Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1899-02-21
ITALY IN THE TOLLS.
Inequality of Condition.. That Pro-
duce Wretchedness in the Midst
of Abundance.

the double standard of silver and gold,
but in fact ii is the single standard.
Under the Latin union none of the
silver coins are legal tender except the
five franc piece, and that has not been
coined since 1875. You have had a
somewhat similar experience with your
silver dollar since 1873. 1t is we'll
known fact that where prices in the
home markets are kept up by protec-
ZIONIST tariff, the surplus product is
sent abroad, without regard to profit,
in order to prevent fall of domestic
prices. Thus the loss on the exported
portion is recouped at the expense of
home consumers, who are deprived of
the benefit of competition amongst pro-
ducers.
This fact, with limited supply of
money and high taxes, produces condi-
lions that are very hurtful to the poor
and those who do business on borrowed
capital. In your free and happy coun-
try 1t is impossible for you to appre-
ciate conditions as they really exist
here. Italy is gaining bad reputation
as the mother Of anarchists. Nothing
short of long and systematic misuse of
the powers of government can ade-
quately take the life and heart out Of
great masses of men, fill them with
corrosive thoughts, force them into
passionate brooding over the contrast
between their misery and the luxury of
others-between the great powers of
governments and their failure to do
their subjects good. One knows the
typical criminal of the ordinary kind,
whose mind and body have never grown
up, with a weedy frame, with q
face scanned and drawn with disease,
and with the temperament of q vicious
child. The type is generated by GER
tain circumstances as sure as cholera
by others. Given enough poverty,
enough hopelessness, enough dis
couragement, nothing but an excep-
tional gift of character can prevent the
rest.
The Italian government has for years
been placing as many of It's subjects
as it can In an environment manning
and stunning to all joyous effort and in
terest in life. Necessaries have been
taxed beyond endurance. Nobody
works harder or lives more sparingly
than the Italian peasant, but labor, en-
dured without proper food, and frugal
ity, practiced without perceptble re-
ward, must end by making life dis
tasteful, and government an object of
hofrad That hn q v,arfnnf
surface prepared for the striking Of the
anarchistic match.
In this perfectly ineligible way Italy
has become the chief center and source
of criminal anarchism. When one
hears that public man has been MUIR
dered, even in France or Switzerland,
one expects almost as matter Of course
to find that the murderer has an italian
name. What the pilgrims camping
ground at Mecca is to thephysical health
of the world, Italy is now coming to be
to the political health Of western Eu-
rope-a nursery of public crime, as the
other is q nursery Of cholera.
Our financial system is extremely VI
cious. Expressed In the terms of your
money we have circulation of only
about eight dollars per capita, which
reduces us almost to the level Of the
barbarous races. France has better
system. She practically sustains BIZ
metallism by freely paying cut both
gold and silver at the option Of the
government. This sustains the parity
between the two metals and gives her
people the full volume Of both. The
French per capita Of circulation, e1-
pressed in the terms of your money,
Is about S3e, which is the largest In
the world. Its benefits are seen in the
prosperous condition of her people.
When Germany sold her silver and de-
clared for the single gold standard she
was supposed to have done clever
piece of financing; but the facts did
not sustain the theory. Her per capita
of circulation is only a trifle over SIT,
less than half that of France; and in
spite of the fact that she collected a
billion dollars war indemnity from the
French, the Germans, I think, would
be very glad to exchange conditions
with their old enemy.
Although it is impossible to have a
perfect working measure Of value, and
impracticable to take commodities as
a whole, we should seek for meas
ure upon which we could rely as be-
ing sufficiently expansive to keep pace
with the growing demands made upon
it without varying seriously in its gen.
eral purchasing power. Such meas
ure Of value cannot be established by
the use Of gold alone. It can only be
formed by the unfettered and unfa-
vcred use of both gold and silver 70,
the monetary purposes, by allowing
open mints and free coinage for both
alike. Apart from the question of the
future supply of gold and the demand
for currency requirements, there is
that of boarding and consumption IN
the arts. The demand for the precious
metals, as plate in the western world
rests on the same instinct as that which
has led the native Indian to turn his
spare rupees into ornaments-the de.
sire to make display of wealth, anc
at the same time to accumulate store
OF wealth In readily convertible form
Free mintage of the metal or metals
stored is an essential condition for the
satisfaction of this complex require
ment, and the continued withdrawal O.
the privilege from the holder Of sill
yer will inevitably turn the boarding
propensity of the west as well as thu
eaat on to gold alone.-Pietro Marconi
In Mississippi Valley Democrat.