The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1899-07-28
The Gold Standard and the Farmers.

gold of the Klondike, South Africa, Col
orado and gold eldorados Of the world is
not sufficient to supply this increased de-
mand for gold, and the pressure Of such
necessity will increase the demand for
gold far above the supply Property must
fall i'll price as gold and the money tied
to it rises i'll purchasing power, together
with the rise in the value of debts, as the
value of property with which to pay debts
declines.
If this monetary condition is continued,
times for the farmer and all business
depending on agriculture must grow
harder. They are harder this year than
they we're last, and the entire outlook
portends that they will be harder for that
class, four million farmers and the people
depending on agriculture, next year than
this. A great many farmers already see
this dark cloud i'll the future and are
quaking. The banks and monopoly trusts
are the only class that are enjoying the
prosperity we read of.
Every day these combinations of cap
ital and business tighten their cords about
the liberties of the people. One of the
great steel trusts has notified their GUS
toners that they have abolished the two
per cent discount for cash i'll 80 days, and
changed their system to cash within thirty
days and interest on the bill after that.
The price has not been shaded" two per
cent, but on the contrary has been i'll
creased several per cent since the trust
has perfected its arrangements.
Other combines or trusts will of course
fail into the new system, led by the steel
trust, and higher prices and no discount
for cash, with interest added if not paid
i'll thirty days, is the prosperity which
this new order is bringing about.
The sugar trust has notified all retailers
of sugar that they must sell at the price
the trust fixes or they will not be supplied
with sugar, and that there is no longer
any other than the one source of supply
which is in the hands of the trust.
The coal oil trade has long since ceased
to allow dealers to procure coal oil except
from their own tanks and at just such
price as the oil trust chooses to fix
The thousands of commercial travellers
who represent competing firms are being
steadily discharged as the firms in the
same line of business combine into trusts,
which send their agent-one man for as
much territory as he can cover conven-
iently-who tells the dealer that his and
no other firm can fill their orders and
the price is just so.
When the public gets its sleepy eyes
open TO the situation it will begin to ask
itself if we are not drawing pretty close to
a line that looks very mich like indus
trial slavery.
Mr.. McKinley's Attorney General
Griggs, complacently tells the people who
ask him to proceed against the trusts, that
there is no law by which they can be
restrained from monopoly control. To
this Bryan responds, then the Attorney
General should suggest such amendment
to present laws as would meet the case,
and if there are constitutional barriers to
such law, it is the Attorney Generals
duty to advise congress of the fact and
recommend such amendment as would
enable the abuse of trusts to be reached
and controlled.
But any such hope is vain. The trusts
and combinations Of capital have captured
the Republican party machinery and
while they can keep that party i'll power
by the use Of money to influence elections,
there will be no such reform and the
people will continue to mourn.
Under present conditions there is abso-
lutely no relief for the agricultural inter
ests and those whose business depends
upon the farm. The price of farm products
is set i'll Liverpool where the agricultural
products of the world meet in competi-
ton.
The gold standard having been forced
upon India and the food producing coun-
tries of Europe by their governments
having been coerced by the money
lenders, a level of prices is created
throughout the world for farm products,
which are all brought i'll competition in
the English market, which is the chief
distributing point for agricultural products
of the world. These countries being all
placed OH the gold standard the level of
prices must necessarily be the same at the
point where the farm products compete,
and the price must level down to that of
the country whose products are the lowest
in price. BY the gold standard the Amer
lean farmer is placed in competition with
the ryot of India and fellah of Egypt,
with no trust or tariff to protect him. BY
the Rothschids' financial jugglery of the
gold standard the American farmer is
made to compete with the farmers of
India, Egypt, Russia and all the peasant
farmers of Europe i'll producing food at
poverty prices for the expoiters of the
entire industrial class of the world, the
money lenders and debt owners, whose
money and money obligations represent
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY BILLIONS
The trick by which they accomplished
these stupendous results is very simple
and easily understood by the most ordi-
nary mind. 1t was to make money
scarce, which was done by selecting the