Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1897-12-31
THE KANSAS FARMER.
HE is JUST NOW A SUBJECT
OF CONTENTION.
Paying or His Mortgage In Appreciated
Gold-This of Course Pleases the
Advocates of the British System
Some Gold Fallacles Punctured.

There is another little incongruity
in the Times-Herald's rhapsodical out.
burst, writes Hon. H. f. Bartine in the
National Bimetallist.
1t says that if Kansas could have had
her way her farmers would have re-
ceived no more than $137, 100000 fol
this years crop, whereas they received
just twice that much. That is to say
they would have been paid in 50-cent
dollars, but would not have received
any more of them. This is favorite
point in gold standard logic Under
free coinage everybody is going to be
paid in "5O-cent dollars" but is going
to get no more of them. By what in
scrutable process a 50-cent dollar can
be made to buy as much of farm prod
ucts as a "100-cent dollar" will, they
never explain?
If "50-cent" dollar will not only
pay as much debt as "100-cent dol
lar but will also buy as much, what
does the change amount to anyway,
and why are they getting black in the
face denouncing it? What functions
does money perform except the pay
ment of debts and the buying of
things?
If, under free coinage, the farmer
would get no more "50-cent dollars"
for his crops than he now gets Of 100
cent dollars" then, by the same line
of goldite reasoning, he would have to
pay no more "50-cent dollars" for what
he bought, or in settlement of his debts,
than he now does of "100-cent dol
lars" So. where would he be injured,
and why should he be required to lie
awake nights formulating peans of
thanksgiving and praise to the party
in power for saving him from the "aw-
full consequences" of a "50-cent dollar"
which, by their system Of logic, will
pay as much of his debt or buy as
many necessaries as 100-cent dollar"
will at the present time?
In this connection there Is another
explanation required. If the farmers
crops would bring him no more dollars
under free coinage, how would 1t have
the effect of compelling the wage
worker to pay twice as much for his
bread and meat?
In the cities of the Union during the
last campaign the song was constantly
sung by the well-paid troubadours of
the gold standard that If we had the
free coinage of silver the dollar paid
to the wage-worker would at once
shrink to so cents and only buy half as
much of household necessaries. AS he
would get no more dollars" of course,
he would be ruined.
What an easy thing it is to expose
the absurdities (D of the free coinage
of silver! All that is necessary is to
show that under such policy every
thing that everybody has to buy will
60 up, while everything that every
body has to sell will either remain
where it is or go down. Nothing could
be simpler than that. At first glance
it would seem that when man buys
an article and has to give twice as
many dollars for it because each dol
lar is only worth so cents, the man who
sells the article would get twice as
many for the same reason.
And in any ordinary case this would
be true. But the reader must remem-
Der that as gold is Independent of all
laws, human and divine, which usually
affect value, so the reasoning CD by
which the gold standard is upheld is in
like manner Independent of all the
rules and principles which are found
in the great works on logic. When we
once get this unique idea into our
heads we have no difficulty in under
standing how free coinage would have
the effect of compelling the wage
poor man with the din
ner bucket"-to pay 50 for given ar
ticle, while the equally unhappy man
who sells it to him would only get 81.