The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1900-01-11
THE PRESENT PANIC.
AscRIBAsLE TO THE GOLD
STANDARD ALONE.

AscRIBAsLE TO THE GOLD
STANDARD ALONE.
A Learned Presentment OF tho Case
from the Atlanta Constitution There
Is Not Enough Money in the Country
to Sustain Genuine Prosperity.
Our gold standard friends seem to be
in a tremendous quicker over the
wreck and ruin that visited Wall street
and they are very busy assigning
causes for it. This they find very diff
cult to do. Each one has his particular
pet theory. One says it Is due to over
speculation, another declares that it
is the outcome of the over-capitaliza-
ton of trusts another says it is the
result of well-known conditions" and
still another darkly hints that the col
lapse was brought about by we'll
ed in preventing the completion of GER
tain railroad deals in the south; where
as, in point of fact, the very firm that
was placed under the accusation was
the first to come to the rescue of the
street by loaning million of cash at
per cent, when brokers were eager
to pay as high as 1875 per cent.
Now the fact that very few of our
gold standard friends agree on any
theory, however plausible, is certain
sign that they have been taken off
their feet by the sudden developments
in Wall street-that the collapse came
upon the stock exchange like clap
of thunder from clear sky. One very
shrewd editor who perceives that it is
necessary to forestall public opinion
in this particular vows that those who
see any connection between the col
lapse and the adoption by the house of
the gold standard measure are will
fully blind.
So be 1t; put us down among the
blind and then send us in raised let
tiers some plausible explanation of an
event Of which one gold standard
editor has been moved to say: 1T
swept like tornado through the stock
list, and made havoc with fortunes
that week ago seemed substantial.
No one will ever be able to estimate
the ruin and wreck it has caused, for
the area of it's influence extends over
the whole country. and includes all
classes Of people"
In regard to panics that are past
and gone, we have never seen any
plausible explanation that separates
the panic of 1873 from the surreptitious
decentralization of silver, or the panic
of 1893 from, the closing of the Indian
mint to the free coinage of silver. Nor
do we perceive any material difference
between the conditions of 1893 and the
conditions of 1899, except this, that last
Mondays panic was more ruinous than
that which preceded the depression in
1893. Prosperity prevailed then, pros
perity prevails now; the first note OF
the panic then was the failure of the
cordage trust company, and the first
note of the panic last Monday was the
We hope, indeed, that we shall not
have repetition of the various and
manifold disasters of 1893. The coun-
try has been adjusting itself all along
to lower plane of Lying and to less
expensive business, and we are conf
dent that whatever stroke is in store
for the country, it will not fall as
heavily or belas disastrous as that Of
1893. o.
There is but one augury of evil in
sight, and that is the enormous over
capitalization OF the trust companies
that have been formed. These present
to the ak of the gold standard vast
broadside of wind and paper, folly and
credulity. and when the paper bubble
bursts there will hurrying to and fro,
and loud walls from those who have
been induced to invest in wind. It is
this event that is most to be feared,
for when the wind and paper trusts be-
gin to explode the spectacle will create
CONSERVATION even among those who
have nothing TO lose, and this means
the loss of confidence and the restora-
ton Of conditions that are neither hap
py nor desirable.
But the real evil, the evil which will
remain with us until the people rise
up and put an end to it, is the fact that
the gold standard places it in the pow
er of dozen men to control the avail
able capital of the country. This dozen
men can put quick end to Industrial
development at any hour of the day or
night, and they can wreck any system
or any organization that presumes to
compete with concerns in which they
have placed investments.
So far as the actual scarcity of
money is concerned, the technical au-
thorities are at one in ascribing it to
the demand for cash created by in
creasing business and the expansion of
Industrial development This means
that we have outrun or are about to
outrun the limits set by the gold stan
dard. When prosperity comes to a
standstill. it ceases to be prosperity;
its own growth and development are
what it feeds on. Deprived of this
food, it perishes. On this expansion
in business and industry the various
movements In Wall street are based.
When the concerns whose stocks and
bonds are listed in Wall street
or mr. iro