OCR Text |
Show Hi it Seems They Are Worried H T T IS said that Senator Aldrich and tlio other i J members of the monetary commission are M ' much perplexed over the problem they have 1 undertaken to solve a currency system to meet M the requirements of this mighty nation advancing m so rapidly in wealth and power and in the H magnitude and audacity of the undertakings of its M millionaires and its gigantic combinations of M capital. ' It is not strange that this is so, for it is a 1 passion of gamblers to play with the biggest M stakes obtainable, and the speculative business M of this country is only another form of gambling, M ' and the struggle to play with loaded dice is M quite as great as in the deadfall where aquafortis 1 whiskey is the beverage and stud-horse poker m is the game. And the trouble is that when finan- h clal troubles are precipitated upon the country M I they do not come from the working hosts, or from m ' conservative business men and bankers, but from fl i the great, respectable gamblers, who in the finan- B cial ocean are the sharks. M Thus in 1908 except for a purpose to make in m overwhelming killing by breaking copper stocks v. and to take in the Tennesseo Coal and Iron, we , doubt very much if there had been any panic. k Again, while all the plans thus far made public have depended upon bonds of somo description for a basis, it was found In 1008 as has always been found in such upheavals, that the only standard money in the country had been spirited away and was not again for months available. We had heard a thousand rhapsodies for a dozen years over the perfect beauty of the scientific gold s'ondard, but though in those dozen years, from the necessities of the outside world, from Cripple Creek, The Rand and Western Australia the volume vol-ume of that gold in our country had more than doubled; still at the first alarm It took wings and flew away and, as always before, through inferior in-ferior substitutes for honest money, the country had to struggle back to a normal business basis. Another truth was made clear, namely, that while the balance of trade in favor of our country had seemed so great annually for ten years, it had in great part been neutralized by the interest money wo had been forced to send abroad by the freights and fares we had paid to foreign ship owners, and the mighty sums spent by American tourists in foreign countries. If that taught any lesson it was that two years' failures of crops In our country would, under present conditions, precipitate a disastrous panic upon our Republic at any time. No wonder the financiers stand afraid when trying, to 4lan a currency syotom to launch unon thlB country" - " ""I It is a clear case that the first effort should be to retain all the gold possible in our country This for a hundred years has been the struggle, of Great Britain and France, and with Germany since her war with France. It is just as plain that our country should make a mighty struggle to extend her trade with foreign lands; that it should be a direct trade with her own ships that the money paid in fares and freights should gravitate to our shores. Up to 1873 silver money was as good as gold at 15 & to 1 all around this world. It had never been at a discount. Working side by side, they were two metals, and the only two, that conT tained exactly the essential properties needed in money. At that ratio they Represented the wisdom of the ages. That all of both that could be obtained was needed was clear by the amount of paper promises to pay afloat among the nations, na-tions, and by the poverty in money of so many countries. In 1873 the effort to destroy silver as primary money began, and twenty years later that purpose was consummated in the United States and most of the great nations of Europe. Then from the mines the world's stock of gold was doubled in a decade, but at the end of that j i decade, with all the increased trade and money, two sinister facts wero- mado clear. One was that our gold could not light back a panic. Tho other was that half the inhabitants of the earth still held sliver in its old sovereign place as money, and that our legislation had resulted not only in destroying our export trade with half the world, but, worse still, had doubled, more than doubled, the stress of the competition between the generous laborers of our own country and the hordeB of- the Orient. That is the present situation. situa-tion. Did any nation, in all the history of the world, ever before discount and convert into merchandise mer-chandise a substance that had for all time filled perfectly e"very attribute of primary money, until it was rne in our country under the guiding hand of Gr er Cleveland and a few National bankers and bondholders in 1893? And what have we gained by it? What have we not lost? Is it any wonder that Mr. Aldrich and his commission do not know which way to turn? |