The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-03-26

When Are the Good Times Going to Begin?
To the Editor of the Press:
Since midsum mer of 1898, at any rate,
since the repeal of the silver bullion pur-
chase Act, Nov. 1, 1898, this country has
been on as strictly a gold mono-metalic
basis as England, brought to it, not so
much by changes in our national legisla-
tion, as by arbitrary executive authority,
fully shown in the articles you have done
me- the honor to print.
How has the insane and reckless ex-
pertinent of tampering with monetary
standards that prevailed in this country
from it's settlement to 1878, and in
Europe since the beginning of history TO
the same period, affected the business, the
wealth, the prosperity and growth OF the
country? What positive advantages have
we gained by not being willing to let
well enough alone? What worse state OF
things was impending, which we have
, avoided?
Bradstreet does not seem to be satisfied.
This is his summing up Of the situation
cut from a late Portland PRESS:
Building operations at some OF the
eastern ports are not as active as anticl-
DATED. Dealers in shoes south and west
report trade slow. Eastern makers admit
that orders are increasing slowly. The
cotton manufacturing industry is unsat-
isfaotory, with slack demand and heavy
stocks. The production is restricted fur
Their and shut downs are talked of.
Prints and ginghams are most active.
Transa ctions in raw wool ere limited and
market very dull. There is less business
than at any previous time since January
l. Iron and steel are quiet AS in preced-.
ing weeks and in some respects less
favorably situated. Orders for steel at
Chicago have decreased, and the price is
barely steady. The demand for pig iron
is the slowest since January.
Quotations at eastern markets are
noIninally unchanged and could probably
be shaded on new business. No agree
nent has been reached on ore products
for the 1886 delivery. The production OF
pig iron was restricted to about 40, 900
TINS during February. From all this, the
general trade situation throughout the
country may be regarded as less satisfac-
tory at the middle of March, 1896, than
was anticipated. Even prices Of staples
have refused to make and maintain ad-
Vances.
Among the decreases in quotations are
those for -four, wheat Indian corn, oats,
lard, print Cloths steel and pig iron.
Prices OF wool, leather, coal, pork, sugar
are nominally unchanged.
1896 begins in the same dismal way as
did 1895, and 1894. We are having our
delightful regime of "a sound currency
and nobody that I hear Of, seems to be
wildly juhilant about it.
Among recent events notice that that
solid old railway the Baltimore and Ohio,
has passed into the hands of receivers
Are all the rest of them going the same
way? One after the other they have
yielded to the paralysis of industry, the
sudden cessation in the movement Of Ell
terprising and wealth producing popuIa
tions in the building up of new states
the lessened demand for our exportablt
staples by the excessive competition
which under the high rates of exchange
has suddenly grown up in silyer-usin 6
countries.
Bradstreet reports the great railroads
that have defaulted their interests, the
merchants and manufacturers that have
suCcumbed to a chronic bad state of the
foreign and domestic markets, with the
aggregate of their indebtedness the
worthless stocks. bonds and other securi-
ties, of Western land, mining, irrigation,
SullWhy tbiQ VICCuElC CUiD HhulCb JAthtl0
hopeless by the arrested development
of the country, that have been charged
OF by the managers of eastern savings
banks. But BradStreet does not report,
and no financial chronicle tells CT the
thousands of men and women, who before
1898 were living respectfully. on incomes
derived from carefully selected invest
ments, who have been obliged to seek for
employlnents for which they had neither
taste nor training, or to- throw them
selves upon the charity of the public or
of their friends-tragic stories with which
private correspondence and the conf
dences of friendship have been SO full.
WHAT WE HAVE WASTED.
In one of the sad moods to which he
was constitutionally subject, President
Lincoln, in the agony of our great civil
conflict. uttered the surmise, that per.
haps the war is destined to go on until
every drop of blood drawn by tho lash
from the victims of slavery shall be paid
for by another drop drawn by the, sword.
Our terrible war was far more cruel thar
his conjecture; and eXacted vengeance
ten fold, if not hundred fold, for ou1
offences against Justice.
And when this monetary madness has
wrought its perfect work, it will be found
that we have wantonly cancelled and de.
stroyed, not only the monetary value OF
the silver coin, about four billions OF
dollars, but half of the real wealth of the
world which that silver coin represents.
1t is not difficult to itemize the sums
that make up this fearful aggregate OF
loss. Take our exported cotton crop from
three to five years, that Melted the pro.
duoer five cents instead of ten cents q
pound; our corn and wheat crops sold
abroad for the same period at prices that
did not pay the farmer what it had cost
to raise them. Take the shrinkage in the
saleable value of real estate, of ships and
factories, the depreciation in the quota
ton prices of all listed railway stocks,
and securities in the properties of land,
Irrigation, and water companies: make
an estimate of the enormous sums sunk
in mining and town lot enterprises, toe
preoarious to have figured even in the
stock list; calculate the fearful aggregate
of lost interest and lost principal OF
which only the sufferers hold the painful
history, and you will not come short Of
this country's share of what has beer
madly wasted in trying to establish "a
sound currency"
If we had burned all the buildings,
sunk all the ships, and poisoned all the
live stock in the United States, the
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