The Hocking sentinel. [volume] (Logan, Ohio) 1871-1906, 1896-10-29

events which led to the Pullman strike.
| Wages We're cut and men were laid off
but the dividends We're paid just the
same. And such is the almost invariable
rule. To tell the wage-worker that fall
ing prices are an advantage to him is to
insult his intelligence. 1t is a matter of
common knowledge tina. for many years
prices have been steadily falling, and
while this is true, average conditions
among the working classes have been get
ting steadily worse.
Never within the century have things
been so cheap as during recent years, and
never has there been so much of misery
among the poor. The reason should be
obvious. Falling prices close the factory,
reduce wages, swell the army of unem
plOyed, paralyZe business, fill the poor
mans home with suffering, and darken
the future of his life. Rising prices open
the factory, increase wages, set the idle
men at work, stimulate business, fill the
poor mans home with comfort, and light
up his future with the sunshine of hope.
There is no less inconsistency in the
argument of the gold advocates upon this
point than in nearly every other position
which they assume, for, while deploring a
rise in prices upon the ground that it will
injure the wage-earner, they deliberately
propose 70 raise prices by means of higher
tariff duties.
With them higher prices resulting from
higher taxes mean prosperity, but higher
prices resulting from larger money
supply mean ruin.
The '50-cent dollar pictured by the
gold advocates, as result of free coin
age, would be impossible. The only way
the dollar can be reduced to one-half its
present value is by doubling the number
of dollars in proportion to the quantity
of things to be exchanged for dollars.
Free coinage could have no such effect
at any time in the near future. There is
no reasonable probability that it would
add more than $60,000O00 year to our
stock of metallic money. Any change
brought about by such al addition would
necessarily be gradual, for it would be
only little, if any. in excess of the in
crease of our population and business.
The first effect of fre= coinage would
be to raise silver 10 the present level of
gold. Then prices would rise. This is,
money would cheaper just in proportion
as its quantity increased. AS money in
creased III volume. the workingman would
certainly get more of it. First of all, the
idle would find employment, and then
would come the inevitable rise of wages.
Improved conditions would create more
business opportunities, many who are
now simply wage-workers would engage
in business on their own account, leaving
places to be filed by others, and becom-
ing themselves the employers of labor.
A few of our great staples, such as
wheat and cotton, sold in foreign mar
kets, where they compete with similar
products from countries using silver,
would rise somewhat more sharply in
sympathy with the movement of silver,
and, incidentally, this would influence
other prices. The farmers and planters,
being more prosperous, could buy more,
and, consequently, the merchant and the
manufacturer could increase their sales
In the United States agriculture is the
basis of all wealth, and prosperity upon
the farm means prosperity for all.
JAMES K. JONES.