Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1910-07-15
friday, July IS, 1910
CAUSE OF HARD ZINES.

That money is very tight and stocks
are dropping to panic prices, can be
seen at any time one reads the New
York stock market quotations, or the
financial news. Just why this is we
are anxious to know. Many reasons
are given. One that the corporations
are trying industriously to work into
the public mind is, that the State Leg
islatures and Congress are dabbling too
much in legislation affecting the rail-
roads. Another is that the country is
going broke on automobiles. OF course
there are others of more or less impor-
lance named.
We are of opinion that neither is the
real cause. Suppose we had thou
sand men shut up in a prison wall, land
they had ten dollars apiece or $1,000
among them, it would make little
difference in so far as the financial
condition of the prison was condemned
if it changed hands every day. The
same amount of money would be
there. But suppose every day the
prison guard got hold of some OF it and
carried it away? The prison crowd
would get poorer every day, unless
there were some avenue by which
money came in to them to take the
place of that going out. If there was
no such avenue in a while they would
be penniless. The comparison can
can easily be applied to a nation.
Look at the United States. Millions
go out every year in foreign travel.
There is no return of this money; it
goes away and stays. Emigrants do
not bring back corresponding guam
tity, they bring some, but in a little
while they begin earning money and
sending it away. Then there aIe Off
Philippine possessions. We paid $780,
600, eco for the islands in the start, and
ever since, we have been sending to
them so many million of dollars that
the War Department has refused in
formation on the subject, hiding be-
hind the pretext that it cannot be dis
closed because military necessities do
not permit. Of course there never will
be any way'of finding out what~we
have spent there, nor can we now as
certain how many millions go there
each month, but we do know that
there is not now, and never will be, a
return of these vast sums. So by that
m cans the men in the prison are hav-
ing their fund depleted, that is we, the
prisoners, are getting poorer every day.
Then the Panama canal took 100000
600 10 France in order to acquire title.
Of this sum not dollar has ever re-
turned. Since then we have been
sending to. Panama possibly ten mil
lions per month. OF this sum little
returns. Some of it comes for explo-
sives, machinery, cement, etc., but
the vast sums 90 to the men who work
in the canal, all of whom nearly are
foreigners, and whose money goes to
their homes instead of coming back
here.
These are terrible drains. They are
like the guard carrying away from the
prisoners. We in the United States
are therefore sending away so many
millions that our products which we
export cannot keep us supplied. Cot
ton brings in $500, 600, 900 new dollars,
our other expectations probably $780,
100000 more of new money, SO that
did we not have those awful drains of
foreign travel, the Philippines, and the
Panama canal, to take the money en-
tirely outside our prison, or tariff wall,
we would soon be the richest people on
e arth. But We mnst 60 after this
money and bring it back. How? By
mortgages on all of our industries and
thereby make ourselves slaves to the
foreign usurer. 1t is our opinion that
we will never be in better financial
condition until the Panama canal is
lug, and we rest from our terrible ex-
travagances in foreign countries.