Show the new era by ALBERT iti THE GOLD STANDARD president roosevelt noo sevelt in his reply to the gold bloc of the world economic conference who had asked tor for currency y stabilization referred I 1 to 0 the gold standard as a fetish ot of the international bankers there Is no doubt in my opinion that the term the president used was a mild oc in describing such a system ot of exchange as has been forced upon human humanity ity by a powerful few to get a proper setting of our present economic situation and its rc relation lation to the gold cold standard we must go back to the days ot of napoleon bonaparte after the battle of waterloo and the peace of vienna 1816 1815 england become a peerless military and commercial power for the succeeding ing half century ne neither ill friend nor too toe could successfully challenge her the peculiar geographical situation of the was conducive condu civo to commercial expansion her sea rovers had visited every known quarter of the globe and effected trade alliances her large coal and iron deposits prompted the growth ot of great Indu industrial trial centers such as leeds manchester liverpool and london english ships carried man goods everywhere and returned laden with raw materials of foreign lands A large trade balance accrued in favor of the british ish merchants england englan I 1 became the worle i creditor in the Dit tish adroit adroitly IV lv scheming heming Bc to enhance the value of their credits abroad closed their mints to the free coinage of silver by so BO doing it is ds stated upon good authority that british credits owed in foreign countries doubled in in IMUL aluc in other words an amerlan amerian vall plantation owner who had been ec exchanging hanging one hundred pounds of cotton for a british made suit had to ship two hundred pounds of cotton to england to th purchase the same suit after england adopted the monometallic mono metallic gold standard the british pound sterling enhanced and our dollar cheapened cheapen inversely proportional the adoption of the gold I 1 standard was not made without adverse results prices lowered not only in the world markets but in british domestic markets also closing factories and banks by 1837 the re rc perc hit our own shores and prices tell fell thrusting us into one ot of the five major panics our country has successfully fillig survived american business was in a state of uncertainty until the opening of the civil war we had hadl taken many defensive measures in the form ot of tariffs against the tha flood of british products it was during this period that the great political conflicts were waged between I 1 the southern tree free trade trad ellem democrats and the northern whigs wio who under hnry henry clay ad advocated american system ot of industrial protection tec tion during the civil war the washington government was forced to inflate the currency while this has been greatly decried by one school of at economists it was a blessing tor for the agriculturists our 0 ur credit de dei i I 1 I 1 predated and our foreign tori eign trade slumped but the domestic markets boomed after the war the extraction I 1 ot of the green backs from the currency become a burning issue between political parties A green back party was formed tor for the express purpose of retaining the I 1 green backs in circulation finally in 1300 1900 after they had been reduced twice congress ed ot of gold to back backi of 0 the original one halt half billion dollars that had been issued I 1 in 1870 frederick the great creat defeated france in the franco stan sian war ire he charged a billion dollars of gold indemnity and obtained it then Fr frederick frecerick immediately declared that gold should be the eole measure ot of value heretofore every country in the world was either using silver or silver and gold as measures of value except england at that time england and prussia controlled a little over 90 per cent of the total supply of the worlds monetary gold I 1 after the adoption ot of the gold gola standard by pressia Pres sla there was a mad scramble for gold every nation 1 wanted to increase the value of 07 its foreign credits after the close of the civil war our industries advanced vapidly in the north and west although the south suffered from the devastation ot of the war and the reconstruction period our agriculturists and manufacturers were riding on a wave of high prices when the mad scramble tor for gold occurred in 11 1873 1171 our congress adopted the gold cold standard and closed the mints to the free coinage of silver im me mediately we were thrown into the most disastrous panic of history save the present crisis for tho the benefit ot of the greedy few our country followed tho the example of 0 the british capitalists and of the european conquerors the action of our oar congress la in de silver has hag been called the lie crime of 73 it was unbecoming of a great democracy to follow the example of europe which had scarcely emerged from tho the feudal system and which to this day Is bound and gagged by the fetish of the gold standard |