Mexico weekly ledger., 1898-01-20
MR., wILrLEY's ADDRESS.
Mr.. z: Il. Cauthorn Says It is All
Right for Some, But It Is Poor
Consolation to the Toiling
Millions of This
Country.

ConSotatl0n 10 q Tolllng
Millions of This
Country.
Correspondence Of the Ledger.
MEXICO, Mo-, Jan. 13.-The world
has passed through several periods
called ages, each characterized by
some important feature of the time.
Thus we had the stone age, when
stone was not only used as tools for
the husbandmen, weapons for the
warriors, but for tablets on which the
events of the period and its literature
were inscribed.
Passing from this over to the iron
age we have the bronze age, the dark
age, the golden age, and when you
read MI. Wiliey's address before the
Economics Club of st. Louis we find
hat we are living in the bond age.
Within the last thirty years the indebt-
edness Of the world has more than
quadrupled. # eon ass..i.Gtes q monu.
ment terrible to contemplate.
Ihave no doubt but that the address
will be read with great interest by
those who gorge and grow tat on the
workings of these great "systems of
credit" but to the toiling millions who
bear the burdens of the system, who
are compelled to pay interest (and
that compounded) it will be dry as a
bone that has bleached in the sun for
a thousand years.
The world has always contained two
classes of people-one that lived by
honest labor; the other lived off of
honest labor. Every title of nobility
in England has a pension behind it
conferred upon some ancestor as a
share of the spo1ls when ancient
brigandism declared itself the nobility
and pensioned their posterity upon
the tolls Of unborn generations of
plebians and serfs. The English sys-
tenn of high-toned robbery varies
slightly from the one being inaugur-
ated in this country, but the princi-
Piles, the objects and results are the
same. The object of both is to estab-
lish an idle untaxed aristocracy of
wealth accumulated through incomes
not earned by those who receive them
but flched from labor without con-
sideration.
"That which was called robbery and
plumber In old times is called interest
and taxation to-day. The robber cas-
ties have given way to brokers' houses
and Boards of Trade while the brigand
has assumed the title of ~inancier and
exchanged his battle axe for bonds
and his shield and armor for special
legislation" This is the class of men
that Mr.. Wiley says should be the
guardians of the peoples money.
These are the fellows that should issue
and control the volume and decide as
to the material of which the dollar is
composed.
Mr.. Wiley agrees with the banks
in the statement that upon the results
of almost a neutrality-suspicious., that
If experience is of any value whatever,
the government should in no wise be
trusted with the duty of furnishing
currency to the people.
Why does Mr.. Wiley not give one
example when the government failed
to furnish a safe and sound currency
to the people? I presume that some
body has thrown sand in his eyes and
caused him to believe that the green
back was not a safe and sound cur
rency. I affirm that the ~greenback
never deprecated one cent, would
always pay any deb for which 1T was
made a legal tender and that is all
that any dollar ever did, ever will or
ever car do. Now, we challenge the
world, the flesh and the devil to dis
cussion on this question.
Mr.. Wiley says the government
(the people, cannot be trusted to issue
their own circulating medium, but
that prerogative should be farmed out
to (what Dick Yates cailed) acorpora-
ton that had no aft to be kicked or
soul to be saved.
The constitution of the United States
makes 1t the duty of Congress to reg
ulate the commerce between the
States, coin money and regulate the
value thereof. Now, no one believes
that implies that Congress shall regu-
late the price of commodities trans
ported from one State to another, but
there is only m Interpretation that
can be put on that language and that
is this; that Congress shall regulate
the means or instruments by which
commerce Is carried on between the
States.
The next question is, what are the
instruments of commerce? Answer:
First, money; second, transportation;
third, communication. Now, instead
of Congress regulating these instru-
ments IN the interest of the people it
has farmed the regulation of the
money of the country to a few thous-
and banks, to be run in the interest of
themselves. Instead of regulating the
transportation in the interest of the
people Congress has farmed it out to
a few railroad corporations. With the
exception of the postage system it has
farmed the means of communication
to a few telegraph and telephone cor
porations and run In their own inter-
| asfs and not In tho iptaraet of the