Birmingham state herald., 1896-02-14
AN ACCURATE STATEMENT.


 Captain Johnston made the following assertion in his speech at Clayton: "There is not a man here today that can get $1-he cannot get 50 cents on the dollar for what his property was worth twenty years ago. l do not care what form it Is in, in the way of material prop erty-it may be some local development or some railroad, but you take the gep- eral average in the state. it will bring about one-half of what 1t would twenty years ago"
 The Advertiser reproduces that asser- tion and attempts to refute it by quoting the statistics of our growth in wealth. It says:
 MT MulRall says that if the physical development of the great republic in the last seventy years has been stupendous, the growth of wealth has been still more marvellous. The results of the census at various periods showed thus:
 Millions Dollars per Census of dollars. inhabtant. IS4o. ..... .......... .... .s,9lO 2so 1860. .... ............... .16.160 5l4 lSS0. ......... .4a,bt2 4lV 1890. .......... .............65037 1039 Let us assume that MT. Muhall is cor rect, and what does it prove? Nothing except that this country has grown con- stantly in wealth IS it has grown in pop ulation. but it does not prove that We are better off as individuals in 1896 than we were in 1892. It does not prove that our products have not diminished in value since 1892. It does not prove that Cap tain Johnston's statement made last year was not correct. Every honest man must admit that there has been tremendous repression of values. It is useless to deny it. The practical question is how to restore values and give activity to bus mess. MT. Cleveland said that a low tariff would do it at once. He said that to repeal the purchasing clause of the Sherman law was all that was needed. His prophecy has failed. More than two years have elapsed and there has been but little rise in values. Wherever there has been a small rise in one direction there has been depression in another Why should there be such a state of things in such a country as this? It is clearly not due. as Mir. Clarke asserts, to the agitation of the silver question here about Birmingham and in Alabama. On the contrary, MT. Mulhall and the Adver- tiser inform us that during the long pe- rod of agitation for free silver from 1880 to 1890 the wealth of the country increas- ed enormously. During the period from
  basis and had no gold or silver, the wealth of the country increased over | g., 700. 900.
 But despite the increase of wealth and despite the fact that immense amounts of money came out of hiding for invest ment in government bonds. we find de- pressed prices and difficulty in keeping the wheels of commerce in motion.
 The reason for industrial depression in this country, as well as in Great Britain and every other gold country, may be found in the curtailment of the primal money of the world. MT. Carlisle well said in 1887 that to do away with silver as primal money would entail distress and suffering greater than would result from destruction by war or pestilence or storms of half the property of the world. Captain Johnston simply repeat ed a truism which MT. Carlisle had gath cred from his study of history. MT. Car lisle spoke before the fact and Captain Johnston after the prophecy of MT. Car lisle has been fulfilled.