Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1897-08-19
The GoIdbug taitn Cure.

perity. Mother Earth has once more
bestowed her increase upon her chill
dren with lavish hand. The farmer
looks forth over fields of magnificent
corn smiling in the sunshine; he sees
that his stack-yard is full, and that his
mows are Overlooking. He knows this
year, at least, he will not bring his
fail to an empty threshing floor, and
that his store of kale and potatoes will
be ample.
But he is rot a fool-at the worst
not so great fool, as the managers OF
the Sound Money Club and the other
agents of Mammon take him TO be-.
He has never complained of the pro-
ductiveness of his lands. Year after
year his toll has been rev arded with
bountiful harvests. He has had over
| flowing granaries before. He knows
that Nature has not failed to succor
her offspring in all the years he has
lived. He knows that the abundance
he has created has not abided with
him, and feels confident that his iu-
ability to retain that which ought to
belong to him arises from no fault of
his. Being man of sense and blessed
with the education our common schools
afford, he knows that abundant crops
will not bring prosperity under pres
ent conditions. If prosperity depend
of the valley of the Nile, whose tenn
ing soil, renewed each year, has
scarcely an equal in productiveness,
instead of being the most miserable
would be the most fortunate of people.
If bountiful crops unaided could bring
prosperity there would not be tract
of land in the island of Great Britain
as large as the State of Connecticut
abandoned by it's inhabitants.
He is asking himself, why is it that
abundant crops give him but little re-
lief? The plutocrat tell him when he
has plentiful harvests that there is an
reproductions; consequently, the
price of his commodities goes down.
He cannot, for the life Of him, under
stand how it comes about that there
can be reproduction when there
are hungry people on every hand
anxious and willing to work for what
he has to sell, but who are prevented
in some mysterious way from doing so.
1t is a remarkable thing to him that
when his ten-acre field yields fifty
bushels OF corn to the acre, he gets
very little more money out of it than
when 1t produces but twenty-five; yet
this is usually the case.
Our goldbug friends underrate the
intelligence of the agricultural classes
when they endeavor to persuade them
that the present bountiful crops are
sure to produce prosperity. Excep-
tional circumstances may cause the
farmer to realize better price for his
wheat this year, but he knows them
to be exceptional. There is a short
age over the whole world. He also
knows that whatever tends to enhance
! the price of wheat reacts upon corn.
But next year, with plentiful crops
over the whole world. he knows that.
under the gold standard, prices will be
lower than ever.
The farmer of intelligence under
stands why Wall Street is trying the
faith cure upon him. II he can be
lulled to sleep a little longer he will
soon be past all power to help himself.
The money power will be invireible.
He understands the volume of money
in circulation has as much to do with
fixing prices as the law of supply and
demand. He knows that when the
money of nation is held by a few
| people, with power to expand or con-
tract its volume at will, they hold the
prosperity of that nation in the hollow
of their hands. He knows that the
first step is to break the hold of these
men by reinstating the double stand
ard, aud that the next step is to open
for himself the markets of the world.
This he is determined to do, sooner or
later. He knows he can never pay
the mortgage on his farm if few
money lords are to continue to hold
the commodity which he must buy
with his produce to pay it of. He has
to pay his debt in dollars, and unless
he can create a condition in the money
market in which dollars cannot be
cornered as they are now, the product
of his farm will be taken from him in
the future as in the past by the men
who control the money supply, without
his receiving any benefit from his Ia
Dor. To tell him he is prosperous be-
cause he has coed crop is to presup-
pose him to be fool.
Prosperity can never come to the
producing classes of the country until
both gold and silver are received side
by side at the minis under the condi-
tons that prevailed for eighty years
prior to 1873. The producer must sell
4 his r,r0a,,os e. ,,,r..o.. .,-;sl ~-AsoL e.,