The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1896-07-23
Is Gold Higher.

| There are difficulties about the cur
rency question as related to business,
but they are not greater than can be
met with intelligent thought One Of
the constructive difficulties is that gold
has appreciated in value, and therefore
all other commodities have fallen in
value. Let us consider some of the
facts. Three years ago the price of a
| good seYiceable horse was one hundred
dollars, now it is fifty. The horse
grower has borrowed of you one hun
dred dollars and when his note falls
due you want your hundred dollars
and a years interest. At this time in
order to raise the one hundred dollars
he must sell two horses, so that his
labor is doubled. This constitutes a
great hardship for the horse grower
and creates serious difficulties in his
private finances. Your note is all
right because the horse grower is hon
est or you have ample security.
Now let us take the case of the po-
tato grower. Within two years, if /
am correct in memory, the potato
grower has realized one dollar bushel.
Last years growth Of potatoes have
been offered and sold as low as ten
cents per bushel. Merchants who paid
% or 80 cents per bushel last fall and
stored them all winter had to dump
some Of them in the lake because they
could not be sold. Families stored
their own potatoes to such an extent,
buying them as cheap as the merchants
bought theirs that the merchants had
to carry almost all their stock over
until spring. Potatoes were so excel
lent equality and SO low in price that
consumption was largely increased.
But Notwithstanding this it was i'm
possible to utilize the tremendous pro-
duct and the price went lower and low
er and then to nothing. First quality
of potatoes were sold on the track by
the car load in Chicago for less than
freight charges and expense of hand
ling and selling. Tens of thousands of
bushels were fed by farmers to their
stock. The cost of growing potatoes
on large scale where machinery is
used is 124 cents per bushel and they
cost the ordinary grower zoe. 1t is
palmer than daylight that in this case
the trouble is an oyer supply. A low
ering of prices secures more buyers, but
in the case of the potato crop this
spring when all the price was taken off
there was still more than could be
consumed.
The case of the horse grower is SINH
lar to that of the potato grower.
The financial troubles are based on
the same principle. More horses have
been grown than could be used. Good
work horses we're slaughtered by hun
dreds last fall for their hides and the
offal to save the expense OF wintering
In many cases good horses were given
away on the simple condition they
should be fed and cared for. Well,
what has all this to do with the diff
culties of the currency question? Moth
ing whatever, and it would never have
touched the question if the silver mine
owners had been choked before they
were born.
The free silverite says the reason
why horses are so low in price and po-
tatoes so cheap is because gold has ap-
preciated in value. And the reason
gold has appreciated in value is be-
cause silver was demonetized in 1873,
claiming that it's demonstration re-
duced the volume of money one-half.
He tells the horse grower and the po-
tato grower that free silver coinage
will double prices and enable them to
pay their debts with one half the ex-
penditure of labor that is now required.
/ Woodwork. r. F. ROBERTS.