Willmar tribune., 1900-01-24
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The Monetary Problem.
THEIR ETHICAL INFLUENCE.


THEIR ETHICAL INFLUENCE.
A Timely Word Concerning the Mon
etary Bills Presented In Congress
The People Ignored.
The ethical influence of monetary
system upon the people is not con-
sidered at all by either one of the
bills now before congress, and yet it
is the moral force of legislation that
makes for higher social and COM
mercial standards. The senate, like
the house, bill aims at the gold stand
ard as the ultimate of the purpose
in hand, and although they differ
widely as to what measures shall be
taken to give the several forms of
other money their proper relation to
the one measure of value, nowhere in
either bill are provisions made to
strengthen the moral tone and busi-
ness integrity of the people. On the
contrary, both bills seem to assume
that there is no law higher than the
law of the survival of those who are
the keenest in inventing and putting
in operation such machinery in the
channels of trade and commerce as
shall grind for themselves only. The
doctrine of the interdependence of all
the people, and that the community is
strong in morals, patriotism and hon
esty of purpose in ratio to the absence
of legislative favoritsm, is repudiated
by both bills. The objective point of
each is the creation of conditions
which shall subject the great body of
the people to conditions of existence
which must necessarily weaken their
aspirations to higher levels of moral
and intellectual worth. Glass legisia-
tion or favoritism in the administra-
ton of law never operates otherwise
upon the unfavored class or the IA
vored ones either, for that matter.
Any system of applied economics
which does not provide for an equit-
able distribution of the accruing
wealth of the country between all
concerned in the work of creating
the wealth is radically wrong in
principle and decidedly hurtful to
those who are denied the value of
their efforts. In their operation the
bills referred to, either one of them,
would place the industrial class at a
disadvantage from which there would
be no relief. The price of commodi-
ties and wages would grow closer un-
til wages were no more than equal
to the cost of living, leaving no mar
gin between the wage earner's income
and expenditure for the savings bank
or investment in a home. On the
other hand, the wealth of the en-
ployer would steadily increase, thus
widening first the social status of en-
ployer and employe and second their
political rights, until the employe and
his children and children's children
were mere hewers of wood and draw
ers of water. The ethical effects of
such dependence upon the means of
family support would certainly be
degenerating, nor would there be a
! halt until the line which separates
capital from labor was as deep and
impossible as the chasm which sep
arated Dives from lazarus. The SUI
premacy of gold gives it the at
tributes of greed" and avarice, with
full power to exercise it's authority
over those who must strive for it to
buy their daily bread.
These bills would disrupt the nat
ural relation between money and
labor by magnifying the power of the
former and weakening the power cf
the latter. BY the fiat of the gov
| ernment an insufficient quantity of a
| money measure of value would be
given to the various avenues of en-
| ployment by either one of these bills,
and since what is called "capital''
would control the measure without
| competition, the elimination of the
| voice of labor from the field of wage
| earning in determining what would
be just and fair compensation would
follow as a certain consequence. No
student of the social evolution of the
race has failed to note that whenever
or wherever the money powers have
! secured the control of that factor in
the commercial and social life of the
community the ethical standard of
the industrial class-the common peo-
ple-has been lowered. The "pauper
labor of Europe is the legitimate
product of restricting the volume of
circulating money measure of value
to- where it could be controlled by
combinations of money lenders.
Either one of the currency bills now
before congress would place the whole
of the machinery of the nations mon
etary system in the hands of a few,
and, ethically speaking, the conse-
quence would be emphatically detri-
mental to the moral tone of all the
people-the favored classes would
lower their own standard by excesses
which great wealth encourages and
the masses would degenerate because
opportunity to strive for more satisfy
ing environment would be denied.
Both bills emit ethical poison, and
either one would operate against the
attainment of higher levels of excel
lence of character by the people-all
the people.-Kansas City Times.
FINDS GREAT VEIN OF MICA.
DR.. w. E. Nichols, OF Indiana, Makes