Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1896-09-02
"A correspondent writes:

Among farmers this argument is used;
Suppose farmer owns $50 acres of land,
on which he owes $1,000. This year he has
of which he expects to apply on the debt
At present this wheat is worth 30 cents per
busheI, or $5OO-half the entire debt. Under
free silver he would get 81 per bushel in
50-cent dollars, or S10O0-enOugh to dis
charge the debt. How should this argument
be met?
The change from the 100-cent gold dol
lar to the 50-cent silver dollar can be of
no possible benefit to farmers who are out
of debt or to farmers who are in debt
but have contracted to pay in gold.
These two classes embrace majority
of all the tillers of the so,- who own,
or claim TO own, land.
But there are many farmers who have
bought land on time, or who have Dor
rowed money to stock or improve the
farms they own, and have not bound
themselves to pay ia gold. Before these
farmers vote for free coinage, thinking
it will aid them they should study the
subject carefully.
A change of the standard to cheap
free silver will wipe out one-half the
value of all the notes, mortgages, de-
posts IN savings, national, state and
private banks; stock of building and loan
associations, life insurance policies, and
money in hand. There will not be a
transfer of wealth from one set of per-
sons to another, but a destruction of
wealth.
These losses, enormous in the aggre-
gate and distributed ali over the country,
necessarily will bring Oh terrific panic,
which will paralyze all trade for a time
and throw out of employment several
millions of Wage-earners. Those who do
have work will get no more 5O-cent free
coinage dollars than they get now 100
cent gold dollars. Thus the purchasing
power of their wages would be cut down
One-half.
This universal industrial collapse and
destruction of the purchasing power of
the mass of the community would lessen
the demand for all farm products, and
thus depreciate their value
This would be inevitable. Men with
no wages or with half wages cannot buy
the accustomed quantities of food The
10 millions living in the cities and vii
lagos, belonging to the industrial classes,
would have to economic vigorously in
their food purchases. They would buy
the least possible, of the poorest quality
they could get along with.
There would not be the demand for
beef, veal, mutton, pork, eggs, butter,
cheese, milk, fruits and vegetables which
exist ordinarily In view of this de-
creased demand the producer-the farm
er-would have to lower his prices or his
products would be left on his hands
Thus every farming community would
suffer. The agriculturists of the United
States would lose hundreds of millions,
owing to their inability to market their
products. They complain that prices are
low now. They would find prices much
lower than when there was no demand
for what they had raised.
The cotton planters would not suffer
as much by the free coinage panic us the
Northern producer of fOodstuffS. Nor
would the tobacco growers of the border
states But they would not escape alto
gether, for it is impossible to injure the
forty-hye millions of town people with
out all the rural part of the population
suffering more or less
The farmers must know that the city
people are their best and chiefest Gus
toners and that when they are in dis
tress and cannot buy the farmers can
not sell, and consequently suffer.
Farmers who are in debt and who
vote for Is to l 50-cent money will find
to their disappointment, if they elect
Bryan and a PopOcrat Congress, that
they have overreached themselves, and
have made the payment of their mort
cages still more difficult For the panic
will reduce consumption, and they will
get no more cheap dollars than than they
get now good dollars.
No debaSement of the currency which
brings on widespread panic of unprece
dented severity, which may last for
years, can be of any benefit to any farm
er, though he be in debt. His mortgage
will be due in five years at the farthest,
and the hoped-for double prices to be
paid in cheap dollars with which he can
cheat his creditor will not materialize in
time to help him.-Chicago Times-Her-