The herald., 1897-10-18
The True Index of Prosperity

To the Editor of the Los Angeles Her.
aid: How long will the voters OF the
country, whose figsancial salvation is
within their own keeping, supinely be-
ieve every gold-plated fake about re-
turning prosperity? Certainly he who
runs may read that there is a money
famine in the land. When real estate,
and particularly land values, do not re-
spotld to the Herculean. efforts of the
gold press to wake the dead" business
situation, there is no prosperity worth
mentioning. The lands upon which the
present crops of wheat and other grains
have grown have not advanced in val
ues, nor is there any appreciable demarld
for them. If there was, the observa-
tions of the writer could, tell differerd
story than what follows There are
thousands of acres of the best grain
and alfalfa lanjGas in Southern California
that in 1893 were valued at and selling
for $25 to $50 per acre. The same can
rot now be sold for one half that price,
Notwithstanding the fact that these
lands pay ten to twenty per cent net
upon $25 per acre in grain and fifty to
seventyt1ve per cent net in alfalfa.
Moreover the money lending fraternity
will not loan money upon those lands
at any rate of interest, but confine their
loans to insurance risks and city lots,
which values are built upon the sue
cess of the country loans they derry.
This is another nail in the coffin of
country life and a vitalizing force in
the concentration of wealth in large
cities. The same condition as to the
fall in farm land values exists through
out the country. An inadequate vol
ume of money to exchange the cortin
ually growing and newly created wealth
lies at the bottom of all our agricultural
troubles and viciously contracting
rather than. expanding our civilization
Land, the basis of all wealth above all
things, has an inherent worth, since the
race must live off the land. The per-
capita money has not nearly kept pace
with the great per capita increase of
wealth which now figures so largely
through the operation of genius ard in
vertion. the past twenty years. No Won
der that business is paralyzed. Con-
fidence cannot be restored because it
has no enduring basis.
Confidence is but a further extension,
of the credit system that brought disas-
ter Let us have an ample supply of
currency, gold, silver and greenbacks,
with no discrimira ton in contracts of
payment, say seventy-tive dollars per
capita. This C,aw crop of money would
force out of hiding the Ola boards and
all would at once enter the market for
all kinds of property, reversing the pres
ent tendency to further fall in values.
Healthy business conditions call for
less borrowing and more hand TO hano'
contact in exchange of property, real
and, personal. Those who have large
holdings of money and, seek to escape
personal work in general business risks
and desire safe securities should be
satisfied with low rates Of interest, thus
enabling those with more personal vigor
and less money capital to avail them
selves Of retired money.
There is a growing and disturbing,
if not dangerous, tendency TO encourage
conditions that enable owners of morey
to put it out at exorbitant rates of in
terest and keep the borrowers working
for them with no reward for their toll.
This class will always contend for a
II 49,
and false deductions so conspicuously
evidenced in the last campaign.
To escape this thral6om the people
must realize that real wealth consists
in the earth and the fullness thereof" "
Money is but the representative of real
wealth, not wealth. itself. Quantity of
dollars, not quality. is the essential
thing. There is only one parity
worth serious attention in the adjust
ment of the finar.cial question, and that
is the parity between dollars and prop
erty. Wl7cn the per capita of dollars
is regulated. with the per capita wealth
produced, then a solution will be
reached and not before.
Our statesmen through Ignorance and
corruption have failed to adjust the
benefits of modern. inven.tior and genius
in the int crest of the masses. Unscrup-
u,ous and designing men have seen and
made the most of their opportunities in
private and public exploitation of the
natural resources of the country. We
are passing under the rod of the law OF
com pensa ton aead the people must rise
to the occasion and adjust the working
part of the great machine. If they dc
not. chaos is inevitable. Social inse-
curity will follow commercial distress
till, in the words of that illustrious
patriot, Abraham Lincoln, "All of lib
erty shall be lost" and our once proud
ard glorious nation may become sea
of avarchy. L. L. NEWERF.
Los Angeles, Oct. 49,, 1897.