Show SILVER AND PRICES the melancholy spec speciale tale presented by the state of colorado today where thousands of able bodied men are arc walking the streets of the cities butof out of employment sad as it is it is not the only cruel work that has been wrought by the warfare on silver instead of a stabbing process it has been a bleeding process until the patient lias has become so exhausted that he be has scarcely the ability to protest the clodin closing down of the mines has as melancholy an effort upon the millions of toilers boilers a as s upon the thousands of miners miners immediately concerned for twenty years the farmers prices have been going downward his profits have been diminishing his hopes have been gr owing growing less and less bright and his only conclusion arid and his constant lament has been that far farming rm dont pay year by year he hass has seen een the re of his labor growing less year by year he has hoped against hope until it has conic come to such a pass that lie well may call a halt and ask himself the question where are we at he has been consoled by the thought that lie he now enjoys improved methods and machinery that lie have long ago lie he has been told that low prices have come from the improved machinery arid and new forces which he now utilizes by reducing el the cost of production and yet all modern science and mechanics have not stayed the downward tendency of his prices the incontrovertible fact that tile the prices of farm products have fallen in the same ratio that silver has fallen should at least waken an interest amon among 0 farmers in the discussion of the silver question oo it is not a question with him whether there shall or shall not be silver mines mines it is not a question with him whether silver shall or shall not be maintained it at a price of an ounce or any other price ane question with the farmer is whether there shall or shall not be a sufficient money volume to do the business of the country the question of the price of S silver 1 l cannot be iso ignored of cour course inthis this si avei producing d f territory errit ory J UI close ose the silver nines of this Terii territory torY and tile the commercial interests will till suffer and the home market of tile the farmer will be de destroyed troyed and tile home market is always worth cultivating with silver at its rightful price there will be redoubled interest in development work new mines will be opened even in in our own immediate neighborhood bo bor bood and there will be a brisk demand for all the farm faria products of cache valley right at our door then there is another reason why the price of of silver should not be ruthlessly stricken down the brave men of this western country who left their home and kindred crossed the alio dreary plain arid and rugged allou mountain britain and staked their all in silver mining minin had the sanction of all history that silver was a money metal and that their business was a legitimate one and that they bey had bad a right to expect that legislation would keep keel its hands off the history of the world bears bear sout out the he assertion that silver is a money metal as much as wheat is grown forthe for the purpose of making bread and if the nations of the world were to decree that no more wheat should bo be made into bread the indignant protest that would arise from the wheat producers would be none the less righteous M than the protest which the silver miners make against against c the destruction of the money function of silver a function that has been an honored and immemorial one A government that would lay its hands bands on silver aud and throttle it because it is one of those western wild cat enterprises which the west is full of according to the wise people of the east would bo be guilty of a political rascality that ought to accomplish its political leati death just juet aa speedily and as en effectually actually as the ram rain of the camperdown Camper down sent the victoria and her brave crew to the bottom of the sea but this article is intended to discuss the cause of the fall in prices anyone who is at all posted on tho the silver question knows that tile the cla claim im is made by silver men that since the of r silver il bythe by the united states stales the prices of ill all the products of the firm farm lave have fallen alien in the nine aine ratio that silver has IBS fallen that is in 1873 the year i ear silver was the export price of wheat was 1 31 per nishel bushel silver was then at p par ar or since that date thero there has Is been cen a steady decline in ta tho c price of f wheat in the came ratio as silver fell ell I 1 until today silver is down to 70 0 it is the same with all other products of tile the farm flour has lallen fallen in the samo same ratio so has corn cotton butter eggs leather etc we say this is a startling fact ind and should at least lead farmers to enquire aquire if there is not some other explanation ix of it than that of the theory of improved mabbin machinery cry A little ittle sober reflection ought to discredit that theory lias has the question of mechanics entered into tile the production of eggs for instance lias has the old worn out historical hen superseded by a stam am or c electrical c invention so that eggs eggo cin can lie be produced per cent cheaper than a cackling 0 lien can produce them so with wit li other articles it in point of fact most of the 1 or saving machinery was in in use before 1873 when prices began to tumble in point of fact the inventions since 1873 were less important in the cc conomy of farming than those during the previous t twenty Wi crity or thirty years when the old cradle was supers superseded eked by the reaper which did the work of about ten cr adlers was that signalized signalizes by a corresponding decrease in the price of wheat Is it not a fact that prices ranged 0 lower considerably lower when the reaper was unknown all the great inventions which revolutionized industry were made prior to 1873 except tho the electric light and the telephone arid and yet prices were good then then tho the question can be asked with considerable erable force how bow is it tb that at since the american farmer has the advantage of laborsaving labor saving machinery american wheat has been pushed out of the markets of england by the wheat from india which is is raised by the poor indian ryot who plows his land with a stick and reaps his grain with a sickle and curiously this indian competition F has as CO come me about since 1873 dothe do the facts thena repeat natwar not warrant the assumption that thai the cla claim i of the silver men i ia 9 it at least worthy of consideration considering tho the formidable array of facts and facts are cacila that ding that the claim of the silver party that the farmer has been 0 growing growing 0 poorer day by day from the effects of the is well founded the goodites gold ites attribute the fall in prices to natural causes this is very true but the natural cause of the fall in prices was the contraction of the volume of money through I 1 the of silver nothing is more natural than that scarcity of money reduces prices the worlds greatest political economists have sounded this truth ricardo says that commodities would rise rie or fall in price in proportion to the increase or diminution of money I 1 assume as a fact that is incontrovertible Humo says it is the proportion between the circulating 0 money and the commodities in the market it which determines the price says if by the stroke of a pen they suppress one of these there metals in the monetary service they double the demand for the other metal to the tha ruin of all debtors 11 cernuschi Cern says the purchasing power of money is in direct proportion to the volume of money existing william II if crawford secretary of the treasury in a report to congress in 1820 said all intelli intelligent ent writers on currency that when it is de creasing in amount poverty and misery must prevail david I 1 fume said speaking of the effect of tile the in influx aux of american gold it is certain that since the discovery of mines in america industry has increased in all the nations of riu europe rope ernest seyd said in 1868 upon this one point all authorities on the subject are agreed to wit that the large increase in the supply of gold lias has given a universal impetus to trade commerce and industry and to goner general al docial dev elopement and it regress progress these quotations froin eminent erain ent political economists ought to carry more weight with tile the farmers and pro producers acers of this country than any deliverance afan of an interested banker or of bondholder bond holder of the cast do the farmers of this valley realize that for every quarter million dollars they receive for grain they would receive half a million but for the crime of 1873 11 there may be a day when the farmers of this country will stumble on the fact that they are arc being cheated out of half the rewards of their honest labor J july 1893 |