The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-12-01
A FARMER WHO is DEAD RIGHT.

tempting to use the currency question
and every other, question that bears
vitally upon the life and well-being of
the people to shape party ends or to
contribute to personal advantage, the
plain people, who have no direct part
in public affairs, except to cast their
ballots, are able to work out the prob
lem by the application of the hard COM
mon sense and sober judgment that
have come to them through contact
with the prosaic affairs of everyday
life.
Here is a man, who is just a plain
farmer, who does not pretend to dis
tinction in letters or to be a student
in economics, yet who sits down of
winter evening, when the work on the
farm is so far suspended as to leave
him free to think and express his
thoughts, and he hits the bulls eye in
a brief letter telling what, in his opin-
ion, is the matter with the country
He is exactly and wholly right. Debt
is the curse of nations and of indi-
viduals. If the attention of the govern
ment and of all its citizens were con-
centrated upon ways and means of
paying off obligations, if every other
interest were for the present subordi-
mated to that and we were to drop
schemes of conquest and eXtravagances
in appropriation until we were actually
Independent of others, not only would
the money lenders cease to be an OBJ
ject Of terrible apprehension, but the
financial problem would settle itself
along with most others.
1t is debt that makes Of man a slave.
The great majority of financial obli-
cations that rest upon the individual
are purely voluntary. There are cases
in which misfortune has compelled Dor
rowing, but those in which economy
would not either have removed the
necessity or paid off the debt at an
early day are comparatively few. The
madness of our age is it's reliance upon
the credit system Credit is valuable
adjunct to development and progress,
but it is subject to the most terrible
abuses. We have fallen into the habit
of thinking that it is not only a legiti-
mate, but a necessary and normal
method of conducting business to do
it upon borrowed capital and trust to
luck for repayment When anticipa-
tons are not realized, when bad sea-
he e
vention or the constant changes in the
worlds industry turn an expected
profit into loss, we are helpless. Then
come bankruptcy and the demand for
more money"
More money, not in the aggregate,
but in the particular, is what is want
ed. The man who is in debt wants
more money 1t would not help him
one silver If the total volume of the
countrys currency were doubled. 1t
would still get into his pocket only
in exchange for commodities sold or
services performed. Every man who
will take the trouble to look at the
statistics of revenue and expenditure
in this country will know that the
whole difficulty with us as a nation is
eXtraVagant appropriations. Reduce
our expenses only to the point where
they stood ten years ago or less, and
either the German bill or the Dingley
bill or any other bill that has ever
been put before congress would not
only provide ample revenue, but bring
IN handsome surplus. The trouble
with the nation is the trouble with the
man. People have gone into debt in
the hope of either becoming rich or at
least making enough on their borrow
ed capital to pay it back by INSTALL
ments. This substitution of specuIa
ton for solid industry, or the attempt
to combine the two in order to work
out the prosperity problem, is a fail
ure. The burden of the mortgage
which Mr.. Wilcox so graphically de.
Scribes, is that under which the conn
try has labored, and out of it has coma
the cry for more money; Just as the
man who engaged in a debauch last
night calls for a modest cocktail next
morning, instead Of forswearing strong
drink altogether.
MI. WILCOX has summed up, better
than all the political conventions and
congresses and financial commissions
and experts, just what we need-no
more billion-dollar congresses until the
a ic
until the cost of the last war has been
met; no more attempts to squeeze ont
additional revenue until we have
brought our expenses down be-
low the level Of present income. Just
as prudent merchants everywhere will
say frankly that they are Arranging
their business so as to eliminate the
credit element and to buy and sell
strictly for cash; just as they predict
that the time is coming when all bust
ness will be forced on this basis by the
natural laws Of competition, so Is If
true, as our correspondent states, that
1t will cut no figure whatever whether
the volume of our currency is large or
small, when we insist upon paying in
stead Of borrowing; and then we will
have better times, better times that will
come to stay, without having a few
years of prosperity always followed by
period of financial disaster, as has
been the case for the last thirty years.
The Northwestern railroad depot seems to