網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版
[graphic][merged small]

the value of wheat in London, where it makes them pay $1.30 for Indian wheat, and makes them pay us $1.30 for our wheat. Gold and silver alternately are the strength of bimetallism, and it is not this one or the other one used as a measure of value when both are conjointly repudiated before the law.

"No silver in circulation from 1850 to 1873,' he says. Now, silver was in circulation at that time. I know it as a fact. I was a boy 10 years old in 1861, 9 years old in 1860 and I know silver was in circulation. There are instances in my life that implanted it on my mind that makes me know that, and you know it, if you were living at that time.

"He says the measure of value should not be tampered with. I agree with him. The measure of value from 1792, also during the continental days and up to 1873, were gold and silver, and it should not have been tampered with. You people are tampering with the measure of values. You tampered with it in 1873, and the gold standard is an experiment. Show me, in the history of the world, where it ever existed before, except since 1873, and except since 1816 in England only. The ages have had bimetallism at a legal ratio between gold and silver, and monometallism, the gold standard, was attempted to be fastened upon the world by the simultaneous action of the financiers of the world, beginning with 1873.

"He says that silver now bobs up and down. Of course it bobs up and down now. It did not bob up and down before 1873. Professor, take the table of ratios-comparative ratios between gold and silverfor 200 years in the book before you, and you will find they stayed together for those 200 years, and that silver

did not bob up and down, except the slight difference of exchange in the different countries and the slight difference in ratio between France and the United States. It did not bob up and down. We want you to give them equal rights before the law, and then silver will not bob up and down. Of course it bobs up and down now, and the monometallists are the cause of it the act of 1873 is the cause of it. You say people should work and turn out property, and they will get their money. They are working, but they can't get the money. They produce the property, and find the property costs them what they get for it; that they get what it costs them to produce.

"The farmer finds himself in the same fix, and that is why he can't pay his mortgages. Mortgages are increasing. Would they increase, as they are now, like a cloud threatening the prosperity of the country, if it were true that such industry as the American citizens can display would produce property that they could not go and get money with? The trouble is, when they have produced the property, you have destroyed the price.

"The professor tells a good story. I have heard him tell the same story before. Now, I want to tell a story. It is true that if there is a bridge across the stream and everybody wants to go over it at the same time, there is a busy day such as we would like to see in this country again, and they could not get over the bridge at the same time. If there were two bridges, professor, they could get over. Also, if they should charge too much toll over one bridge we might get over the other bridge cheaper.

"He says silver is the property of the bullion owner

only. Whose property is gold? No matter who owns it; whether it is owned by the citizens of Illinois or owned by the citizens of Colorado. It is a question of wisdom and intelligence as to what property, if we are going to have property money, is best to be coined into money, and when that question is intelligently settled no special argument and no criticism can be made upon. it by pointing to American citizens as owning it. If they owned our silver in England, and England had her hand in the Rocky Mountains, we would not hear of who owns the silver. It is a lack of Americanism in not standing up for our own product that I object to, when the intelligence of centuries has determined that silver is a proper metal for use as money.

"He says goods are exchanged practically without money. He ought to go down to Washington and tell Mr. Cleveland how to do without money. He says business is done without the use of money. Well, if he can drive these gold standard fellows to the position of the fiatists, why, we may reason with them. If business can be done without money then there is no reason why we should discuss the question of redemption money at all. He says a man buys goods on one day, using the money to get other property on the same day, and that it is the exchange of property.

"The country merchant comes to Chicago and buys goods, and in the course of sixty or ninety days he pays for them, and has his goods on his shelf for a year. He must carry them with money; he must have money to pay for them.

"The only appropriate illustration that the professor used were such words as hearses,' brains, etc. And

such reflections which are in sympathy with the position of the country.

"He is not an international bimetallist. He says prices have not fallen since 1873.

Professor Laughlin-I didn't say that. I said that prices had not fallen since 1873 because of lack of money.

Mr. Harvey-Well, that is too tough for me. He says prices have not fallen since 1873 for lack of money. Why have they fallen? Is not property measured in money when everything else is equal? I don't think he told us why property had fallen. He points to a map on the wall representing the amount of clearances in a day going through the clearing-house. I thought he was going on with the illustration of the map and point out the gold in the country that it all rested upon, but he didn't do so, and I don't understand the object of the illustration. But the point we make, gentlemen, is that credit money and credits all are piled upon redemption or primary money. When you run under such a standard as that it is a part of the statutory law of this country, it is regulating us with reference to our finances, and which we are reminded of, as to what that standard is, every time we look at one of our gold notes, our gold mortgages, etc.; and when you pile up all those methods and transactions of the nation upon a primary money you must consider the quantity and quality of that primary money, and that is the essential question and issue that is between us here to-night. My fifteen minutes are up. I will finish this next time." "Professor Laughlin will now have fifteen minutes," said the chairman, again presenting that speaker, who said:

"With regard to the figures of exports and imports

« 上一頁繼續 »