Birmingham state herald., 1896-10-28
HAS HAD THE SAME EFFECT HERE

HAS HAD THE SAME EFFECT HERE.
 In a recent letter from Western New
 York to the New York Journal Henry
 George recounts some instances of the ef- fleets the increased purchasing power of money has had on farmers of that sec ton of the country, which are so striking and so similar to the effect produced by the same cause in Alabama that we re- produce them. The only difference is that lands in Western New York have depre- ciated in price more than they have in Alabama, simply because they were worth more and had further to fall. While our $15 and $20 per acre lands have gone down to $1.5O and $2.0O per acre, their $100 per acre lands in Western New York have
 gone down to $15 and $20 per acre. Here
 is what MT. George says:
 Nowhere in the country has the fall in
 the value of farming land been greater and more sudden than in the western half of New York state. Farming land that in the seventies was worth from $100 to $l20 an acre and could be readily bor- rowed upon at proportionate rates, is now deemed dear at from $15 to $20 an acre, and the banks and loan associations will not lend upon 1t at any price. The mort gagged farmers are being literally crushed out, and are rapidly passing either into the rank of tenants or, if old, into the poor house.
 at Medina, that are types of cases that he who wishes to listen may hear every where through these regions: In 1865 a man who had served in the union army through the war, bought farm at Knowlesville, Orleans county, paying part cash and giving a note for the rest. The house did not suit his wife as the children grew up and he improved it. Up to this
 spring he had paid more in interest on
 the mortgage than the amount that the
 mortgage itself called for. With the fall in the price of farm products he can pay no more With the fall in the value of the land the farm itself, with all its inn provements, is not worth the amount of the mortgage, and at 65 years of age he is being driven out homeless and penni- less.
 At Oak Orchard, Orleans county, in April, 1873, the very same year in which the act demonetiZing silver was smuggled through congress and received the sigma ture of a president who did not know what it contained, man and his wife bought as provision for their old age, already beginning to come on, farm of fortynine acres at $102 an acre, paying $2496 down and giving a mortgage for
 $2500. The farm has been improved and
 is in better condition than when they bought it, and on the mortgage some $4000 Has DGeu pdlu III liltGIGSI. put dDDleS l0lS year will hardly pay for the gathering, unless you can do the work yourself, or your wife and children can do it. The poor old couple have no children; the man is now S0 and the attempt to work be- yond his time has brought running sores on his legs His helpmate during all the long years is almost as old and almost as
 infirm. They can no longer pay interest, and their farm would not sell today for
 one-fourth of the principal of the mort gage.
 Right here in Alabama the same thing
 is taking place every year. Since 1873, when one of the money metals was striclk- en down, lands have grown cheaper and cheaper, farm products have constantly fallen in price. Each succeeding year has found the farmer less able to pay any | thing on the principal of his debt and | forced to sell more of the products of his | labor and farm than he was the proceed l ing year to buy the money to pay the in- terest on the mortgage hanging over his home.
 The advocates of the gold standard are now heard on every stump and through the columns of the press owned and con- trolled by the money power proclaiming that this thing must be continued in the interest of the laboring people and to pre- serve the national honor.