-
moneuzauon of silver. I have never seen
particle of truth given in support of this
assertion nor do L know of an article that
has fallen in price whose fall cannot be
accounted for otherwise than in conse-
quence of decentralization of silver. If de-
monetization of silver has caused a fall of
prices 1t must be on account of a dirnin-
1Shed volume of money, or higher rate of
interest for the use of money; for there
is no other natural or logical connection
between the two But we have seen that
we have now in circulation more money
than in 1878. both in volume and per capita,
and rates of interest are lower now than at
that time. In 1873 rates were from 6 per
cent. upward now they are from per
cent. downward. Large loans, such as are
negotiated, according to the security and
terms of payment, at from to per cent.
State and national government. cities and
towns can borrow money readily at from
. to 312 and even per cent. If demone-
tization of silver has caused a decline in
prices, that decline should affect all COM
modties within it's reach and affect them
all alike 1t has done neither In the
staple articles prices have been up one
year and down another and if the general
tendency has been downward. the cause
can be directly traced to increased prsduc-
ton, diminished cost of production or trans
portation, or diminished consumption. In
1913 we were on a paper money basis and
goIId H4s at o premium hanis fces were then
currency and were high. Part of the de-
cline is attributed to the increased value
premium on gold. If decentralization of
silver causes q decline in prices prices
should maintain their level where there has
been no decentralization of silver England
has suffered from decline in prices, equally
with America, yet their standard is gold
and has been so for eighty years Farm
lands in England and France are said to be
less valuable now than two hundred years
ago The causes that have produced this
decline are precisely the same that have
brought prices down in America: new
wheat fields in the Western States and ter
ritories in South America, India. Egypt and
Russia; gang plows. grain drills, self
binders, steam threSherS railroads pene-
trating from the seaboard of every country
to it's innermost grain fields, grain rates
per mile. and on the ocean are steamships
that carry at infinitesimal low rates, the
products of every land to the dense markets
of Europe.
WHY PRICES ARE Low.
beef and mutton had an unrivaled market
at Liverpool and continental ports. Aus
tralia. Argentina, India and Russia are now
competitors of the American farmer. Beet
ana mutton killed and frozen in Aus
traliit and South America, and carried il
refrigerator vessels to Europe. When the
Suez canal opened one-third of the
mercantile marine of Europe was de-
stroyed. Railroads supplanted river and
| canal tranSp ortation. Electricity is de-
stroying the market for horses and coal
Civilized, ingenious man has progressed
| farther and faster in the nineteenth cen
| fury than in the nineteen preceding cen
| turtles, and in this imperial procession