The herald., 1896-10-28
AS TO THOMAS B. REED

went away. Great things in the way OF
a strong and logical analysis of the
economic questions and theories of gov
ernment which are the burden of the
present national campaign were ex-
pected of Mr.. Reed, but he failed utterly
at every point. 1t cannot be said that he
failed because he is not familiar with the
philosophy of the principles of our sys-
tenn of government, but rather because
his party is not at this time in harmony
with the spirit of the purpose of the
founders of the nation, which confined
the range of his effort to educate the
people" within the bounds of vitupera-
ton and glittering generalties. That
Mr.. Reed was disappointing on the
hustings, no one will deny, but that he
was charming and entertaining in social
conversation, all who came in contact
with him will cheerfully admit
Right at the outset Mr.. Reed labored
under the disadvantage of having un-
derrated the intelligence of the people
of Southern California. He did not know
that they had been close students of the
science of money for some years. and
that they would be critical to a degree
when he ventured upon the question of
the reconciliation of silver. The people
hereabouts know the laws of cause and
effect and of supply and demand quite
as well as Mr.. Reed does, and when he
undertook to mislead them as to the
natural course of the operation of these
laws, the great statesman from Maine
appeared to the people as a mere poll
tician Juggling with serious facts. The
surprising thing is that one having had
such wide experience with people should
assume that such an audience was cred
ulous and stupid enough to be success
fully played upon. se-
When Mr.. Reed reached the money
question he asked with a flourish of
arms, legs and voice, What is money
for?" Then in the most insinuating
and patronizing way he proceeded to
answer his own question by saying,
simply to transfer goods and real es-
tate from one man to another. When
you have more than necessary it is
worth nothing The worlds greatest
political economist ought to bow his
head and pay homage to such profound
wisdom. Mr.. Reed said, Il will talk
just as I did in Maine" What a field
for kindergartens Maine must be!
Money, Mr.. Reed should know, is a
common article of exchange. That is, it
cles of commerce, and Mr.. Reed should
know, too, that when there is not
enough of it to meet the exchange re-
quirements of commerce there is imme-
diately created a money stringency
which drives the value of the products
of labor and machinery down to where
those who control the common article
of exchange are able to gather into their
own bins the best fruits of labor with
out returning anywhere near just and
fair compensation, and that is exactly
the condition of existence of producers
from Mr.. Reeds state to where he spoke
yesterday. But Mr.. Reed admitted as
much. He said when there is mora
money than is necessary it is worth
nothing. 1t follows then that when
there is not as much money as is neces-
sary it is worth a great deal and that so
long as there is less than is necessary
labor will be obliged to sacrifice the pro-
duct of its brain and Drawn to get some
of it, and that is exactly what agricul-
turists and all other classes of producers
have been doing ever since 1878.
The country has been on Mr.. Reeds
kind of money basis for more than
twenty years, and there never has been
a day in all these years when the people
had ''more than was necessary" of
money. There never has been day in
all these years when there was enough
money to meet the legitimate demands
of the peoples business enterprises, and
the consequence has been that the aver
age depreciation in prices of merchant
able commodities has been about 45 per
cent. while the growth of the wealth
of those who control the money supply,
and their allies, the trusts and monopo-
lies, has been greater, not only than in
any corresponding number of years,
but than in any period of 100 years in the
history of the world. The policy of the
Reed Mckinley combine is to not only
prevent a larger volume of circulating
money than is necessary, but to prevent
a necessary volume.