The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1899-02-10
FAILURES AND
FALLING PRICES.
Views of a Cotton Manu-
facturer of Boston.
CULPEPPER DEFINES TRUSTS.
The Liabilities in the Failures in 1870,
Aggregated $50, 900 900 In 1898 They
Aggregated $3.50 200, 900.

CHICAGO, Feb. 6.-EditOr HerdJd:
In the lobby of one of our leading
hotels the other day / CHANGED on
Lyman +. George, a cotton manu-
facturer of Boston, Mass, who has
broken away from the ranks of the
eastern gold standard advocates and
taken time from his business to
write book entitled Failing Prices
and the Remedy" Having read this
popular treatise on the money ques-
ton, and having enjoyed a previous
acquaintance with the popular au-
thor, | felt at liberty to ask him:
when and tor what reason did
you first seriously consider Failing
Prices and their relation to the bus.
mess of the country"
Leaning back in his chair, Mr..
George slowly replied:
at is often difficult to analyze
motives. However, | think that as
student of cause and effect L first
became indignant at the narrow
and short-sighted policy of our east
ern press, wrongfully instilling into
the minds of the people of New Epg-
land the idea that the lower the
prices forced upon the producers of
food and raw material in the south
and west, the better it would be for
the consumers of food and manufac-
| turers of raw material in the east !;
since, as they said, the wage Garner
is protected, first, by his labor Orga-
nizations, and secondly, by a high
tariff in the benefits of which he
shares equally with the manufact-
urer.
1.-THE wealth producing sections in
raw material amount to four fifths
of the nation, and when this great
portion of our country has been rob-
bed, as it has been, through low
prices for the past thirty years, the
other one-fifth of the country is sure
to suffer as severely in the end.
1.-The east has found out that by
impoverishing the raw material
growing west and south it has lost
its great customer, and that the only
way to regain the prosperity it once
enjoyed is first to restore those prof
liable prices to the west and south
under which they will again send
their orders to us for our manufact-
ures. This will restore prosperity
and drown the cry of 'curtailment,
shut down, cut down and section
al competition that we hear daily
in the east.
From your experience and &C
quaintance with business men in the
cast what has been the effect of fall.
ing prices on business in this coun.
try?"
From only $50 failures in the
northern states in 1865, with liabili
ties of $l7 ,625,000, and in 1870 in oul
whole country of 3,55l, with liabili
ties of $88,000000, they reached &
climax in 1893 of Is, 509, with 1892 900
600 of liabilities. Ninety-five pei
cent Of the failures to-day are by
men doing business on less thar
$4,000 capital. Falling prices thwart
all business foresight, force the com.
pulsory idleness of millions of work.
ingmen and discourage every bust
ness venture, until the velvet hand
of the trust smoothly seizes each in
dustry with fulsome promises O.
good to the people by great saving
in the cost production, doing away
with agents aid travelling men, anC
such arguments ad nauseum. Tt
use Cuipepper's famous words, like
the frogs of Egypt, they (trusts,
have entered our dwellings. They
sit by our fireside, they sup in oul
cups, they dip in our pans, they
serve with the butler in his box
They have scored us from head t
foot
THE trust, with corruption for it,
cornerstone and tribute for it's cap
stone, is the ideal system of the in
vesting and moneyed classes; but i
is the terror of the helpless masses
who are constantly being levied up
on for greater tribute in their every
purchase. 1t has but one buyer ant
he becomes dictator. The rich Low,
and the poor hate this monster
Queen Elizabeth, 400 years ago, dis
solved every trust and thanked tn,
business men, in dignified speech
for calling her attention to its neces
sity.
, Free silver is the weapon which
must dissolve our trusts, as our pres
ident, sad as it is, owes his office t.
their existence, and thus is power
less to act.
1T was the characterization of sill
/ yer that caused our trusts to form; i
is its restoration to its former plac
as the money of the people that will
! serve to dissolve these monstrOu
, creatures of greed" GREETs.