Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1897-12-14
OUR CANDIDATE IN 1900
THE Wealth Of Nations"

u0 w S6ltu VI VAClOuS.
In the opening sentence of the great
work of DR.. Adam Smith under the
above title, written in the year Of the
Declaration of American Independ-
ence, the celebrated author says:
THE annual labor of country is
the fund which originally supplies
it with all it annually consumes, end
consists in the immediate produce of
that labor, or in what is purchased
with that produce from other ceun-
tries.'
Failing prices for that produce di-
minishes this fund, and their tenden-
cy is to arrest production, the great
est evil that can befall a people. 1t
is from the prices received from the
sale of the products of an industry
that the wages for labor employed in
prosecuting that industry are paid,
and as these prices fall wages must
fall, The war between labor and
capital, whose friendly cooperation
is necessary to continuance of pro-
duction, is engendered by falling
prices.
The theory that the object of trade
between one country and another
WAS the acquisition of money, it was
thought was forever dissipated by
the teachings of DR.. Adam Smith, by
demonstra ting that the wealth of a
nation did not consist in the money,
but in the property it possessed, and
that the object of commerce between
nations was an exchange of commodi-
ties whereby the deficiencies of each
was supplied from the superfluities of
other nations; that money was only
useful in facilitating these exchanges,
that it was not an end but the means
to an end.
Our Secretary of the Treasury as
well as the other advocates of gold
monometalism seem to be imbued
with the idea that the prosperity of a
country is measured by the quantity
of gold that can be accumulated in
the public treasury, for the benefit of
those who own and deal in money,
Secretary Gage, with all the world
struggling for gold, declaring that
the treasury reserve of 100000, 900,
must be maintained regardless of its
effects upon the industries of the
country.
To this the friends and advocates
of the restoration of bimetallism re-
ply that it is not in the possession,
but in the employment of money in
productive industries that benefits
mankind. With David Hume, the
historian and philosopher who said
$50 years ago:
"As regards prices, money locked
up in chests is as if it Were annihilat-
ed, that it is only useful while in the
hands of the people circulating the
products of their industries"
Strikes and lockouts are the imple-
ments of warfare that theconcentra-
ton of money, one of the tools of
trade, causes to occur between CAPT.
tai and labor, as it both reduces the
demand for the products of industries
and the wages of labor, by limiting
the supply of available money ap-
plicable thereto.
Because of the inter-dependencc of
industries, the suspension of one from
any cause results in the suspension
of many others.
These phenomina exists in all gold
standard countries and were pract;-
cally unknown in this country prior
to 1875, when this balefnl policy be-
gun to show its work. Confidence
or the lack of it is not the cause, but
the result of business conditions.
How can any prudent man invest or
loan money to be used in product
i've industry, as long as the indica-
tions are that the money received
from the products of that industry
will not pay the cost of producing
and placing them on the market.
Falling prices is what has caused
the concentration of money in the
money centers, by withdrawing it
from produtive industries that failed
to pay dividends. Gathered in pools
it is only invested in municipal, state
or other interest paying bonds. Re-
lief from these conditions can only
be found Fin reducing the purch-
asing power of the gold unit of value,
which can only be accomplished by
putting silver in competition with
gold as money metal as 1T was from
1892 to 1873. When this is done, aud
not before, there will be beneficial
change, and the winter of our dis
content will be succeeded by glorious
summer"
1,ncT-Tn