Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1897-08-27
Altgeld on Wheat.

AlGS6lU Oh w neat.
The New York Herald in its re-
searches for the truth concerning the
return of prosperity, the rise in
wheat and other collateral agencies,
wired Ex-Governor John p. Altgeld
asking his opinion, and the following
signed statement by the ex-gov-
ernor was published in the Herald
yesterday:
Chicago, Aug. 13.-To the editor of
the Herald: The American people
know that while the wheat crop is
phenomenally large in our country
it is a failure in South America and
European countries, SO there must
come a kind of wheat famine, and
that consequently the farmer should
get more than $3.50 for his wheat,
and would get more under the finan-
cial system which formerly prevailed
in the world, SO that he is even now
suffering wrong caused by leglsla-
ton.
The average price of all other CON-
modities known to the worlds
markets has been steadily failing.
and silver, whose uses have been re-
stricted by legislation, has simply
kept pace with the other commodi-
ties, as shown by the London
market. In our country the price of
corn and most of the other farm
products is so low as not to pay the
actual cost of production. The pres
ent advance in wheat, being due to
temporary cause, cannot give gen.
eral or lasting prosperity; besides,
only small portion of the farmers of
America raise wheat.
Should the Klondyke discoveries
or any other cause so greatly increase
the volume of the worlds money as
to produce prosperity it would be a
demonstration of the correctness of
the democratic position-viz., that an
increase in the volume OF money
gives prosperity, while reduction in
the quantity of money produces
paralysis.
The country has now enjoyed more
than nine months of restored conf
dence," and as result the great
cotton mills of New England have
shut down because they could not
sell their products; the coal miners Of
America are on strike against hunger
and against nakedness, and the
Chicago City Railway Company,
which last winter helped to debauch
the legislature of Illinois and got
advantages worth millions of dollars,
has just given notice to its men of Il
reduction in wages.
The condition of debtors and
honest toilers is getting steadily
worse. Congress has just given the
Sugar trust a tribute in excess of
what they formerly got from the
the sweat of American industries, in
order that these patriots may not
alnass fortunes themselves, but may
contribute millions to carry elections.
The newspapers are persistently
calling this prosperity, but the
American people are not fooled by it,
and the democratic party is not be-
ing weakened by these proceedings.
Nearly ali of the events since the
election have tended to show that
the democratic party was right in
the last campaign, and that the gold
standard campaign was colossal
fraud, managed by the INSCRIPTIONS
agents of the trusts, which are
beginning to see that their party
never can rescue our institutions
from the corruption which is over
whelming US, and that this rescue
must be made by the great mass Of
the common people who have saved
our country in every past crisis and
who will rally around the standard
of a true democracy.
JOHN p. ALTGELD.