The Louisiana populist., 1896-01-10
WHEREDO YOU STAND
MANY VICIOUS AND MISLEADING
STATEMENTS MADE.
The Seductive Arguments OF the GoIdbug
are Quite Smoothe for They are Made by
the smartest and slyest scoundreIs on the
Face of the Earth.

TEN, regulated with q controlling de
sire TO serve the great industrial classe:
Of our own country, or do you swallow
such catch phrases as ''honest money,
sound money" ''money that's good
abroad, ' ETC.. without ever thinking
who is paid for fooling the peo,
pie on these lines We quote from
the National Watchman what Secre.
tary Carlisle said in recent speech
"Ihcre never was a time in the history
OF the world when the workingman'.
dollar would buy as much of the nec-
sarics and comforts of life as it will
buy now" II can buy more with one
dollar to-day than | ever could" or
Il can buy more with days work
than ever before" are also expressions
familiar to almost everyone. These
misleading and thoroughly vicious
statements have contributed more to-
ward bringing about and fastening
upon the people that blighting ignor-
ancc which now stands i'm the way of
financial reform than all the argu-
ments ever produced in favor of less
money and lower prices. The me-
chanic seems delighted that he can
buy six pounds of butter for 81, where
he could buy but four pounds for the
same money few years previous. And
the farraer's wife is pleased beyond
measure TO buy twenty yards of mus
lin for 81, when few years before
she could buy only ten. Both seem
satisfied with the situation and really
5elieve that times are improving. The
nan with his 81 a day can buy as much
cloth, flour and other necessaries as he
formerly could when his wages were
nearly, il not, double. He seems con-
tent with the situation and unthink-
ingly keeps on his way. just so with
the farmer; he exchanges his crops for
as much of the products of the mills
and factories as ever, and he. thinks
the exchange about even an goes on
toiling and sweating and wondering
sometimes why things don't come
around as they use to.
Somehow the interest on the mort
gage gets heavier, and the payments
become more difficult to meet, the
days work becomes less and less in
demand, and no matter how cheap
the necessities Of life are, it becomes
yearly more difficult to earn them.
BY and by, as is the case now, the
mortgage Is foreclosed in spite of
harder work, more rigid economy, and
an increased gross production. On the
other hand the mechanic is unable
to meet his rent and provide for his
family, and is turned into the street. |
These two victims of the same cause
may chance to meet the one going into
city for work and the other fleeing
into the country for food and shelter.
III they would sit down and consider
carefully the situation they would soon
discover they were the victims of each
others ignorance. That with full
knowledge of the situation and unity
of action, the disasters which had over
taken them and millions of their kind
might have been prevented. They
would learn the truth of this proverb
''that nothing is cheap to one producer
that is made so at the expense of
another producer" When the good
wife bought cloth or any other prod
uct of the mechanics skill and labor
cheap, she must expect that these me-
shanics must in turn buy her butter
and eggs and other products OF the
farm at similar reduced rates. The
natural results of such suicidal policy
is to make the good wife buy less cloth
and the mechanics less butter.
The remedies usually applied for
such a condition has been to stop
producing cloth by shutting the fac
tories and thereby throwing the me-
chanics out of all employment, render
ing them incapable of buying any but
ter. And the good wife, on the other
hand, is unable to sell her butter at
any price, which makes the COW an ex-
pcnse instead of profit, and this con-
iition with others makes the payment
,f the mortgage impossible. This is
lhc case at present, idle machinery
md a surplus OF products. and starving
operatives, stand facing the toiling
armer, with his half-clad family, boun-
iful harvests and unpaid debts, and all
'cem ignorant of the cause of their
The money power. how
'vcr,. is happy. Where it once took
he interest on $1,000 to buy his yearly )
,rcad, the interest on $500 will now
more than do 1t. Where IL once took
he interest on $1,000 to clothe his
amily, the interest on $1,000 will now 6
10 il equally as well. In 1870, with
money renting at 10 per cent, about G
ifty bushels of wheat paid the interest {
IN $1,000; now with money at z per G
ent. it takes over 100 bushels to pay @
{. In this statement lies the root s
4 the whole trouble. One class of !
PRODUCERS are, and for long time g
ave been, fighting another class, with O
he owners of money feastirg and fat q
ening on their disaster The fact is
70 want Nothing cheap but money. v
We want dear products and Gear labor, /