Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1896-09-14

a yard. The American people have 80
cured the benefit of this great redue
ton in the price of prints, as they hav
OF every other article whose productio
has been vastly cheapened by huma
ingenuity. The fall in the price of sill
| yer mas no more to do with it than tn
| phases or the moon or the rise and fa
| OF the tides. 1t is true that the fall o
prices in cotton cloth has been due /,
| part to the fall in the price of raw cot
| ton. This has come about larpel
| through the fact that two valuable bv
products, cottonseed meal and cotto,
seed OIL are now secured along will
the COTTON crop, and partly from i'm
provcments in the machinery used i,
securing IL. "A by-product always op
crates TO cheaper the or ginal product
In the same way the invention of tn,
Mccormick reaper, and other labor
saving machinery, has enabled tn,
farmers of the West, where the cordi.
lions are favorable for their use +,
vastly increase their acreage in cereal.
without increasing the cost of nrod,,c.
ton, and the result has been n cores.
ponding decrease in the price of III.
crops raised by them.
AS | returned home from the ST
Louis convention, through one of the
finest Wheat-producing sections in the
world, and saw those magnificent ma
chimes, doing in a few hours the work
that once called for days and weeks of
human labor. l had no need Ia yo
back to the decentralization of silver in
1873 to find a very substantial reason
why the price of cereals has gone down
in the markets of the world
Now it is a fatal weakness Of the free
silver advocate that he ignores entire
~ these facts of human progress and
attributes the fall of all prices to what
he is pleased to call the "demonetiza-
ton of silver way back in '13.
AS | rode UP the beautiful valley of
the kennebec, this afternoon. and
noted the apple trees bending beneath
their burden of fruit, / recalled the
fact that last year. with light crop.
apple growers received good prices for
their product. This year prices arc
low. You may think, perhaps, that
this results from the abundance of the
crop; but the free silver advocate will
tell you that this has nothing to do
with the situation, and that, as a mat
ter Of fact. the low price Of apples in
1896 is attributable solely to the de
mouetization of silver in 1873 0augh-
teri.
They try. too. to create the impress
sion that the dropping of the standard
silver dollar from coinage was brought
about in some under handed manner
As a matter Of fact this much abused
and misrepresented act of 1873 was con-
sidered through five sessions of two
Congresses 1t was printed, with it's
amendments. no less than - times
The debates upon it fill many pages of
the Congressional Record 1t passed
by an almost unanimous vote Senator
Stewart Of Nevada. the present high
priest of the free silver movement. and
Allen q. Thurman of Ohio, the "Old
Roman" were among the number that
voted for it. That was the history OF
this act No enc has ever had occa-
sion to apologize for it, and it was not
till 20 years later. when the silver mine
owners We're figuring for more profits,
that any one ever felt called upon to
denounce it as a crime"
Now we hear good deal about the
debtor class and the creditor class: but.
my friends, the distinction lisa falacious
one, from the fact that almost every
man in this country is both a debtor
and a creditor. the debtor of those
whom he owes, and the creditor Of those
who owe him. The greatest class Of
creditors in the world are the men and
women who sell their labor. Every
man who works for another man is al
ways his creditor for the full amount
that IS due him. Any legislation there
fore. that would enable debtors to pay
What they owed in SO cent dollars would
bear, first of all and most severely
upon the wage earners Of the country.
Every person who has dollar in
vested in q savings bank a loan ana
building or an insurance company. is
its creditor.
Who. then. are the leading debtors Of
this country? Why, the railroads. the
factories. the telegraph companies. all
who employ labor. are the debtors eff
the people who work for them.
The savings banks of this country are
the debtors of no less than 5001. 0C0 peo-
pie who have their hard earned savings
to the amount of nearly $1,000 900, 00J
deposited in them.
The national banks are the debtors
not only of their depositors. but also Of
the millions of people who hold their
notes.
The insurance companies and assess
ment orders are the debtors Of more
than twelve millions of people who
have policies in them.
The United States government, aside
from its bonded debt is debtor of
every man, woman or child in this
broad land. who holds one of it's treas
ury notes or silver certificates. 1t is a
constant debtor to its army of en-
ployees and to all the men upon its
pension roll.
Wall street itself is a great debtor,
for the larger part of its business is
done on borrowed capital
Let US not be deceived. then, my
friends. into believing that legislation
which would enable debtors to dis
charge their liabilities in SO cent dollars
would help the American masses.
But our free silver friends tell us
that the free and unlimited coinage of
their favorite metal at a ratio of IS to l
would make money plenty. There
never was greater fallacy in the
world. The result of such legislation