Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1896-09-10

Bulgaria and Turkey exported 10000
600 bushels last year, which was A ,OOO,.
OOO bushels more than they exported
in 1894. 1t seems to me that 1t isn't
hard to account for low prices OF wheat,
with all this wheat pouring In from
South America and those countries In
southern Europe, to compete with the
United States. don't see how any
amount of silver coined at u minis Is
going to stop those fellows raising
wheat and Skipping it TO Liverpool. Do
YOU? If the price Of wheat Is to 60 up,
there must be less wheat raised or more
people to eat it. That Is the way | look
at it.
l suppose If there is any truth about
wheat and silver being so hitched up
together that one has got to decline
when the other does, then the same
thing must be true about corn. You
tell me corr is your big crop out In
Nebraska. A government report that
| read shows that in 1894 there was
raised in the Uuited States ,2l2, 10000
bushels of corn. That vas q short crop
yea and prices went up to an average
of q little over As cents per bushel.
Last year there was q big crop, the
country raised 2,l51, 1885, $50 bushels,
and the price went down on IN average
to q little over 20 cents per bushel.
Now there was not much difference in
the price OF silver in 1895 and in 1896.
Yet, according to the argument Of the
silver men, silver ought to have gone
down about one-half, to account for the
falling off in the price Of corn. You see
there is no sense in this. 1t Is plain
Ak.% $1,000 ,,4~< lo,v~ honnr,n Ga ro,,0h
OF it was raised. Now look at oats.
The government report says that In
1894 the oat crop amounted to &c., 1885,
926. The average price was a little
over 80 cents. In 1895 the crop was
S24, 443, 537 bushels. and the price vent
right down to about 20 cents. There
Is no mystery about that, Is there,
John? No silver comes in here. We
raised too much oats; that Is all there
is about it.
You recollect in 1894 there was a
scarcity of potatoes in a large part Of
the country. Well, w had a good crop
up our way and we got a first-rate price.
I sold mine for SO cents per bushel.
Well, the next year everybody wanted
to raise potatoes. There was a man
over on the other side Of the Red River
that put in q whole section OF potatoes.
Now, you know, $40 acres in potatoes
will feed q whole county. Well, there
was a big crop that wear, and potatoes
went down to 10 or IL cents per bushel.
Fact is, it hardly paid to dig them here.
The fellow who put in $40 acres didn't
try to dig his. He told his neighbors,
if anybody wanted potatoes, to come to
his farm and dig for themselves, and
there would be no charge. That fellow
reminded me of the story of a man
who went to the doctor because he was
not feeling we'll. The doctor gave him
a box of pills and told him to take three
every night. He felt so much better
after taking three pills that he imagin-
ed that he could get we'll quicker If he
took the whole box at once. 1t nearly
killed him.
1t is a good deal the same way with
flax as with potatoes. Flax seed was
worth Sl.OO per bushel a few years ago.
We all went in for raising it. l put in
40 acres myself-Well, it didn't take
long to knock the price down to 20 cents
per bushel. That was not because sill
YER had declined, but because we were
raising too much flax.
It is easy enough to SEQ what is the
matter with silver. For SO years before
1870, the worlds total production in
silver amounted to 81, 643, 2O9, 600; while
from 1870 to 1894, the total production
was 81. O24, 429, 100. 1t seems to me the
same thing has happened to silver that
happened to wheat-the world is pro-
ducing too much of it. Now, l don't
see any reason why the government
should take silver bullion and coin it
into dollars at the expense Of the PEG.
pie and give the bullion owners one
good legal tender dollar for every SO
cents worth of silver. Wouldn't it be
just az fair for the government to take
wheat and give us dollar a bushel
for it, and when 1t Is only worth SO
cents on the market? The farmers
around here don't take any stock in the
talk OF the silver men about silver COM
ing up to an equality with gold If we
have free coinage. Our populists don't
want it to come up. What they say
they want, is a kind OF money that is
cheaper than gold. They would rather
see silver 60 down to Is cents on the
dollar than to see it come up to q
There is one notion, however, that
has got hold Of u good many peoples
minds, and which it is hard to get rid
of. A good many of our farmers say
that they know, If we have free coinage
of silver, prices On everything they
buy will 60 up. They admit that they
may have to pay twice as much for
their groceries, clothing and machine
ry. They don't think the price of lab
or will 60 up near as much though, be-
cause older men recollect that in the
years following the war, wages were
not near as high in proportion as other
things we're. But farmers say that
they sell more than they buy, and that
after paying of all expenses they would
have more silver dollars than they now
have dollars Of gold standard money,
and that they could pay of just as many
dollars Of their interest and principal
Of their mortgages with cheap silver
money as they could with good gold
standard money. This notion wal
rather pleasing to me at first, You
know every fellow has to look after his
" Interests. If the farmer can paw
off n or two hundred dollars q wear
more of his mortgage and live just Al
we'll, he is likely to think free coinage
will be q good thing for him. l have
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