Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1898-01-05

lessening in the true cost of produc
ton, he has suffered no less from sucl
faU. Moreover that the fall in price.
since 1893, common to all gold using
countries, fall in prices of twenty
per cent. has not grown ont of i'm
provement in machinery exclusively
that the labor cost of production has
not been decreased by one fifth in the
past years is patent to all. Therefore
the cause of this fall IN prices must
lie in dearer money, due primarily tc
an appreciation of gold.
Changes in the value of money
have largely influenced the move.
ments of prices during the last hall
century, and were great factors in
price movements during one long per.
iod. During the quarter of a century
followin z the gold discoveries in Cali
tornia, there was much progress in
the line of invention, much introd uc-
ing of labor saving machinery, much
cheapening in the labor cost of pro-
duction. This, on your theory, should
have caused steadily falling prices.
But what happened? The outpourings
of gold cheapened gold 10 greater de-
gree than commodities were cheap
ened and the result was that prices
were in general thirty per cent
higher at the erd of this period
than at the beginning. Then what
happened? We, along with many
other nations, closet our mints to sill
yer. We increased the demand for
gold, with the result that gold went
up in value and prices of commodities
down. You must abandon the advo-
cacy of gold monometa1lism unless
you can show that the demonetiza,ion
of silver, and the doubling of the de-
mand for gold resultant therefrom,
has not caused gold 20 grow dearer and
prices lower to the great injury to all
producers of wealth. You should at
least show that the perpetuation of
the gold standard will not result in
making money dearer and human
flesh cheaper.
Aud now, just one word as to the
second resolution to which YOU take
This resolution declares.
and you admit it that the purpose of
your currency plan is to cause the re-
tirement of our national greenback
currency and all government paper
money and the substitution of bank
notes. This you hold to be desirable.
Why? Would it not give the banks
the power to regulate our foreign ex-
changes, the power to check gold ex-
ports by contraction and by screwing
down accommodation to producers so
As to force them to throw their pro-
1ucts on the markets at prices at
which our foreign creditors would
rather take such product than our
gold? Would it not thus relieve the
treasury of the burden of providing
for gold redemptions and make the
banks supreme? This we hold to be
1t would make the banks
guardian over our volume of money
and so of our measures of values: it
would enable the banks, working in
he interest of the spectators to cause
in prices with great GER
tainty, enable them to depress prices
by contracting the currency and raise
prices by expanding the same. 1t
would make the banks the masters
and the many the slaves, and would
enrich the few and impoverish the
multitude.
''Iu the statement you recently made
before the house committee on bank
ing and currency in support of your
bill you say, and l repeat this truism,
that the less the government owes,
the less it will have to pay Yet your
plan involves the proposition of the
of our national paper cur
rcncy and greenbacks upon which we
pay no interest at all, and the issuance
Of bords in it's stead in the sum of
S20O, 900, 900, for which we shall owe
and upon which we shalt be required
to pay interest. The inconsistency of
your statement aud your plan seems
glaring.
"We oppose your currency bill be-
cause, as has been we'll said, it is
bill to provide for the abdication of
the sovereign powers of the govern.
ment to the banks, for strengthening
the hands of the speculative cliques,
the few and impoverishing
the many"