The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-08-24
THEY HAVE MONEY TO nURN.

John w. Breidenthal, of Topeka,
Kan, has been prominent in Populist
circles and-with apologies to the lexi-
cographers-among the ululators he
has been the ulula fist. He is the men,
Der of the national committee of the
PopuliSt party-now emerging from it's
eclipse of 1S96-for that state, and is
enjoying, in whatever emoluments and
honor are attached to the office of bank
examiner of his state, some slight re-
ward for his strenuous labors in past
years in behalf of an oppressed and
money humanity In days
that are past John has berated the
grasping money power for grabbing
the money that is to produce what
water is to the canal and, by decreas-
ing the quantity in circulation, caus-
ing tremendous and bankrupting de-
preston in the price of commodities.
He has raised his stentorian voice in
support of the demand for sufficient
money to transact the business of the
people, not less than $50 per capita,
and bemoaned the sad fate of Kansas
farmers, who, in common with their
fellows all over this broad land, were
pauperized simply because there was
not enough per capita outside the cof-
fers of the money power.
During all these dismal years it is
now discovered that these farmers have
been. paying off millions and millions
of dollars Of mortgaged debt, getting
their lands out of the grasp of the ten
tacles of the octopus, doing it right
along through all those Democratic
hard times" and under the terrible
pressure of democratic free trade"
and now John, as bank examiner of
his state, discovers that Kansas is suf-
fering from too much per capita He
reports that "a most extraordinary
financial condition exists in Kansas"
The banks are glutted with the de-
posts of Kansans on which they are
paying 4 per cent interest and cannot
loan it because the farmers have more
money than they know what to do
with. This condition exists, too, at a
time when 5O,0OO,0OO bushels of wheat
are being moved from the farms to
a ravenous market, and no one seems
to want the bankers money to do the
moving with.
With the outrush of grain there is
such an thrush of money that call the
farmers are making improvements on
thoir md 1Jxr hoy -
burn" condition that, he says, sis
annoying the bankers very much" AS
the bankers are part of the money
power Of Populistic rhetoric, their an
noyance must be due to this slipping
out of their grasp of the Kansan farm
err, and one can imagine the gnashing
of teeth among them as they see their
late victims becoming the money power
themselves with money to burn" But
however wrong John may have been
in his capacity of doctor of economics,
in diagnosing the condition of Kansan
and other farms during the years of
the rise and decline of Populism, he
is now eminently sound as bank ex-
ordinary financial condition" 1t is not
due to the Dingley tariff, to the ele-
walton of the Great Apostle of Protec-
ton to the presidency, to the apprecia-
ton of gold or the depreciation of sill
yer, but "to the wave of economy the
hard times of the past few years de-
veioped." The fact that while under
that wave these and other farmers
have been paying off their mortgages
at an unprecedented rate shows that
their hard times were merely sympa-
thetic and not the dire reality they
have been with others. Their very
savings for debt paying hardened times
by Withholding from manufactures and
trade those purchases now being so.
freely made. Money has flowed from