The Forrest City times., 1896-10-23
FORREST CITY, ARK AFTERNOON OCTOBER 23 1s96

Mir. Lawson does not agree with this theory. After detailing the various movements of the gold current between 1 England and America and back again, he tells of the enormous exports of sil-
 yer which preceded the recent gold inn ports to America. He then says:
 "If the clear headedness which Ameri- cans exhibit in their daily business could be brought to bear on this money question, and without the interposition of faddlsts or politicians. they would soon see what
 melancholy farce is being played on them. What is the real use to them of all | this laboriously- gold? What are ! they to do with 1t that will be of any genu- inc benefit to their commerce or their l finance? How much will It help toward the relief of their financial difficulties, or the removal of their commercial depres- sion? And how Is 1t going 10 prove itself worth all the trouble and sacrifice they l are making to procure 1t? Or. to put the l question in it's plainest possible form, what l price do they suppose they are paying for l It, and what can they hope to receive in 1 return?'
 "The Americans are buying this gold. or,
 rather. they are borrowing 1t temporarily, l on the most onerous terms conceivable. 1 They are giving for if the best produce of I the country-their wheat, their wool. their 1 cotton. their iron, their provisions and l their manufactures, to say nothing of 1 their ill-used silver. They are flooding the l markets of Europe with these comm odi- 1 ties at the least favorable season of the i year. So enormous is the exodus of them l that sufficient room cannot be found on Atlantic steamers, and freights have risen materially in consequence. The New York l Commercial Bulletin reported as long ago ] as August % that all the local steamship 1 lines were engaged to their full grain-car- l rying capacity up to October 1. and some 1 of them to October l5 Contracts were be- | ing made for half a million bushels per 1 day, and the demand continued unabated, ! the only limit to business being the amount l of room available. Boston, Philadelphia, l Baltimore and all the outports were equally active. A sudden demand for grain had | sprung up all round and how much of il | was speculative and how much legitimate | trade no one could distinguish, nor did any
 one care 10 inquire particularly. There i were orders to fill, and the only thing to do | was to fill them.
 l "Outside of the markets, however, few ! special reasons for the rush of exports | may be traced. Doubtless it was stimu- | lated in the first instance by the tghtnesS i of money and the drawing in of bankers l loans. Then 1t was encouraged and fa cilitated by the rate wars on the southern i and western roads, which induced holders l of old grain to ship it as fast as they could. l These rate wars enormously increased the
 volume of traffic while adding absurdly 1 little to the earnings of the roads. All the l grain centers, Kansas City, Min
 neapolis, Duluth, Chicago, St. Louis and 1 Peoria, had record receipts statis- 1 tical authority estimated that in the first l three weeks after the reduction of freight rates 35,000,000 bushels of grain were car
 ried from the western and southwestern
 states to the seaboard.
 ''The whole of that work was evidently ! done under great disadvantages, and with | little, If any, profit; much of it, perhaps at | A ia vvh n rai he grain may have starved or gone bankrupt
 over 1t. The railroads which carried 1t to | the seaboard for the munificent rate of | quarter of cent per ton per mile are
 doubtless qualifying for fresh receiver 1 ships. The elevator companies, the bro-
 kers and the exporters have all had to
 adapt themselves to the hard times and to
 work on very slender margins. These indi-
 vidual losses swell up into a huge-one
 might say stupendous-loss to the nation.
 That is the price the United States is pay
 ing for the $30,OO0 900 or 900 of gold | which 1t has contrived to coax back from | Europe. It does not seem to be a great
 bargain for the Americans
 They cannot hope to grow rich on such
 one-sided trade The millions of tons of surplus products they are throwing over i board, 1t were, in order to get few
 million dollars worth of the yellow metal
 are the best wealth they have; almost their l only eXportable wealth. It can never re- | | the gold they are getting in exchange for | it may return to Europe It is so much of
 the muscle and brain of the country gone 1 forever. And for what? So many bars of i yellow metal and so many barrels of gold
 coin, not a tithc of which is actually i needed in the country, either for money or
 for the industrial arts.
 If gold has a bona fide and an effective
 role to play in the currency of the United | States. as it has in the currency of the l United Kingdom. there might be some con- | ceiVable object in accommodating it, though ! even among ourselves that Is apt to be overrated. But in the United States gold i is monetary exotic. It has very limited | range of circulation among the people. and
 1t is only one of several possible factors in l bank reserves.
 There is no natural indisputable place 1 for il in the working currency of the union. | It only embodies a tantaliZing and inn | practicable ideal which the actual money l of the country has to try to live up to, | but so far with very indifferent success. | If the ideal were made practicable by
 means of adequate legislation, or if it's | impracticability were recognized, and the | farce of playing with it abandoned, the l Americans might at last find a real es- | cape from their monetary dilemma. As 1t l is now, they pay a cruel price for a super l tuity, which will not stay with them when ! they have got it, and which rarely re- | turns to them of it's own accord
 ! Tt Is only by financial manipulation, as costly as 1t Is foolish. and as futile | as 1t is interruptions, that gold can be | drawn either into their banks or their na- | tional treasury. Their ordinary balance | of trade no longer attracts gold to them | except for a month or two at the most l favorable season of the year, which they
 are now enjoying. At the present rate of | shipment the surplus of breadstuffs and
 other staples available for export might
 easily be exhausted before a third of the | season is over, and how are foreign obliga- l tions to be met during the other two | thirds?
 Since 1892 the gold movement Of the first
 seven months of the year-January to June has been increasingly adverse to the | United States. Only once in these five l years has the loss or balance been moderate | and that was when the Morran-BeImont | syndicate gallantly undertook to save the l treasury by an exchange of gold for "coin | bonds on terms which lowered American | credit almost to the level of Chili or Bra | gil
 "The outlook for 1897 is thus by no means l cheering. While the crops have not been 1 very bountful 10 start with. the best part l of the surplus they may yield Is likely to | be exported in the first three months Of 2 ha far1r Tf fu l.af