The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1899-06-23
HALF A BILLION LOST.
Gold Standard Cost the Farmers
That Last Year.
PRICE OF PRODUCTS OUT IN TWO.

At the Same Time the London Shy
lock" Profited to the Extent of $780,
100000 on Our silver-Used Against
Us In Competing Countriex-We Get
1t In the Neck Both Ways.
Once moro the farmers of America
have thrown themselves into the breach
and saved the country from bankruptcy.
Our total exports for 1898 amounted to
81, 2l0, 291, 913, of which enormous sum
$S5s, 5O', 942 were for agricultural
products. 1t will be seen at once that
the produce supplied by our farmers
brought nearly three times as much
money into the country as all the other
Industries combined, says The Journal
of Agriculture, and a large part of it
remained here to be a benefit to our
people, for our agricultural exports ex-
ceeded the value Of imports of the same
class by $544, 216, 146. This is an aver
age Of more than 81 of foreign coin for
each individual in the United States
than the farmers brought into this
country and kept here for the single
year of 1898. 1t is more than the total
amount of money that was in c~ircula-
ton among the people before the crops
of 1898 were sold.
The farmers have therefore more
than doubled our medium of exchange
in 10 months. This shows the impor-
lance of the agricultural interests of the
United States, and distinguishes the
industry that should receive the largest
need of protection and encouragement.
The single standard organs are using
the above facts as an argument against
the reconciliation of silver. They con-
tend that, as we only produced an av-
erage of a little ever $50, 900, 900 of sill
yer annually when that metal was on
an equality with gold, and the farmers
dig a net balance of more than half a
billion of gold out Of the ground in a
single year, the silver question loses its
importance and dwindles into insigni6-
canoe.
But why should we throw away our
60 millions of silver? And worse still,
why should we sell the silver that we
do produce to foreign money changers
for one-half its value, and thus enable
them to use it at its full value in pur-
chasing agricultural products and man
ufactured articles in silver using coun-
tries that compete with us. thereby re-
ducing the prices of the products of our
own citizens in the same ratio3 This is
the real question.
The value Of our silver product for
1893, at the present boom price, was a
little over $35, 900. 600. 1t was pur-
chased for some millions less by the
London money dealers, because they
bought before the rise in price, and they
used it at its full value Of nearly $780,
600, 900 in the purchase of breadstuffs
from countries that compete with our
farmers, thereby driving down the
prices of farm products in this country
many millions Of dollars. If the silver
had been remonetized and brought to
par, the farmers instead of netting half
a billion of foreign gold for their crops
of 1898 would have netted more than a
billion, and u citizens generally would
have saved the $50, 600, 900 in silver
which u tory administration collu-
sively permitted the Jews of London to
eteal from them. These are the real is
sues. There are also others. Stability
of prices is worth considering, and this
can only be secured by a stable and in
creasing medium of exchange, equal to
the increase of population. Shall we de-
pend for u prosperity on foreign crop
failures and famines when a stable and
increasing currency would sustain
prices and give us prosperity all the
timer The thing to do is to come to our
senses and act with unprejudiced wis
dom, instead of being controlled by
party spite and narrow mindedness.