Year: 1876




ey. had no more power over labor and
4 property than they had over money


now money rules labor and property.


When the debt was made. property


and labor would command money ;


now they will not. Land, the only
/ property we have, as q general thing


cannot be sold for money at all.


Thousands of our people are out OF


employment, and entirely helpless /;


they are too poor to move, and theg


can find no work to do where they


are. When the war came we were


simply an agricultural people. and


most farmers had their own labor.


The change makes it necessary that
| farmers, like manufacturers, should


have some banking privileges, at


least some means of using their cred


it SO as to pay off. their laborers ev-
cry week. This they cannot do; it


is as much impossible as to control


the seasons; hence many people are


not able to cultivate their lands, and


laborers find NO employment.


In the Northern States they have
| two advantages over us. The bank
ing facilities are much greater than
ours, and every community of farm
ersrhas some moneyed men and they
lend money. to their neighbors to
make crops. Here. nobody has any
money the amount in circulation is
less than three dollars per head,
while in some of the New England
States it is sixty dollars per head.
Here bankers and bondho!ders cruel
ly tell the farmers that the fault must
be with them, because if they make
anything to sell they can fud mar
ket for it. This, if it we're true, is
like saying to the prisoner in the
stockade, if you will lift yourself up
by taking hold of your own breeches
you can get out. The man with a
large farm. no part of which he can
sell for any price. and entirely with
out labor, may by his own work bare
.ly feed lis family, but TO pay heavy
taxes is impossible, and his land
must sell, the State must levy and
get no money, and at the end of two,
three or four years. the State In mer
cy must restore it to him, or to his
children if he has died in the strug-
gle, We are absolutely without mon
ey. so completely that every indus
try is utterly paralyzed. and when
the holders Of our bonds demand the
payment of heavy taxes az money,
they demand something that we have
not and cannot get. During this
year l saw in the Union and An,eri-
can, a large newspaper, one morn
ing, fifty-four columns of advertise
ments of land in Dayinson county
for sale for taxes. The notices were
in fine print and each one occupying
a space that the ball of the thumb
would cover. This land was sold by
public eryer, who sat at the court
house door for days with sing-song
which could not be told
from the mumbling of a public beg
gar, except that he always wound up
by Ibid in for the State" Often |
there was not a man in fifty yards Of
him. No citizen, if he had the mon
ey, would think of buying these
lands, first, because his heart would
not let him, and second. because no
lawyer in the State has ever been
able to make tax sale stand. and
if the courts would allow it no State
could afford to take the land of its
citizens for not paying money when
there was no money to pay with.


NDrxv IxaN oho,.h AIs.
of things? Simply this. The aris-
tocracy was established based on
high interest. and fastened upon the
people in the form of public debt.
This public debt the people could
stand. and they woIld stand, if the
creditor has been content TO leave |
them where they were when the
debt was made. But no sooner was
this enormous public debt made than
the money power conceived the idea |
of increasing their interest by in
creasing the purchasing capacity of
the money in which it was to be
paid. If Congress had passed law
saying that the public debt already |
made shall bear 10 per cent. instead !
of 6, but left the parties to the con-
tract--the taxpayers on the one
side and the bondholders on the
other just as they were when the |
debt was made. that is, the one
obliged to take and the other allow
ed to pay, in money unaffected by
the people would have
been infinitely better off than they
are. But these bondholders, unit
ing with them for the most part, the
national banks and the holders of all
public securities. particularly the
holders of State bonds, shrewdly
raised the cry of aisound currency
down With the rag baby. The rag
baby was created by the same statute /
that gave them their bonds, and they
had it made legal tender in paying
all debts, public and private, except
import duties and interest on the
public debt. Nevertheless. they
raised the cry against this rag bsby.
They declare for specie resumption
they controlled the Secretary of the
Treasury; they controlled the Presl-
dent or the United States, and they
Congress; and now they |
are shrewdly- trying to control the
two great parties of the country, by
getting control of the leaders on
both sides. ....s'.r "a .s.s


The most alarming thing is its in
reference with Legislation. The
first thing which I.call atteution to, /
is its bold and daring assault upon I
The bill, as it passed the House,
the .gfeenbaeks a legal ten
der for all purposes. The bullion
lists were seeking TO get the i've
twenties PAYABLE in gold and then