Newspaper Page Text
THE ADVOCATE, THE OLD FARCE. How History Bepfats Itself-The Panic of 18.J7. Editor Advocate: Each genera tion supposes that the history it is making and the responsibilities it is en countering are sui generis, peculiarly its own, and never occurred to man kind before; whereas they are only running the same round, enacting the same farce, and rejoicing in their good fortune, or cursing their destiny, the same as their fathers before them and all the generations in the past. Such is the purport and philosophy of the famous and favorite poem that Presi dent Lincoln always carried in his vest pocket and so often read to his friends, entitled, "Why Should the Spirit of Man Be Proud ?" And I am reminded of this by reading up the history of the great financial panic, bank explosion and credit failure of 1837, the circum stances of which I so well remember, and the causes of which were not one tenth in magnitude and importance of those that antedated and produced the ruin in which we are now involved. The effects of that were felt in the prostration and depression of the in dustries and business of the country for near fifteen years to my certain knowledge. That is, business didn't revive and go on again with its former spirit and prestige till the influx of gold came pouring in like an ocean tide from California which waked every thing up and set it on its feet again to move forward with great strides, till 1857, when we had a partial repetition of the great catastrophe with its like consequences and results, as many will remember. And now we have it again, amplified and enlarged; and as its causes were very similar, though ten times as numerous and weighty, so the consequences must be expected to be proportional in magnitude and import ance. The causes have been operating for years, exhausting production and draining the sources of wealth into the coffers of a few who were so fortunate as to control the government and ma nipulate the standard of value, but the panic was finally precipitated upon the country by the banks in obedience to the demands of those bent on still fur ther spoil in the shape of government bonds and the increase in the value of money and thus of its ability to pur chase cheaper the farmers' produce and the wage man's labor, by the dim inution of its volume or quantity in circulation. For all know that when money is plenty in the country times are good, prices ample, and wages high. On the other hand, when money is scarce, times are hard, prices low and work not to be had. Such has been the philosophy of every era of good times in the land, and such the experience of every period following a panic and a contraction or congestion of the currency that constitutes the blood and breath of business, industry and trade. Heretofore, undue and un limited expansion of the bank currency induced speculation and overtrading (on borrowed funds) and at the same time insidiously drained production by and through its discounts and circula tion. But in our case still other agencies have been operating in a sim ilar way, and to the same end, in add! tion to our national bank system. For example, the drain of our government, state, county and municipal bonds, the drain of millions by our railroad svs tern to defray the interest on 5 billions of dollars of Uligitimato watered stock, ihe unexampled burden of 1 billion dol lars a year to conduct and carry on our several governments, double what their governments cost the British people and above and beyond all the 2 billions of dollars, at least, annually required lo meet the dues demanded by the 25, 000 families who hold title to more than half the entire property of the country, personal and real, to say nothing of 500 millions of dollars that is yearly ex torted from production to pay tribute to foreign dukes, lords and barons, financial deities whom we serve and who own the thousands of millions of bonds, and stocks, and mills, and mines, and manufactories, and brewer ies, and railroads, and telegraphs of the country, making us another Ireland toiling for non-resident and alien land and property-holders who drain our soil and spend the swag in foreign capitals in ease, and luxury, and splen dor. And now does anyone think good times will come out of all this very soon ? When I hear Populists predict ing serfdom as the inevitable destiny of the masses of our people, I answer that the latter are already there and will realize the fact in all its hideous- ness as time wears on. I give some excerpts from the ad dress of New York workingmen of 1837 as issued from a great meeting in the park, called to consider the griev ances complained of and in times sim ilar to these in which we live. And the reader will notice how the subjects of complaint then and there made, square with those of our day. Indeed, the regime then in vogue has gone on from that day to this, consuming in dustries and their operators and every ten years driving the country to bank ruptcy and ruin. The panic of that day, like ours, was brought about by the banks, and the depression that followed was laid at their doors. Consequently, the absorbing, sponging banking system is duly and properly anathematized as the occasion of all their woes. And strange hallucination of the American people, we are undergoing the same ordeal again, the tenth time in the short era of our existence. Astonish ing! astonishing! The burnt child dreads the fire, but full-grown men half consumed, rush into it again and again; for it has been demonstrated indeed, is now universally admitted (except by the bankers themselves) that our panic was deliberately planned by American and foreign creditors who hold American securities for the pur pose of forcing the United States to a gold standard in order to increase debts due them, and by our national bankers to get an issue of bonds to perpetuate their power of controlling the cur rency. And as Colonel Van Horn of the Kansas City Journal, in his expost ulating article of June 28, asks, "Will not the people learn wisdom by such experience, or will they, when times grow better, forget the lesson and al low the same thing to be done over again?" I have seen the spoliation of the profits of a generation absorbed by usurers, twice accomplished before this, and now the third time. As long as men who are educated in the science of compound interest make the laws, so it will be. The people don't seem to comprehend the theory and f unda mental principle of banking, that it consists in lending at compound interest that lays society under contribution to the banks and makes us all dependent on and debtors to them, nolens nolens, willing or unwilling, whether we ever borrow a cent of them or not. TTow. von ask-? Why, through the merchant and trader with whom we deal and the shipper of our stock and the manufacturer of our farm implements, all of whom are pat rons and borrowers of the bank and charge the cost over to the consumer, of course. And thus we are all vie tims of the system and made to con tribute to it, and thus every ten years production is exhausted, goes to the wall and into bankruptcy, and starts anew. Another feature mankind don't com prehend, or if they do, strangely iir nore and disregard it. John Kandolph in alluding to it (the power of the banks) said he feared more the despot with the quill behind his ear than he did the tyrant in epaulettes. The former could make money plenty or scarce, and thus make property high or low, and men rich or poor, as he pleased. He could reward or he could punish, could set up or pull down. His favor was wealth; his enmity, ruin. He was a government in himself, over which the people had no control." And all this we have in lieu of the Abraham Lincoln and Thaddeus Ste vens greenbacks furnished directly from the government and in such vol ume that interest should never exceed 2 per cent. That should be the crite rion. How can anyone hesitate as to a choice between the two? But now I have gone too far to allow me to give the address of the New York workingmen of 1837, which is adapted to our times, circumstances and conditions, and therefore will have to defer to another occasion. It was penned by a mechanic, is couched in plain, unadulterated Saxon, indulges in none of the circumlocution of the legal profession, and is one of the best written and most effective documents I ever fell in with, as I am sure the readers of the Advocate will ac knowledge when they come to peruse it. A Linn County Farmfji. Excelled fav None "For some years I have been a severe sufferer from Rheu matism. So rauca so that I could not at tend to my business and was confined to the house for weeks at a time. I was ad vised to try Hood's Sarsaparilla and have constantly improved Hr. G 1". Ulnar 1 am now well and strong again. Hood's Sarsaparilla Is truly ' ex celled by none." CF.KrNO, Verona. N.J. w yir -4 9 Kemember, MOOd S Sarsa 11 ilowawtv pariUa Be sure to get UfQB HOOD'S &Jffyyvif Hood's Pills cure all liver Ills. 25c. The Boy and (he Judge. Who are you? My name is Henry C. Caldwell. Do you own the earth? No. Do you own the Santa Fe railroad? No. Do you own any stock in it? No. Uut you are running the road? Yes. And the employes? Yes. Who hired you to do it? Nobody. If the workingmen don't do what you tell them, what will happen to them? They may get shot or be sent to the jail or the penitentiary. Who told you to run this road? The government of the United States. Does the government own the road? ISO. Got any stock in it? No. Well, why does the government have you run this road? I don't know. Is it for your own benelit? No. For the benefit of the goverment? No. For the beneilt of the engineers, con ductors, brakemen, firemen, and the others who do the work? No. For the farmers, merchants, me chanics, and laborers along the line? No. For whose benefit is it then? For the benefit of the bondholders. And who are they? I don't know. Did they ever do anything especially for the government? Not as I know of. Where do they live? Oh, some of them live in lloston, but most of them live in England. What business has the government to run a railroad for the benefit of bondholders who never did anything for the government? It's the law. How do you come to be mixed up in it? I am the United States circuit judge. Well? The oflicers of the road contrived by mismanagement to run it in debt, in short, to bankrupt it, and so the stock holders and bondholders turned it over to the government. To keep? Oh no. To manage, to pay off the debt, to restore the road to solvency: to make it a dividend paying institu tion. And then? Give it back to the stock and bond holders. What do you get for this? Nothing. And the government? Nothing. Judge, your joking. I admit it is a big joke on the Amer ican people. Pittsburg Kansas. ia Unkind Thrnt at UcKlnley. The Kansas state treasury shows a cash balance of 303,430.18. It would be well for the people of Ohio to have a Populist state government for a few years. Heretofore, our balances have been on the wrong si de of the kdcer. Cleveland (O.) Forum. Stats o Ohio, Citt or Touoo, i LUCAS cccstt. j " Frank J. Ohenev n chat k. lathe aenior partner of the firm of 7. J. Cheney A Co., doing business in the city of xui.Bo, ooimiy ana a:a;e aforesaid, and that taid firm will pay the sum of $100 for cu u a tier j cue or eaurrn that cannot be cured by tin use of Hall'a Catarah Cure. . BARK J. I BJSIT. sworn to befom m and mhik i. my preacnoe, thla 6th day of December, A. d., im. rB1iTl A. W, Gibjsov, . v Notary Public, Hall'a Catarrh Cm taWn ii..tu and acta direotly on the blood and ranooua rarfaoea of the ejatrm. Set d for testimo nial free. F. J. Chi x at fc Co., fJTSold by druj2iata, 75 oenta. ' ' The Wxotkui Trail ia tmblbhsd auarterly by the Oiic2.ro, Rock hlzzi aad it will be izz to yon gratia fcr era sr Wcctern Trail, CMtco," gad rscciv itcziyrs tzzx Jem taASTux Q. P. A.