Year: 1874

A large number of people IN the west who


have been indulging in wild speculatlons and


are in debt, would like to see the currency SO
inflated that they could sell out at double figurs


and pay their debts with currency worth so


cents on the dollar; but men who prefer to do


an honest, legitimate, safe and steady busi.


ness want sound currency and dread infa


ton. This is the whole case in a nut shell.
The western farmers, though some Of them


may be in debt, are engaged in no wild spec.


ulations, and can only be injured by infla.


tion. Their case is exactly stated in the re


cent great speech of Senator Shurz:


The economic interest of the West is main
ly agricultural. The western people are, by
overwhelming preponderanCe, u farming po-
pulatiOn. Their whole prosperity depends
upon the successful and profitable cultivation
of the soil. If il is true that the farmer for
all the neccssaries he had to buy, had to pay


prices blown up by Our irredeemable and re
dundant currency, even far beyond the point


to which the tariff alone would have driven


them, while the prices of almost all the sta
pies he had to sell were regulated by foreign


market untouched by home imitation, govern


ed by specie measure of value, and exposed
to the free competition of the world-if that
is true and trust nobody will deny it, must


it not be equally true that the farming inter


est, and through it the whole western country,


will not only be injured, but be vastly bene-
fitted by resumption of specie payments,
which will greatly reduce the prices at which


the farmer has to buy his neCessaries, while


not reducing but greatly increasing the pur-
chasing power OF the crops he produces and
has to sell And will not this immense ad.
vantage in fact vastly Ovcrbalance any posi-


BILE amount of loss which might be suffered
in consequence OF temporary Indebtedness,
and which by prudent management may be


made very small.


hear it said that there are great many
farmers whose farms are covered with mort.
cages, and who would be greatly injured by
specie resumption, in as much as the money


in which they would have to pay off the mort
cages would be Of higher value than the mon
ey in which they contracted the debt. But
how can they expect to pay their mortgages


unless they derive the necessary profit from
their farms? And how can they derive that
profit from their farms if they continue to Ia


Dor under the same disadvantages, having to


buy at high prices and to sell at prices that
are low? Moreover, what will be the conse-
quence if we initiate the currency still more?
viii not by the operation Of the same laws,
the farming business De Sllll more depressed:
Will not, in consequence ofthe still aggravat.
ed disadvantage of buying at high and sell


ing at low prices, the mortgages accumulate


upon their farms in worse degree than here


toiore, and when, then, the day of settlement


comes, will not their dischage be more diff


cult than ever? | insist, therefore, that the


agricultural interest, and with it the whole


west, and the SOUTH too, which were never


benefited, but always injured by initiation


and will be still more grievously injured BY
further initiation, it acW not IN 0ny aoay be in
Ijured, bu in erery respect be castlV benefited bs


return ct'specie payment, and if stood upor


this floor not as the advocate of the interest


of the whole country, but as mere advocat


of western interests, | would advocate speci


payments with no less zeal than | am nov
Iii