The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1896-08-14
DELuSIvE PROMISES.

The silver orator of the vacant lot
tells his audience that free coinage
would make money plenty, that if we
had more money prices would raise
and that if prices should rise there
would be great demand for labor at
higher wages.
AS to that, in the first place, free
coinage would make money more
plenty for considerable time. The
first effect would be to drive every
dollar of gold we have out of use, and
that would leave us with about one
third less of what passes for money.
than we now have. All experience, as
we'll as reason. proves that this would
be the first effect, even if silver and
other currency should fall no more
than per cent below gold.
But suppose free coinage should give
us more money, how would the man
who works for wages get any more of
it? He has no silver bullion costing
him SO cents per ounce to take to the
mint and get made into dollars for his
own use at the rate of [Sl.30 to the
ounce.
The mine owner can rake off that
fine profit of 81 cents an ounce, but no
man who works for wages can do it, no
not even the man who digs out the
ore in the mine or labOrS i'll the smelt-
| ing works.
Prices would go up, unquestionably,
| if we had more and cheaper money
If money gets cheaper people will not
give so much sugar or cloth or lumber
for dollar of the money. In other
words, it will take more money to buy
the same quantity of sugar, cloth, etc.
How is the workingman going to get
the increased sums of money that he
will have to pay for his groceries and
clothing? He has nothing to sell but
his labor. He cannot sit down in the
evening and mark up his labor and 60
out and sell it for 10, 20, 80, or 100 per
cent more the next day.
| The chances are that he will get no
more for his labor until long after he
has been paying more for most of the
things he has to buy, and then only
after he has been subjected to the fur
Their loss and the wearing irritation of
a strike
While the mine owners and Others
on the ground floor of this silver deal
are raking in their nice advance of S5
to 80 per cent on bullion the man who
works for wages will have hard
scratching to get enough more to cover
half his loss from the rise in prices.
| But" says the silver orator, "when
prices begin to boom everybody will
produce more so as to make money on
the rise; workmen must be hired to do
the producing, and wages must go up
The most thorough and careful sta
| tistical investigations prove that when
ever prices have gone up under the
process of making money cheap they
have always gone up more than wages.
History also proves that whenever
production has been stimulated by the
imitation of prices it has invariably
been Overdone. Collapse has always
followed, usually attended by panic,
and multitudes have suddenly been
thrown out of employment-to stay
out until at snairs pace consumption
has overtaken production once more.
These spasms of production with
intervals Of stagnation are about the
worst thing possible for labor.
The best thing is the utmost steadi-
ness compatible with industrial pro-
gress, and that is attainable only I'M
der stable monetary standard and
system.
Trifling with the standard is some
| thing that no workman should cOunte-
nance for q moment. The toilers of
England learned that long ago, and
today they warn their American breth-
rem against the seductive wiles Of the
silverite who seeks to degrade the
| standard.