Daily new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1897-1906, 1897-12-30
Told Gompers to Argue Instead
of Denounce-
A LONG REPLY WAS THE RESULT.
The Labor Leader Assatis the Gold
standard-Then He Mates Hot At
tack IN the secretary's Scheme to Re-
tire the Greenbacks.


letter, taking exceptions to the resolu-
tons passed by the federation with
reference to the Gage financial bill.
MIR. Gompers says III part
s'Those resolutions declare against
your plan for more thoroughly COM
hitting our country to the gold stand
ard a plan for destroying our green
back currency and substituting bank
notes, plan IN fact for weakening the
control Of the national government
over that most important OF all meas
ures. the measure of values, and
strengthening the banks, plan aiming
at what you call currency reform, and
which we call bank monopoly.
hat you should take otfense at
these resolutions, | regret, for the right
to express disapproval of the acts OF
their servants is one of the rights held
sacred by the American people. The
resolutions are declaratory of the views
of the American Federation of Labor
and are entirely empersonal, for of all
men III public life, we have the greatest
respect for your probity and integrity.
~ on ask what evils have resulted
from our adherence to the gold stand
ard. answer that the evils are those
that have grown and ever must grow
from dishonest measure of values,
measure of values that interferes with
the lust distribution of wealth, that de-
Drives some men of O. part of their
earnings that is rightly theirs and con-
fers 1t upon others who have earned it
not. Any measure of values that thus
forces an unjust distribution of the
products of labor, that deprives the
producers of the fruits of their toll,
cuts down wages and profits, thereby
destroys the incentive TO enterprise,
leads to industrial stagnation, enforced
idleness, distress and public suffering"
1.-The products of labor are divided
into three general shares. One share
goes as interest and rents to the money
lender and landlord, to capitalists who
do not productivity use their own capt.
tai, who seek to avoid the risk of pro-
duction A second share goes as profits
to EMPLOYERS, a third share goes as
wages to wage earners. The interest
charges and rents are to great degree
| fixed and profits and wages are subject
to great fluctuations. This being so, it
is clear that anything that reduces the
total money value Of the products or
labor must increase the share OF the
money lender and creditor, though
nominally fixed, and increase the share
to be divided among employers and
wage earners. 1t is equally clear that
to increase the value of money must
decrease the values of the products of
labor and therefore enrich the creditor
at the expense of the debtor.
However, it is not alone due to a
cheapening of the labor cost of pro-
duction, but also to an actual apprecia-
ton OF the gold that the fall in prices
since 1872 has been in great part due.
| And this appreciation has grown out Of
| the decentralization Of silver, which has
increased the demands for gold"
He declares that the fall in prices is
not due entirely TO improved machin.
cry. Then he says:
During the quarter of century fol.
lowing the gold discoveries in Califor-
MIA. there was much progress in the
line of invention, much introduction
of laborsaving machinery, much cheap
ening IN the labor cost of production.
This, on your theory, should have
caused steadily falling prices. But,
what happened? The outpOurings of
gold cheapened gold to greater de-
gree than commodities were cheapened
and the result was that prices were in
general 80 per cent higher at the end OF
this period than at the beginning.
many other nations, closed our minis
to silver. We increased the demand
for gold with the result that gold went
up in value and prices of commodities
down You must abandon the advo-
cacy of gold recommendation. unless
you can show that the demonstration
of silver and the doubling of the de-
mand for gold resultant therefrom. has
not caused gold to grow dearer and
prices lower to the great injury OF all
producers of wealth.
"And now just one word as to the
second of the resolutions, to which you
take exception. This resolution de-
clares, and you admit it, that the pur-
pose Of your currency bill is to cause
the retirement of our national green
back currency and all government
paper money and the substitution of
bank notes. This you hold to be desir.
able. Why? Would it not give the
banks the power to regulate our foreign
exchanges, the power to check gold ex-
ports by contraction and by screwing
down accommodation to merchants, so
as TO force them to throw their products
on the market at prices at which our
foreign creditors would rather take
such products than our gold? Would
1t not thus relieve the treasury of the
| burden Of providing for gold redemp-
tons and make the banks supreme?
This we hold to be undesirable.
/ sin the statement you recently made
| before the house committee on banking
and currency In support of your bill
! you say, and repeat this trueism, that
the less the government owes. the less
1t will have to pay Yet your plan in.
wolves the proposition OF the retirement
OF our nanonal paper currency and