Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1896-10-01
Plenty of Money.

Judge Cate, of Stevens Point, in &C
cepting the democratic nomination for
congress i'll this district, addressed a
long letter upon the money question
now agitating the country to the
people of this district with his version
of it. The Milwaukee Sentinel came
back at him with the following editorial:
Scarcely any Bryan Democrat has put
the gospel of initiation into fewer words
than Judge Cate of Stevens Point, in
his letter accepting a Popocratic noml-
nation for congress. Don't let us be
alarmed" says Judge Cate, ''at the cry
of flooding the country with silver No
laboiing man, farmer or producer of
any kind was ever brought face to face
with too much money. Money is the
life of business. Plenty money brings
activity and enterprise where depres
sion existed" In other words, accord
ing to Judge Cate, the more money you
have the more prosperous you are.
With this Test of prosperity before
ones eyes it is easy to see that several
epochs of history have been mis-
represe nted. A pamphlet published in
1743 says that the colony of Rhode
Island, containing mot exceeding 90,
Indians and negroes, have eXtant about
e4OO 600" This was "plenty of money"
very cheap. In March, 1870, the Con
tinental congress, which believed that
the continental paper money then III
circulation amounted to about 5000 0O0,-
600, recognized the fact that it had de-
preciated enormously by declaring $40
of this kind of money to be worth 81.
In Philadelphia this money circulated
until it was worth only 500 for l. In
some parts of the South it circulated
until it was worth only 900 for l. Con-
gress later issued more paper money,
and on Aug. /, 1870, passed an act
giving authority for funding this paper
money in & per cent. bonds at the rate
of one hundred dollars in the said bills
for one dollar in specie" During the
civil war, when the government was
issuing greenbacks and had suspended
specie payments, the value of the green
backs, as everybody knows, became de-
preciated. They fell-in 1S64-as low
as % cents. According to Judge Cate, a
man who had two Of these was better
off than man who had a dollar in gold,
though two dollars worth of greenbacks
would buy only Seven-tenths as much
as one dollar in gold. A man in San
Francisco, who lad loaned $4,000 in
gold in 1859, received four years later
an offer of $4,000 in greenbacks from
his debtor. After a long dispute the
creditor accepted the $4,000 in green
backs and 81 900 in gold. According to
Judge Gates teachings the creditor
gained 81 900 by the transaction. In
reality, owing to the depreciation of
greenbacks at the time when the debt
was paid, he lost 81, 200. The fate of the
confederate currency furnishes strik
ing examples of the absurdity of Judge
Gates opinions. In 1865 the legislature
of North Carolina published scale of
depreciation, showing the value of
gold dollar in confederate currency for
each month during the war. In Novem-
Der, 1861, a gold dollar was worth $1.10,
of 1862 it rose from $1.20 to 50 80; in
1868 from So to $50; in 1864 from 81 to
$40; in April, 1865, it was worth 100
confederate dollars. And yet Judge
Cate would have people bel vc that a
man who had fifty of these confederate
dollars was fifty times as we'll off as a
man who had one gold dollar, though
in reality he was only half as we'll off.
Experience proves that the value of
money to its possessor depends upon
its purchasing power; that a man is not
benefited by an increase in the volume
of his money if its purchasing power
decreases CORRESPONDENCE. Judge Cate
and his political associates propose to
cut the purchasing power of our dollars
in two, and yet they offer the wage
Garner not particle of proof that his
wages Will be doubled. And unless his
wages are doubled free silver will in
jure the wage-earner.