The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1898-04-08
The Gold Standard and Its Fruits.

coming to the surface are showing what a
rotten system of rascality our present
national banking system is, especially
when connected with the gold standard.
The latter is financial system of steady
contraction, which forces down prices.
The forcing down of prices affects every
industrial enterprise. The pressure of
falling prices compels the managers of
productive business to cast about them
for means of relief to save their business
from bankruptcy and ruin. Cutting prices
in the effort to take the market from one
another constitutes a chronic battle of
competition. The wages of employees are
cut, which arouses a spirit Of resistance
among the hands who are bonnd together
in labor unions, and strikes to resist the
lowering of wages is the result.
These attempted remedies prove 10 be
no remedies at all The contraction of
the currency by the warfare of the gold
standard OH all money but gold and bank
credit serves by its contracting power to
restrict the ability of the people to pur-
chase for consumption, aud the forced
underconsumption keeps surplus OF
goods on the market which the people
need and would gladly consume if they
could secure the money wherewith to buy
them. The contraction of the gold STAN
dard it will be seen exerts pressure on
society, like the atmosphere OH the earth,
from all sides.
A vast amount of productive labor is
thrown out of employment, and lost in
idleness because its products cannot be
converted into money that will pay for
the labor employed i'll production. This
economic force is steadily forcing lower
range of prices and wages, and it is only
question of time when it will bring
every nation under the gold standard to a
condition similar to that of China, where
it is stated that f.. so per capita is the
amount of money in circulation, and
where the people are SO poor that the
lowest money fraction is about equal to
the one-tenth of one of our cents.
We have not reached this stage, nor
have we reached the level of prices and
wages which prevail in European coun.
tries, but we are steadily moving in that
direction. Every year marks lower level
of prices in this country. Our large ex-
portation of manufactured goods to Euro.
pean markets-some $3.50, ooo, 900 last
year, tells the cause of low prices which
partly result from improved machinery
and partly, it is claimed, from the superior
producing power of American workmen,
but primarily by the gold standard.
There is all ethical side to this gold
standard policy or money system which
should be considered and which is scarce
ly recognized as inseparable from it. The
plumber of banks tempted by speculation
which is largely the cause of bank robbery
by officers of those institutions. The
pressure of falling prices is driving people
from honest business into gambling-for
modern speculation is only gambling pure
and simple. The developments of the
two institutions that Mr. w. NJ Singerly
was president of and later the Peoples
Bank of Philadelphia are object lessons
on the ethical side. The cashier of the
latter committed suicide to escape the
terrors of the law and the former reached
sudden death in the midst of apparent
health. Falling prices and reckless bus
mess methods drove him to commit acts
to obtain money in vain efforts to bridge
the chasm that yawned between present
conditions and promised prosperity that
can never come while a nation blindlv
clings to a gold standard, which is no
more or less than the Jews pawn-broker
system of finance.
The Singerly paper mill from turning
out paper for S and cents a pound was
finally forced to sell paper for * cents a
pound. These falling, gold standard
prices drove the proprietor to the most
desperate shifts to escape bankruptcy
The stock farm was sold noninally for
10000 and mortgage taken in place of
cash, which mortgage was used as collat
eral to procure loan from one of his
Philada. institutions. The property that
mortgage rests on today would not sell
for, perhaps, more than ome-tenth the
face of the mortgage.
The paper mill is now standing idle
with all of its costly machinery rapidly
going 10 decay and probably will never
start up again. The pulp mill is,running
ont its stock and will in all probability
shut down when the wood is worked up.
All these properties are under deadfall
mortgages. The same fate overlook the
fertilizer works at Colora, and from the
same general cause-fall in prices, the in
evitable result of a contracting currency.
The proprietors found themselves stran-
ded by the steady drop i'll prices and
resorted to every means to escape the
steadily approaching doom when the
danger was closing round them. So it
has been and thus must it be with ruin as
wide as the nations bounds. Falling
prices is the cause, contraction of the
volume of money from the channels of
industry is the cause of falling prices, the
gold standard causes contraction of the
money in use, debt is resorted to on the
first approach Of danger, and the interest