Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1896-03-24
READ! READ! WENDELL
PHILLIPS ON MONEY.

The eminent jurist, orator
humanitarian and patriot
described with prophetic vision
in 1884 the situation of today
and 1.-The last battle between
aristocracy and democracy
the money issue.
1.-The question is not what the
money shall be made Of; the
question today is, who shall make
the money, banks or the govern.
ment? Money kings or the
people,
Commit the following to
memory and you will know what
the money issue is and what it
means.
but there is a reform whose
friends have shown themselves
ready for the polls; whose voters
have increased tenfold at every
successive attempt to show the
government the peoples wish.
mean finance. shall vote for
General Butler because he re-
presents the determination of
the people TO take the currency
out of the control of the money
kings-the ''Cannibals of change
alley as Lord Chatham called
them-and keep possession of it
themselves. My interest in fin
ance grew out of the effort to
rally a workingman's party.
When slvery was abolished
when it was settled that the
capitalists should no longer own
the laborer-all labor, black and
white, north and south, was lifted
to the level of wages.
Of course every wage laborer
desired a fair division of the joint
product of labor and capital.
Horace Mann said substantially,
Yankee ingenuity has increased
production tenfold, but we have
made hardly one step toward a
fair division of that product. In
our effort to secure a fairer
division we soon saw that the
dollar in which labor was paid
was one of the most important,
if not the most important ele-
ment in the solution of this pro.
blem. In other words, we saw
it was currency which, rightly
arranged, opened a nations we'll
springs, found work for willing
hands and filled them with a just
return, while honest capital,
daily larger and more secure,
ministered to a glad prosperity;
or it was currency, wickedly and
selfshly juggled, that madc
merchants bankrupt and starved
labor into discomfort and slavery,
while capital added house to
house and field to field, and
gathered into it's miserly hands
all the wealth left in a ruined
land. The first question, there
fore, in an industrial nation is,
where ought the control of the
currency to rest? In whose
hands can this almost omnipotent
power he trusted?
Every writer on political
economy, from Aristotle to Adam
Smith, from Ricards to Calhoun,
allows that a change in the cur
rency alters the price of every
ounce and yard of merchandise
and every foot of land. Whom
can we trust with this despotism?
At present the banks and the
money kings WELD this power.
They own the yard.stick and can
make it shorter or longer as they
please, and when they will; they
own every pound weight and can
make it heavier or lighter as they
choose. This explains the riddle
SO mysterious to common men,
why these who trade in money
always grow rich even while
those who trade in other things
go into bankruptcy. This is the
issue of to-day; who shall make
the yard-stick? Mr.. Schurz, my
friend Mr.. Blaine, Mr.. Secre-
tary Sherman, fancy we are dis.
cussing what the money shall be
made Of; whether paper or metal.
Not yet, gentlemen. The guess.
ton is not what the. money Shall
be made Of; the question today
is, who shall make the money,
banks 0r government? Money
kings 81 the people? AS Ewing
slid last August. The prattical
money question ii the United
States is not, whether the cuff.
raaney Shall Be Coin OF paper, Bot.
VIM shall isshb the PAPER u oney.
md bg 81 shall its Value be deter.
1nlnEq3 ~ s . i.