Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1896-08-07
Facts for Farmers to Consider.

Facts for Farmers to Consider.
The men who delve in silver mines
are not the real sufferers because Of
it's low price. He does not raise beef
or mutton, wheat or any other ar
ticle of his food. The implements he
uses, the boots and shoes, the clothes
which cover his body are made by
others, in short he has nothing to
sell but the silver he takes from the
bowels of the earth. An ounce of his
silver bullion at SO cents buys of the
articles which he needs and con-
sumes just as much as it did when
the price was $1.33 an ounce, while
the farmer has various kinds of taxes
to pay, the laborer in the silver mines
is free from this burden. The farmer
to meet his taxes sells twice as much
of his products as when silver bullion
was $1.33 an ounce and the silver
bullion buys twice as much of his
products for an ounce of silver as it
did in 1878 and prior thereto.
| In 1878 an ounce of silver would
buy s! pounds of cotton in 1895 it
would buy IA lbs of cotton. The silver
miner don't raise cotton but he wears
and uses cotton for clothes and for
bedding.
In 1878 an ounce of silver would
not quite buy bushel and one eighth.
The silver miner buys the wheat for
his bread and gets one eighth of
bushel more when silver brings SO
cents an ounce than when it sold for
$1.33 an ounce. Who is injured, the
silver miner or the farmer?
In 1878 it took 10! ounces of silver
to buy barrel of mess pork. In 49,
95 it averaged in price but the value
of 10 ounces of silver, the farmer in
stead of the silver miner again being
the loser.
In 1878 d pounds of wool would e1-
change for an ounce of silver, in 1895
it requires over four pounds o. wool
to buy an ounce of silver at Its mar
ket price. The silver miner is not a
wool grower but is large user of
wooden apparel and of wooden blank
cts.
1t is almost impossible to compute
the losses to farmers and planters in
the twenty-three years from 1878 to
1896 by the fall in the value of farms
and of farm products as the direct re-
suits of the financial legislation of
1878.
Farmers know that the prices of
their products have gone down,
down, but perhaps they have not
stopped to consider that the fall in
prices has been all the time in exact
ratio with the fall in the prices of sill
yer.
j If fhe use of money is worth per
cent, the farm whose price is $50 per
acre after paying al the expenses of
its cultivation inclu ding machinery,
insurance on buildings, taxes and all
ordinary expenses should be 81 per
acre. If the income, after paying all
these expenses is but So per acre for
!: a decade of years then the value of
that farm has been reduced to 1926 per
acre. The farms throughout the
eastern states have fallen from $75
per acre to nearly one third that
? price, while western farms have adj
, vanced in price up to what they are
: worth measured by the interest value
of the money invested. If the finan-
cial system of country is such as to
make the price of the products of a
!, farm low in price for decade after de-
cade the effect is to reduce the cash
/ value of the farm. This has been
going on for several years upon the
farmers in the eastern states and the
: same causes will produce like results
: in the western states
= But the honest money knave OF
: Wall street says: "You don't want to
t enable the silver miner to have 81
il cents worth of silver made into 10(
cents" intimating that to the farmer
e it will be 5O-cent dollar. If made a
J. 1OO-cent dollar to the miner it will be
l. Il 10O-cent dollar to the farmer and
s will buy no more of his products thar
now while it will pay twice as much
d debt and taxes.
d Let the west say to the men o.
Wall street who have made them
l. selves hoarse shouting for "hones
j. money" that before that can be hat
l. we must have an honest government
z; government or administration tina
IS will receive what it pays out for ONT
e dollar in payment of all dues and de
mands of the government at all time
J. for the same amount. 1t was thes,
It honest money knaves of Wall stree
l. who procured legislation putting Che
e exception clause on the treasury not
e the first instance in the history of the
3, government issuing on kind of mon
d ey for the soldier and the farmer an'
Is another for the honest money knave!
S, of Wall street.