The Portland daily press., 1896-04-22

mean that it will make those articles in
trinsioally more valuable or that it will
increase the desire for them, but that it
will take something out of the purohas-
ing power of the dollar, SO that less of
them will have to be given for the dol
lar. In the old greenbaok time Scion
Chase used to pioturesquely express the
same idea by saying that There was too
much hog in the dollar" that is to say,
| that the farmer had to give too much
| pork to get the dollar, and his remedy
was to cheaper the dollar by printing an
| unlimited supply OF them-a remedy
precisely the same In kind as that of the
silver men, but differing in degree. Now
there is no doubt that the free coinage of
silver will produce rise in prices of this
kind. There will be less wheat and hog
| in the silver dollar than in the gold dol
lar, and the farmer will get more dollars
for his pork and his wheat in num-
Der than he does now. But there is
another side to this question. While the
farmer will have to give less hog and
less wheat for his dollar, he will find
that he has to give more dollars for his
| tea ard his coffee and his sugar. The
| rise of prices is not going to stop with
farm products, it is going to affect. every
| thing-not at the same moment, but Ill
timately-everything except debts. II
the new dollar is declared to be an un-
limited legal tender men or institutions
who had other peoples money as loan
| at the time the declaration was made
will reap great acknowledgement this is
the only class that will, for it is obvious
| and the price of the things he has to
| buy rise equally through a cheapening OF
the standard of value, he is no better
situated than he was before for though
he may have a surplus of more dolla rs
Its representative value will be no
greater. But the debtors will get an
advantage Who are the debtors? There
is notion that the debtor class is the
poorer class, the men of small means.
That is absolutely erroneous. The great
debtors in this country are municipal
corporations, railroads, life irsura nee
companies, savings banks and individu-
ais who are using large sums of money
and are getting constant loans from the
banks These are the institutions and
the jndividuals-all of them regarded as
rlch-which will derive the greatest ben
eft from depreciation of the value of
the dollar. Mr.. A. poor man, has &C.
cumulated few hundred dollars and de-
posted them in the savings bank. He
put in dollars of the purchasing power of
the present gold dollar. He put In
dollar that would buy him two bushels
of wheat. With the silver dollar issued
in unlimited quantities and made legal
tender the savings bank meets all it's
| legal obligation to him by returning,
not the 800 or 5000 in gold, or its equiv
alent which he deposited, but 100
or 200 silver dollars with the purchasing
power diminished perhaps half. Or he
may hold railroad or municipal bond,
which he had bought with gold, and for
which he is compelled to take deprecated
| silver dollars. In each of these cases it
is capitalize savings bank, the railroad
and the municipality-that has reaped
the advantage of the free coinage of sill
yer. He is the loser. For the sake of
getting better apparent prices for his
wheat or his pork or his labor, he has
shrunk the value of his accommodations
one half. He has made it possible for
the capitalistio GLASSES, against whom he
has been SO much incensed, to settle their
debt to him at a big discount He has
kindly scaled down the debts of all the
bankers, and the railroads, and the
trusts-all the people and Institutions
| which be had made business of hat
| ing-and what has he got in return?-
double the number Of dollars when he
goes to market and sells his products or
his labor with their purchasing power
diminished in about the same ratio
that their number has been increased