The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1897-08-07
Wheat and silver.

1t will be noticed that the gap be-
tween wheat and. silver is steadily
broadening. At one time the price of
an ounce of silver and a bushel of
wheat was about the same. Some
times one would be little higher than
the other, and then they would, for a
few weeks or months, change places.
1t was seen, however, that there was
general tendency in both, for time,
to decline in price. There was this
difference, though, between the two,
that while the decline in silver was
practically continuous that in wheat
was occasionally interrupted for a
year or two at a time by sharp and
steady advances.
But the silver leaders did not notice
these Interruptions. or they did not
think the general public did, and they
suddenly proclaimed that they had
discovered "a great and invariable law
in the movement of the prices of wheat
and of all other articles. The law was
this, that all commodities dropped in
price with the drop in silver. From
this great discovery to the further dis
covery that the drop in silver bore to-
the drop in other commodities the re-
lation of causeto effectwas but step,
Wheat and other things fell In price
because silver fell. Silver, of course.
| fell because of its demonetizatlon, and
decentralization constituted the ''crime
of '73. " Undoubtedly this silverite
pretense that the decline in silver was
the cause of the decline in wheat de-
luded many farmers, and accounts for
the strength of the silver folly in the
agricultural communities. That fiction
was unquestionably responsible for "a
large part of the 6.5O0,OOO vote which
was given to Bryan last year.
The farmers as we'll as the rest of the
country now, though, have found that
there is no such law as that which
Bryan, 'Coin, Teller and the rest of
the silver sharps have been proclaim
ing. While silver is going down, and
has recently touched the lowest mark
ever reached by it, wheat is even more
rapidly going up. Not only is wheat
rising, but many other articles are in
creasing in price. Comparison of
tables published recently in the trade
journals show this advance movement
very clearly. Almost every article of
Importance which men buy and sell is
ascending except silver, and ''lOwests'
in this commodity are likely to follow
each other quickly in the future. The
pretended relation between silver and
| the rest of the commodities is seen
even by the most ignorant dupes of
ten been broken in the past ten or
twelve years, as any table of prices
l Twill show, though the masses of the
silverites. who never consult price
lists, were not aware of this. In
reality there meyer was any fixed rela-
tion between silver prices and those
of any otherarticles. Sometimes they
went up and down together More
| frequently. however. many of them
moved in different direction from the
others. A decline in the demand is
responsible for the drop in silver A
decrease in the supply while the ed
mand naturally grows with the growth
of the worlds population accounts for
the present rise in wheat The expla
nation, that is to say, of the move
ment of one of these articles in the OPP
posite direction from that of the other
is very simple. The change in the
relation between supply and demand
determines the price of everything
which is bought and sold. Naturally
the change in this relation can not be
in the same direction for all articles
at the same Observation-Disclosures.