Marble Hill press., 1896-09-03
A MANUFACTURERS TELLS WHY
FACTORIES ARE CLOSING.
The Wicked Greed of the Money Power
in Refusing to Extend Loans to En-
ployers of American Labor - Vote
Them Down.

increase their wealth at your expense
| that write. 1t is necessary to have
yardstick to measure the length of .
yard, but the stick is not the yard; the
yard is the distance between the two
| points at the two ends of the stick.
| The stick can be made of pine or 1t may
be made of steel. A steel yardstick will
not measure any better than one Of
wood. Now, our government has stated
what shall be the value of our dollar.
Originally this dollar was the value Of
4121a grains of silver, nine-tenths fine.
Everything was bought and sold by
| this standard of value; we made very
few silver dollars, but, like the yard
stick, we made money the parts OF
dollar and the multiples of dollar OF
various things; we used gold and we
used silver, nickel and copper to make
money of. The half-dollars, quarter
dollars and dimes are not full weight.
For years We have used only enough
silver in two half-dollars to weigh 3S5.S
grains. Yet all this time those half
| dollars represented half of Ape grains
silver We made money of gold and 1t
| was changed at various times to try to
keep it even with our unit of value
| 412R grains of silver. In the year 1873
a bill was passed that changed this
standard of value from 41212 grains of
| silver to 25.S grains of gold The same
name was used for this new unit-the
our measure of value has been 25.S
grains of gold At same time this change
was made silver was restricted to pay
ments less than S. and silver (half dol
lars, quarters and Dimes was refused
free coinage Whatever silver coinage
has been done since that time the silver
bullion has been bought by the govern
ment for that purpose. Since 1875 mil
lions of dollars of silver have been
coined by our government at the same
standard weight, every dollar repre-
senting 25.S grains of gold, and law
was made that silver dollars shall be
full legal tender for all debts,public and
private, unless contract is made to the
contrary Every time you receive a
silver dollar in payment for labor it
represented the value of 25.S grains
Of gold, because our government will
take it in payment of debts due them
such as taxes, revenue and duties on
IN, with cold dbl
lars. The full legal-tender law is what
fixes their value. The statement that
our government will redeem silver IN
gold, and that our government keeps
the value of silver dollars up in that
way, is false.
For years past money has been get-
ting scarce and things which YOU pro-
duce have been going down in price.
Machinery has increased your ability
to produce, and for that reason The
price of labor has not gone down as
much as goods. Had the price of goods
remained where it had been you would
now get twice as many dollars for
months work. If money had increased
in quantity equal with your productions
prices would have kept uniform. Man
ufacturers borrow money and employ
labor When it takes more of the prod
ucts of your labor to get the money TO
pay back the debt we have less profit,
and whenever profits are cut down so
we do business at loss We are obliged
to stop our factories and you go unem-
ployed. That is the situation now.
Since 1898, when the banks of this
country called in their loans and de-
pressed business, prices have been so
low we manufacturers could make no
profits on borrowed money. Therefore
YOU are out of employment half the
time or more.
prices and open up the mining indus
tries of our western states that will
take away part of the idle laborers and
lessen the number Of men competing
with you, which keeps the price of labor
down. Free coinage will increase the
number of dollars, yet every silver dol
lar represents the value of twenty-five
and eight-tenths grains of gold. We
do not propose to change our standard
of value or change the present ratio as
those gold monometallists would have
you believe.
We propose to bring down the value
Of gold by giving silver free coinage
and increasing the amount of redemp-
tion money In the nation. The reason
you are unemployed Is because the
banks hold nearly all the money out
side the national treasury. Free coin
age makes 1t 80 that you idle laborers
can 90 to work and dig money out Of
the mountain side and buy the provis-
ions from the farmer. the factory and
the store. This pnts more money In
circulation and employs more laborers. \
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