The daily morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1883-1899, 1896-05-28
BoIEs LET THE CAT OUT OF THE
BAG.
Aeeordlng o a pss MoInes dispateh:

According to Des Moines dispatch:
Ex-Governor Boies has written a long
silver letter in which he takes the rather
sensational position that wages, and es-
pecially those paid to farm laborers, are
too high and should be reduced by pay
ment in cheaper money.
The only sensational thing about this
position" is the fact that there is one
man who is honest enough to state
frankly one of the reasons why he and
other free silverites want 50-cent dollars.
The dishonest reason, which others dis
honestly conceal. Boies biurts out.
Boies is a farmer himself. and hires
farm laborers who are whites; Tillman
is a farmer. and hires farm laborers who
are blacks. Each Of them will get a
gold price for his products. that price
being determined by the demand for
those products in the gold standard coun-
tries Of Europe That gold price will
be paid each Of them in 9-eent dollars,
Of which they will get consequently twice
as many as they get now 1OO-cent gold
dollars.
But the wages of the white and black
farmhands will not be determined by the
gold price of labor in foreign countries.
Those wages will remain nominally what
they are now, though actually they will
be cut down one-half in purchasing
power. The producer win get twice as
many dollars as before. The laborer will
get the same number as before. Hence,
the farmer will get his work done for
half what It costs him now.
Boles says:
The producers Of farm products are
compelled to part with an unreasonable
amount OF their farm crop to obtain
dollar of present purchasing power Of our
currency based upon the gold standard,
and justice to them requires a cheaper
dollar, or one that can be obtained with
a less quantity Of the products Of labor.
As has been stated, free coinage will
give the farmer cheaper dollars. He
viii get twice as many half-value dollars
as he does now whole-value ones. But
that will not make him any richer un-
less he can make as effective use OF
his DV-GehA OOlldib Do hON9 hON u AAA1
lO0-cent ones.
There are two ways in which he can.
One is by making his laborers take them
at their face value, thus giving labor
"a less quantity OF the products Of la
bor"-giving the farmland half bushei
OF wheat where he formerly got a
bushel
The other way is by forcing creditors
who are not protected by gold contracts
to take these 5O-cent dollars at their face |
or nominal value while the debtor took |
them at their actual, intrinsic value. |
Then the debtor farmer will make 50
cents on each dollar. The amount OF |
outstanding Indebtedness to country |
merchants. North and South, not pro-
tected by gold contracts is SO large that
dishonest farmers would reap a consid-
erable profit But they could do 1t only
once.
The city workmen, like the country
farmers, would be paid in 5-cent dollars
in the event of free coinage, and the
employers Of the former would give them
no more of the 5O-cent dollars than they
do now Of the 1OO-cent ones. While ask
ing consumers twice as much for their
products they would say to the work.
ingmen: "A dollars is a dollar. We
are paying you as many dollars as we
used to. What are you grumbling
about?"
And yet Boies and Altgeld are asking
the farmhands and the worhngmen or
Iowa and Illinois to vote for free coinage,
when it will give employers cheaper