Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1898-05-20
FOR CHEAPER MONEY.
THE REASONS FOR THIS Pop
ULAR DEMAND.
What tho People Need Is a Dollar That
Carries with 1t . just Proportion of
Labor and No More-D. O. Mccarthy
Gives His Views.

Senator Sherman once said in a
speech that those who wanted more
money wanted cheap money in order
to pay debts with currency of less
value" Senator Blair added cor with
less days work." These statements
were made as an argument against
free silver and casually suggest the
idea Of reputation. Such assertions
in the past have closed the mouths of
many good men, but failed to convince
their judgment. That, however, was
during the flood tide of national bank
rule, when to doubt was to be de-
stroyed. The ideas of the people have
changed somewhat since that time,
and the infallibility of past and pres
ent legislation is being challenged
throughout the entire country. The
condition to which these senators re-
ferred in derision the people are de-
handing in earnest. 1t is a cheaper
dollar and dearer days work that
they must have or become enslaved.
1t is not cheap dollar in the offensive
sense in which it Is used by plutocracy,
but cheaper dollar as compared with
all honorable ideas of fairness and
right. Which is nearer the line of
justice, a cheap dollar worth 81 cents,
or dear dollar worth 200 cents, and
which carries with it the greater power
to Cypress? Money is bought with the
products of labor; consequently, the
dearer this money is the more labor
is required to purchase it. It Is the
few who own the money, and the
many who must work to earn it; there
fore, cheaper money benefits the ma
jority, and is in strict accord with the
teachings of the constitution. What
the people need is a dollar that car
ries with it just proportion of labor
and no more. The present dollar dis
tributes the products of labor unjust
ly; it is to neutralize this unfairness
that cheaper dollar is demanded. 1t
is claimed by the advocates of dear
dollar that a cheaper dollar has and
always will be the workingmans abid-
ing curse; that the purchasing power
of this dollar would be less, and there
fore operate against labor in produc-
ton. The first and last propositions
are absolutely untenable, and cannot
be sustained either by precedent or
argument But the proposition that
the purchasing power of the cheaper
dollar would be less is true, and it is
primarily upon this fact that labor is
do n 81 oh
in production never prospered as dur
ing the period of cheap money from
1863 to 1867. All labor was employed
at remunerative wages, tramps were
and failures in business the
and not the rule, as at pres
ent. Even Senator McCulloch was en-
abled to state that the people were
comparatively out of debt, and not
obliged to labor necessarily for liv-
ing. To confound cheap money with
worthless money is unfair, and dis
closes a want of better arguments. 1t
will hardly brighten the people as it
once did. Cheaper money than the
country .now has is a necessity, and
is sure to come in the near future.
Cheaper money means more money,
and that in turn means higher COM
mercial values and better times. 1t
means that the farmer can pay off the
with less days work; that
the mechanic can finish paying for his
little home with less hours Of labor,
and that labor, wherever it may be and
Of whatever kind, will be enabled to |
pay less tribute to those who own or |
control the money. Labor demands a
cheap, flexible volume of currency, that
will eliminate the speculator and the |
usurer by establishing a price that is
and will not fluctuate.
d. o. MCCARTHY. |