Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1897-02-23
OUR CANDIDATE IN 1900
Same Old cry.

Having heard that Mexico was
short on corn the esteemed Chicago
Inter Ocean pauses in its laudations
of Major Mckinley long enoqgh to
remark that Uncle Sam has lot of
states long on corn" and that "they
have corn for the world" 1t is we'll
for the esteemed Inter Ocean that it
stopped right there. 1t would have
been embarrassing for that energetic
advocate of the gold standard had it
been forced to go ahead and tell why
it is that with a great corn crop in
this western country and thousands
starving in the east, corn is selling
at from to 10 cents a bushel. 1t
would be characteristic of the Inter
Ocean to say something about lover
production. Those two words are
used SO much by gold standard or
gans in their efforts to explain why
prices of farm products are contln-
ually dropping further and further
below the cost of production that
they are worn thread-bare. Strange
to say, there are thousands who be-
lieve that the overproduction of
corn is the reason why the price is so
low today. These thousands, how
ever, do not seem to realize that while
western farmers are suffering be.
cause they can not sell their corn at
any price, thousands upon thousands
of people in the east are starving be-
cause they cannot buy it at even the
present absurdly low, price. You
may convince money loaner or
bond holder that there is an over
production of breadstuffs, but it
would be hard to convince starving
man.
Mexico wants corn, and we have
corn to sell. But this governments
financial policy sets up a barrier be-
tween the two countries, and the corn
must rot on the western prairies
while Mexicans hunger for, it. This
is fact which the theory of over
production will not overcome. The
children of western farmers are lily
shod because they cannot sell corn
and buy shoes. The children of the
shoemakers of Lynn are hungry be-
cause the factories are not running,
and the factories are not runaing for
the reason that there is no market
for the shoes. Thus we have the
strange spectacle of farmers going
barefoot because they cannot sell
their corn, and shoemakers going
hungry because they can not sell
their shoes. The old cry of ''over-
production" may serve to deceive a
few, but the number of people who
may be deceived by it is growing
smaller each day. Why cannot the
farmers sell their corn and the shoe
makers sell their shoes? There is as
much money in the country as there
ever was. The sole reason is that
money is not performing it's legiti-
mate functions. Instead ,of being
merely medium of exchange it has
been coddled and petted until it has
become an article of exchange, and
as money is more profitable than an
investment. As result the money
of the coantry is heaped up in the
bank vaults or invested in bonds,
and there is none left for the legiti-
mate purpose of effecting barter and
exchange of commodities. There is
no getting around this proposition.
The gold standard policy is to make
money valuable as possession. The
bimetallic policy is to make money
valuable only as a medium tor the
exchange of the products of the soil.
Money only serves a good purpose
while enabling the producers to ex-
change the products of their toll, and
now that the policy is to prevent it
from performing its legitimate func-
ton shoemakers go hungry for corn
and corn raisers go barefoot; miners
starve for lack of food stuffs, and pro-
ducers of staple food stuff burn it
because they cannot purchase coal.
This condition of things is the
natural and legitimate result of the
gold standard policy, and the condi-
ton will exist in a greater or lesser
degree as long as that policy exists.
II the esteemed Inter Ocean can take
its eyes off the ignus fatuus Of lover
production" for few moments and
look at facts, it will be forced to ad-
NIT the truth. -World-Herald.