The courier., 1896-08-01
WHAT .rs TO 1" WOULD MEAN.

Amld all the demagOglSm OF the day
there is nothing at once more foolish
and more wicked than the talk about
poor mems money or the money OF
the people" as distinguished from the
money of the rich" Men of the Alt
geld-Bryan-John Most stripe are try
ing to persuade voters that a currency
of fifty-cent silver dollars, while il
might lessen the income of gold bug
millionaires" and Wall street sharks, -
would greatly benefit farmers, wage
earners and the common people gen.
orally. Now, apart from the palpable
wickedness of a proposition thus to
set class against class. and to enrich
one part of the nation by robbing an
other, a little reflection will show il to
be equally false and delusive, and that
these demagOgueS, in preaching plum
der of the rich, are really plotting for
the further impoverishment of the
poor.
There cannot practically be two
kinds of money in circulation. The
money of the rich and the money OF the
poor must be the same. The same
money that the millionaire receives
from his dividends or coupons he must
pay out again to his employees and to
tradesmen. II ii be gold, or currency
at par with gold, then the gold is the
money of the poor man as well as of
the rich. If it be deprecated currency
of silver or peper. IL is the poor mans
and the rich mans alike. IL by any
chance there be in existence two kinds
of money. only one of them, and that
the poorer, will be in actual circula-
tion. That is a law as inexorable as
the law of gravitation itself The one
hundred-cent gold dollars would be
boarded by every man fortunate
enough to possess them, whether the
rich man, with a million of them. or
the poor man. with hundred; and the
hfty-cent silver dollars would alone be
in circulation.
What then? DEPRECATED currency
being universal, who would suffer most
from it? Not. We may be sure the
rich men, against whom these populist-
anarchists declaim so vehemently. The
man whose income Is 500, 900 a year
might find it inconvenient to have it
cut down to $4,000. But how about
the man whose income Is only 81 200?
Would he not find it much more incon-
venient to have to get along on $500?
And the laborer who is now getting 81
a day, how would he fare on only 81?
And the farmer, when he got only 81
for the same amount Of produce for
which he now gets 81, what would he
think of cheap money!"
For be sure that is exactly what it
"ooiu Hc Tree Cfbndkc Oh Si-
yer at the 16 to 1ratio would instantly
drive gold and its equivalent out of
and would leave in circula-
tion nothing but silver dollars and their
equivalents. worth only fifty cents
each. The laborer would have to ac-
cept them for his wages. and the farm
er as the price of his produce. Each
man might receive as many dollars,
50 called. for his labor or his goods.
as before. but they would have only
half the old purchasing power. The
market value of the farmers grain
and cattle would thus be reduced one
half. The labOring mans wages would
be reduced one-half. That is exactly
what the adoption of the Chicago plat
form would mean. 1t would rob the
rich. 1t would ruin the poor.
But. its advocates contend, there
would Immediately be a readjustment
of prices. Wages would go up.
Market values of products would go
up No matter il dollars were cut in
two: men would get twice as many of
them That Is the argument. But who
will be convinced by it? Is any rational
man going TO vote to have every dollar
he gets reduced in value one-half. in
hope that he will then be able to get
twice as many Of them and so be as