The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1898-03-09
PERTINENT QUESTIONS ON SILVER.

Whom would free silver benefit If it
should produce a general rise In prices?
Let us bring this question home There are
R,1OO.0CO homes in the United States. Free
4, 400 eco; incumbered l, 100 co., tenant rent
ed, 6,6C0,G0O. Would general rise in the
price Of homes of 100 per cent benefit those
who own or those who hire? Try paying
for one and see.
If we have 100000 bank depositors with
$50 ,0O0COO deposits could they buy more
homes after the rise?
II We have $10.O 600 worth Of rail-
roads would it be better to make it $20,-
0O,CCOCOO by free coinage? We gave the
railroad companies of Minnesota One-fourth
of the state and $6,C00C0O bonus to build
these roads. s76,GC0,CoO of value, or S19,3A
per mile and the net income for the year
ending June 80, 1890, was $40, SS2 JOG. If the
free silver doctrine is Mechanically true
who ought to belong to that party?
r. H. DALBY.
In the foregoing letter Mr.. Daily has
considered some questions that have
brought small consolation and encOur-
agement to great number of earnest and
thoughtful Populists who have entertain
ed serious doubt about silver being the
paramount ISSUE"
1t is safe to assume that Mr.. Daily is
not entirely satisfied with the idea Of
making the struggle of the century for
free silver only.
A simple illustration will make plain
the chief point of his suggestions A
rich money loaner places $1,000 mort
gage on a $4,000 Western home. On the
date of the loan there is $4,000 of value
in the home divided equally between the
owner of the home and the owner of
the mortgage. The home could at the
time be sold for $4,000 cash, $1,000 be
applied to pay the mortgage and $1,000
would go to the owner for his interest
over and above the mortgage. The own
ers $1,000 interest in that home is
just as important, just as large and just
as real as the $1,000 interest of the
money loaner. When you compare the
value Of money with the value of that
home, measure the one with the other,
it is found that it takes $4,000 to equal
or measure the value of the home.
But now a robbery is to be committed.
This money loaner and his co-conspira-
tors, the other great money loaners of
the world plot together to change the
relation between money and homes and
all other forms of property. AS the
cheat in weight and meas
ure would defraud with over
weighed scales and enlarged bush
ell or heightened yard stick, so these
money loaners enlarge, overweight and
lengthen out the dollar until they find by
again comparing the home with money,
by again measuring the one with the
other that it takes only $1,000 to measure
up and equal the value of that home.
The Western home has been greatly i'm
proved in the meantime, money and
labor have been expended upon it; neigh
bors have settled in thickly around it,
public and private improvements have
been made all around and the home own
er feels that many factors have in fact
contributed to enhance the value of his
home. But now the mortgage comes due,
the mortgage and home are measured up
side by side, the one by the other and
the home is found to be telescoped and
completely swallowed up with the mort
gage foreclosure follows and the loaner
takes that $4,000 home on his $1,000
mortgage. That money loaner will
swear on a stack of bibles and in the
presence of a preacher that he doesn't
want that home. that it had deprecated
and is not worth his $1,000 that his dol
lars never fluctuated in value, that the
value or purchasing power Of money over
property cannot be affected by legsla-
ton, that the law of supply and demand
affects the value of property but not the
value Of money, that the quantitative
theory Of money is entertained only by
long whiskered wild and woody POpulists
After these arguments are forgotten
and all homes have passed into the hands
of the money loaners, free silver is al
lowed to triumph under sham protest,
the former relations Of money and prop
erty are restored. The loaner hunts up
the original owner of the home. With
general rise in prices the price of the
| home has gone up again to $4,000. The
original owner buys it back again at
that price He gives the loaner 81 900
| cash and mortgage of $1,000 back on
| the home. The loaner Immediately loans
the 1000 cash on an adjacent $4,000
| home and now has two 81 900 MORTGAGES
| on two homes as the fruit of his original
| $1,000 loan. After a brief time he and
| his pals again contract the worlds cur,
| rency by one-half, take in all property
held as security and by again initiating
| sell and take more mortgages until few
loaners own all property mortgageable.
Mr. Daily has seen in this money
loaner's scheme just what all true Popu-
lists papers have frequently pointed out.
He has seen that after the money loaner