Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1896-10-23
Free Silver and Taxes.

W lOT lHtlT NOltS, TuHS III tHls
way Your taxes are fixed and the same
whether your wheat is high or low
Free silver will give you more dollars
and cheaper dollars, and as each one
will be full legal tender, you can pay
your taxes and fixed charges much
easier. That is pleasant proposition
and if there is any truth in it, it would
make "A strong argument III favor of de-
basing the value of our dollars. Let Us
| look into it little in the light Of reason
experience here, and experience else
| where
| First, are taxes fixed charge:
Hardly. The levy is changed every
year or every second year. What
| farmer finds his taxes just the same one
year with another? Then taxes are not
a fixed charge.
| What is promised for the free silver
dollar: That it will be cheaper, or III
other words, that its purchasing power
will be less. This is the promise, when
the farmer is promised higher prices.
1t is promise which is confidence
game so far as the farmer is concerned,
as instead of getting better prices for
his products, he will actually lose IA
| large part of his market, and therefore
| be forced TO take still lower prices
| Putting it all aside, let us see however,
what will happen when the dollar is
cheapened by one-half.
Taxes 90 TO support the state. Out
side of fixed salaries, any decrease in
the purchasing power of the dollar will
affect the expense of the state just the
same as the individual. If the dollar
will purchase only one half what it now
purchases, then the state must either
have twice rs many dollars raised by
taxation, or it must curtail its eXpendi-
lures by one half There is no other
possible course The state cannot cur
tail its expenditures i'll supporting its
reformatOry institutions, its charitable
institutions, its expenditures i'll con-
structing and maintaining public works,
III fact, none of its expenses save its
fixed salaries. Even fixed salaries
would have to be increased by legisla-
ture TO cover the increased cost of liv-
ing, for with the exception of a very few
high officials, the state pays no salaries
that give more than a comfortable liv-
ing under present conditions. The
great bulk of the money paid out i'll
salaries goes to persons of very small
pay, teachers, guards, clerks and petty
officials, who could not live on their
present income, were its purchasing
power cut in half This being so, then
it follows that the state would have TO
raise about two dollars, where it now
raises one dollar by taxation. Taxes
then not being fixed permanently, we
would find the levy vastly increased
just as soon as the purchasing power of
money declined.
Now, how will all this affect the
farmer? The prices which the farmer
It's for his products depend entirely
upon what the working class gets for
wages. When wages are high and en-
ployment good, prices of farm products
are satisfactory, for the working people
are able to buy. The situation, when
the laboring man has no wages with
which TO buy, is the situation we now
have. -Four years ago with good wages,
we had good prices. Today with lack |
of employment, prices of all farm pro-
ducts are low. 1t was just the same
between 1912 and 1880 and 1857 and |
1860, when the democratic tariff idea |
was put in practical operation.
The farmer then depends on the labor
ing man. Cheap dollars for the labor
ing mans wages, means that his ability
TO purchase the farmers products will |
be correspondingly lessened. Cheap |
dollars then will destroy large part of
the farmers market, and instead of
getting double prices for his products,
as the silver man would have him be-
lieve, he will find his market narrowed,
and if his customers have only a SOC dol
lar, it is the same as if one-half of them
were wiped out of existence.
With smaller market to supply and
it1ct aht |
not take financial student" to show
the farmer that the prices of his pro-
ducts would go down instead of up, or
that the very best TO be hoped for,
would be continuance of the present
prices. Some one says wages will adj
vance. Perhaps they will in time, but
il will be after years of strikes, lockouts
and idleness, and in the meantime our
farmers will find himself robbed of half
his market, with his soil remaining just
rs fertile and his crops just as large.
He will still be getting only low prices,
but his taxes will promptly double up,
and the last condition of that man will
be worse than the first.
Just bear in mind that the cheap dol
ars will be cheap in the hands of every
man alike. The wage Garner will find
them cheap in his hands, when he goes
TO buy supplies, the farmer will like
wise find them cheap when he tries to
pay his taxes with them, and the state ,
will find them cheap when it makes its
If every man could get
Just twice as many for his efforts, every !
me would be in exactly the same con-
lition as now. But the wage worker {
ant double his own wages, the farmer {
ant double his prices if his customers {
haven't the money to pay, but the state !
Will have no trouble at all in doubling |
is tax levy. Free silver then means {
higher taxes for the farmer. and less l
money with which to pay them. l
Union Farmer.