uJ QC. 
 
(^tuxmll Uttivmitg JibtBg 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 AJududjLC»& l\iJ|flAr^^ 
 
 .i\v2iieti5 ^ ailwl' + 
 
 97a4 
 
Cornell Univeralty Library 
 arV12677 
 
 Farmer Hayseed in town: 
 
 3 1924 031 272 184 
 olin,anx 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031272184 
 
Farmer Hayseed 
 in Town; " 
 
 23 Cents. 
 
 This book contains 
 some facts and history 
 not included in Cbin's 
 Financial School. 
 
 . OR, 
 
 The Closing Days of 
 
 Coin's Financial SGhool 
 
 BY . 
 
 L. O. Powers 
 
 
 PUBLISHES BY 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA. /' 
 
 BN's Library Seribs. Issued Quarterly. Price, $i:oo per Year. Vol. 1,146. i. June, 1895. 
 The trade supplied by The American News Company and its branches.; 
 
 Entitled at the Postoffice, St. Paul,, as '^^^nd-dass majl matter. 
 
^ 
 
 FARMER^H^YSEEDi 
 IN TOWN; 
 
 ..OR.. 
 
 THE CLOSING DAYS 
 
 ...OR. 
 
 GOINGS FINANCIAL SGHOOL 
 
 ..BY.. 
 
 L. G. POWERS 
 
 «- fM 
 
 ^ 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 INDUSTRIAL PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 J. St. Paul, Minn. 
 
 /: 
 
^.-ELgH-^S^ 
 
 3red, According to Act of Congress, in the year 1-89S, by L, G. Powers, in the 
 Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 
 
 St. PAUL, MINN.: 
 
 "^HE PlOKEBK PBESS CO. 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 TO THOSE WHO, LIKE B'AKMEB HAYSEED, AEE INQUIKINO 
 FOE THE FACTS ABOUT BIL.VBE LEGISLATION. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 "The silver question is one to be settled by (acts 
 about prices, wages, debts, etc. Theories, bowever 
 fanciful, cannot stand before the momentum of truth." 
 
Farmer Hayseed in Town; 
 
 Closing Days "of Coin's Financial School. 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 GOIiDEN GRAIN AND GOLD. 
 
 "It is easy to find fault, if one has a disposition. 
 There was once a man, who, not being able to find any 
 other fault with his coal, complained that there were 
 too many prdiistoric toads in it." 
 
 —•Mark Twam. 
 
 "What's the matter with Coin?" "He's a sleek 
 one!" This was the salutation of welcome with which 
 Mr. Alexander Coin, "the smooth little financier" of 
 Chicago, as he calls himself, was received one after- 
 noon as he stepped upon the platform in his lecture- 
 room at the hour set for the instruction of the day. 
 
 A word here may not be out of place concerning 
 Mr. Alexander Coin and his school of finance. Mr. 
 Coin had been running his school some days when 
 
6 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 the event above referred to occurred. His object in 
 opening and managing it was that of making a fortune 
 for himself by telling the fortunes of otSiers. In this 
 he had been eminently successful. He proceeded in 
 his lectures and instructions on the basis of a motto 
 which Mark Twain extracted from Puddenhead Wil- 
 son's diary, that "Nothing so needs reforming as other 
 people's habits" and ideas. 
 
 Mr. Coiil's school opened on the 7th day of May, 
 1894. Its founder at once established a reputation as 
 a brilliant talker, who carried conviction to the mass 
 of his listeners. He had the happy faculty — not yet at- 
 tained by the average college professor of finance or 
 political science— of stating his ideas in a pleasing 
 and taking manner. This fact soon drew to his school 
 many bright fellows who were attending the Univer- 
 sity of Chicago and other colleges near that city. It 
 was thus that young Greenman Hayseed from Iowa, 
 a student at the Chicago University, found himself 
 attracted to Mi-. Coin's lectures. He had been charmed 
 by the fluency of the lecturer's style. Coin seemed 
 to know so much more about every subject than his 
 college instructors that Greenman lost his interest 
 in the dry curriculum of the University and sat at 
 Coin's ieet to drink deeper at the fountain of universal 
 knowledge. He soon saw the pressing need of reform- 
 ing other people. He would learn the art of finding 
 fault and so become a leader in freeing the world from 
 bondage to gold. For was not the prehistoric habit 
 
GOLDEN GRAIN AND GOLD. 
 
 of depending upon gold as a medium of exchange, 
 everywhere casting its malign influeace upon society 
 as the toads of Puddenhead Wilson spoiled the fuel 
 qualities of the coal; or, as Mr. Coin expressed it in 
 
 HE BUENBD CORN FOE FUEL. 
 
 his lectures, 'The world's slavery to gold is such an 
 evil that it is breaking down the fabric of our institu- 
 tions, driving hope from the heart and ha|(piness from 
 the minds of our people." 
 
8 FARMER HATSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 Hayseed's father was a typical farmer. He moved 
 to Iowa from New England and had lived and strug- 
 gled on a Western farm for over thirty years. His 
 home was on a treeless prairie, six miles from the rail- 
 road. His fuel for the winter was, as a rule, coal that 
 had to be brought to his market town from the mines, 
 fifty and seventy-five miles away, and from there 
 hauled by wagons to his home. But Hayseed early 
 learned the value of corn as fuel. It was in the fall 
 of 1872, when com was worth only ten cents and coAl 
 twenty cents a bushel at the station. To save labor in 
 hauling two bushels of corn to market and then buy- 
 ing therewith one bushel of coal to be hauled back, 
 Hayseed and his neighbors tried an experiment. They 
 began to burn corn. Th^y found it better and cheaper 
 as a fuel than coal and, not only in the winter of 1873, 
 but in many other years between 1870 and 1880, they 
 burned that grain to keep their houses warm. In the 
 last ten years the old man had never seen the time 
 that such use of corn was profitable. However low 
 corn prices dropped in the winter of 1889 and 1890, 
 the farmers of Iowa were few and far between who 
 could afford to substitute corn for coal as fuel as in 
 the seventies, ten and twenty years before. 
 
 These facts were recalled to the old man's mind 
 during a school lecture by Coin which he attended in 
 company with his son one day while visiting him in 
 Chicago. Later in the same °day the young man called 
 up the subject anew by referring to the terrible finan- 
 
GOLDEN GRAIN AND GOLD. ' 9 
 
 cial condition as painted by Coin. The old man at 
 first mildly suggested that the condition of affairs in 
 Iowa was not quite so bad as Coin had described it. 
 To the young man, as to all the other disciples of the 
 smooth young financier, this doubt was the expression 
 of high treason. He was not slow in letting his father 
 know this fact. Unconsciously, he made use of some 
 of the impassioned utterances of his master, Coin. 
 
 "Why, father," he cried, "how can you be so indiffer- 
 ent to the crime of 1873, a crime which at one stroke 
 confiscated millions of dollars of property; a crime 
 whi<;h is destroying the honest yeomanry of the land, 
 the bulwark of the nation; a crime which has brought 
 this once great republic to the verge of ruin, where it 
 is in imminent danger of tottering to its fall?" 
 
 The old man seemed strangely unmoyed. He merely 
 asked: "Greeny, do you include your father as one 
 of the honest yeomanry of the land?" 
 "Why, certainly," said the son. 
 "And you honestly believe that the silver legisla- 
 tion of 1873 is crushing me to the earth?" 
 
 "Of course, and I have realized it for a long time." 
 "Ah, indeed," said the old man, "you doubtless had 
 that in mind when last week you wanted me to bring 
 you |500 extra money to pay your dues in the college 
 football team, in your athletic association, your Greek 
 letter society; to enable you to go to theatres and lec- 
 tures, to study elocution, and to make yourself th^ 
 
10 FARMER. HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 possessor of some specimens of fine art furniture to 
 adorn your room?" 
 
 "You .can afford it," passionately replied tlie son. 
 "Your farms are worth f 25,000 and your income from 
 them and your notes and mortgages outstanding is 
 |5,000 a year and more. You ought to allow me a de- 
 cent income so that I can live here in Chicago as a 
 gentleman and a gentleman's son." 
 
 "Tut, tut," said the old man. "Yonr old father is 
 then not quite so fully destroyed as you and Coin have 
 painted. The yeoman seems to have money and to be 
 making money. How do you reconcile that fact with 
 your statement about the demonetization of silver 
 causing the destruction of the honest yeoman?" 
 
 "I do not refer to you, father, but to the farmers as 
 a class. You are an exception. I am speaking of the ■ 
 farmers of the West as a whole." 
 
 "You say," said the old man in reply, "that the 
 farmers of the West as a whole are unfortunate at 
 the present time. You tell me, also, that their mis- 
 fortune is caused by t3ie crime of the so-called demone- 
 tization of silver in 1873. I sat for two hours listening 
 to Mr. Coin's explanation of how that old silver legis- 
 lation has affected farm prices and wrooight ruin. I 
 was reminded of a story. The members of a philo- 
 sophical society were once asked, why, if aj person 
 had a pail full of water and sihould put a large fish 
 therein, no water would flow out of the pail. The mem- 
 bers thought over the subject for a week. They studied 
 
GOLDEN GRAIN AND GOLD. 11 
 
 all the known facts of hydrostatics. They prepared 
 elaborate tables showing the laws of falling water 
 and moving fluids and the units of weight and measure 
 and explained it all to their satisfaction. After this 
 had been done and all criticism had been silencfed, a 
 fitople-minded rustic who was present asked the ques- 
 tion: Is it true that no water will flow out -when th.« 
 Hsh is put into the same? Let us see. A fish was 
 brought and put into a pail full of water, when, lo! 
 the water overflowed and all the labored explgjoations 
 of the wise men were found worthless. So, my son, 
 before arguing concerning the cause of the farmer's 
 ruin, you should ask, Is he ruined?^ This is the funda- 
 mental error of Mr. Coin. He spent two hours in ex- 
 plaining how and why the silver legislation of the past 
 twenty-five years has 'reduced the average value of 
 silver and aU other property one-half, except debts,' 
 and thus ruined the farmer, and he never gave a single 
 fact about the actual farm value of farnt-products and 
 farm property and the relative prosperity of the farm- 
 ers in the great farming states of the West now as com- 
 pared with twenty-five years ago." 
 
 "Yes," said the boy, "I know that; but you know, 
 as I do, that these products and that property are 
 only worth one-half as much as in 1873. That fact fol- 
 lows of necessity from the la'ws of finance accepted 
 by all authorities in every great centre of learning. 
 We have established a gold standard. We have made 
 a gold dollar take the place of a gold dollar and a sil- 
 
12 
 
 PAEMBK HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 ver one. It has become worth as much as both for- 
 merly were and 'hence of necessity everywhere the gold 
 value of commodities has decreased to one-half its ear- 
 lier proportions." 
 
 "Well," said old Hayseed, "may be you are right. 
 
 FA-BMBB HAYSBED TESTING COIN'S THKOEIES BY FACTS. 
 
 Let us see. You have your pail of theoretical calamity 
 pretty near full. Let us put the fish of actual farm 
 prices into your pail of calamity and see if you have no 
 excess of ruin. We won't select silver fish, since, if we 
 did, that might enable you to explain the overflow by 
 the kind of fish used. We will take gold fish, since 
 such fish, according to your theory, cannot displace 
 
GOLDEN GRAIN AND GOLD. 13 
 
 any of the farmer's theoretical ruin of which you have 
 learnt from Coin. Let us, in a business-like way, ask 
 what have been the changes in the farm values of the 
 leading product of the farm, the most valuable crop 
 of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and other states 
 in the Missisdppi VaUey. What, may I ask, is that 
 crop?" 
 
 "Why, corn, of course," said the son. "The value of 
 corn in Iowa is worth almost, if not quite, that of all 
 other crops in thfe state. For the nation it is about 
 equal in value to that of both wheat and cotton or 
 twice that of either. Thus, in 1890, the home value of 
 the wheat crop in the United States was $334,773,678 
 and that of cotton f 308,424,271. Together they were 
 worth $643,197,949, while the home value of the corn 
 crop was valued at $754,433,451. But however valu- 
 able the corn is as corn, that value is vastly increased 
 when fed to stock and turned into meat, milk, butter, 
 cheese, poultry, and «ggs and used as food. It then 
 exceeds the value of all the other cereals of the nation 
 and approximates thdt of all other farm products in- 
 cluding cotton." 
 
 All this the young man hastened to say. He had 
 heard his father make the same statements before, 
 and in dealing with facts he was not ready to question 
 his father, since he had always found him quite ac- 
 curate with reference thereto. When he ceased speak- 
 ing his father said: 
 
 "All quite true, my son. I am glad that you study 
 a little about the farm resources of this land and give 
 
14 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 some thought to the greatest sources of farm wealtK 
 and national an^ individual prosperity. Now, my son, 
 here's for your fish. How much less did I sell my 
 corn for last year,- in Iowa, than in the autumn of 
 
 1872?" 
 
 "Let me see, father, if I can tell you anything about 
 that. I have heard you give many incidents concern- 
 ing the early times. You moved to Iowa in 1867, 
 when wteat prices were very high, as the result of the 
 general crop failure^ in that year in Europe and the 
 small supply of wheat in the Uniteid States, due to the 
 crop failure here in 1866. Yon had run in debt for 
 your farm, giving a mortgage to secure a part of tbe 
 purchase price and to pay for stock and machinery 
 to raise wheat. Then came the low wheat prices of 
 18G9 and 1870. You could not make your payments. 
 Your mortgage was foreclosed in 1870, but you secured 
 time for redemption. Y6u changed to corn, but had no 
 money to buy stock to feed the same to. Your crop 
 and the prices of 1871 barely enabled you to save your 
 farm by paying up arrears of interest and securing a 
 renewal of loans from your creditors. Then came the 
 very low prices of corn in 1872. You sold yaur corn 
 for ten cents a bushel." 
 
 "Yes, my son, that is right. I sold my corn for ten 
 cents a bushel, although I lived but twenty-five miles 
 from Des Moines, the state capital. Coal was eighteen; 
 and twenty cents a bushel and we burned corn for 
 fuel all that winter. Gold was about fifteen per cent 
 
GOLDEN GRAIN AND GOLD. 
 
 15 
 
 •premium, as near as I can recollect, and everything we 
 wanted to buy was very dear. But corn even at ten 
 cents currency or 8.5 gold in 1872 was better than 
 wheat had been in 1869 and I stuck to it, although I 
 
 INCBEASINa PEICES FOB FAEM PEODUCTS, AND DBCBBASINO 
 COST OF FABM PTJBCHASKS IN IOWA SINCE 1872. 
 
 had to ask renewed favor from my creditors. In fact 
 I should then have lost my farm by foreclosure as in 
 1870 but for the fact that I had borrowed the money 
 of an old New England friend who wanted to help 
 
16 FAKMBE HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 me. Ah, those were toug!h times, indeed. I shall never* 
 forget them. But were thpse low prices for corn due 
 to the demonetization of silver to which you ascribe 
 with Coin all the evils of life to-day?" 
 
 "No, father. That was before the silver legislation 
 of any modern nation with the exception of the act of 
 Great Britain in 1816." 
 
 "But, my son, I have never seen such hard times 
 as those were, and no other industrious farmer in Iowa ' 
 has since 1873. If the silver legislation of 1873 is 
 the cause of the changes which have fallen to my lot 
 financially since Ifliat year, I am very thankful for it, 
 and I know thousands of farmers in the corn-growing 
 states of the Union will say amen to, my prayer of 
 thanksgiving." 
 
 "We truly have reason to be thankful for the 
 changes in the prices of such farm products as corn 
 since 1870. Where, with one or two exceptions in 
 my town, corn was sold from 1870 to 1877 for ten to 
 twelve cents a bushel, we have the last few years re- 
 ceived from thirty to fifty cents a bushel. Where coal 
 cost us twenty cents a bushel in 1870, we can now se- 
 cure it for fen cents. The corn that would in 1872 
 purchase 2.5 bushels of coal will now buy a ton of the 
 same fuel. Where two loads of corn barely sufficed to 
 buy a load of coal in 1870, one load of com wUl pur- 
 chase from four to five loads in 1894. 
 
 "Ah! But father," said the -son, "you are reasoning 
 from your personal experience. You are basing an 
 
GOLDEN GRAIN AND GOLD. 17 
 
 argument upon the experience of yourself with corn 
 prices in a single year. You will remember that Mr. 
 C!oin called attention to that matter. His definitions 
 excluded the reference to any suoh prices as those 
 of 1872 for corn." 
 
 "Quite true, my son. Mr. Coin did lay stress upon 
 the 'average' value of the various kinds of property to 
 be considered. To eliminate the minor and incidental 
 variations due to localities, let us take the home value 
 of corn for a wide section of our Union. Here let 
 us take Ohio, Indiana, "Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Mis- 
 souri, Michigan, ^Visconsin, Minnesota, North and 
 South Dakota, and Nebraska. They are twelve states 
 lying side by side, covering an expanse truly imperial 
 in its character. Their 'territory is about 1,500 miles 
 in length from east to west and 700 miles from north 
 to south. Their corn product for the past five years 
 exceeds the value of all the wheat or cotton grown in 
 the United States in the same period. These states 
 by the magnitude of their crops establish the price of 
 corn in the United States. If we w6uld find the effect 
 of the silver legislation upon the income of the corn 
 producers of the world, it cannot better be ascertained 
 than by studying the farm values in these twelve 
 great Western states. Again, that we may avoid the 
 variations due to small crops and higli prices in some 
 years and large crops and small prices in others, let 
 us mass our figures for corn in these states into five- 
 and ten-year periods. The following table presents 
 
18 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 the condensed corn statistics of the twelve states 
 named for the last twenty-five years: 
 
 Yean. 
 
 Produce, Bushels. 
 
 Farm Values of Corn 
 in Currency. 
 
 ATenge Cur- 
 rency Value Pet 
 Bushel. 
 
 1870-1874 
 1875-1879 
 1880-1884 
 1885-1889 
 1890-1894 
 
 3,068,393,000 
 4,822,640,200 
 5,290,449,192 
 6,175,137,000 
 5,243,462,833 
 
 $1,160,073,980 
 1,397,138,016 
 1,978,820,424 
 1,733,845,695 
 1,909,110,561 
 
 37.8 cts. 
 
 29.0 eta. 
 33.2 cts. 
 
 28.1 cts. 
 36.4 cts. 
 
 1870-1894 24,600,082,225 
 
 $8,178,988,676 
 
 33.2 cts. 
 
 "Average gold value per bushel for 1870 to 1879, 
 30.0 cents; for 1880 to 1889, 32.4; for 1890 to 1894, 36.4 
 cents and for 1870 to 1894, 32.3 cents. 
 
 "May I ask you, father, your authority for these 
 £gures? I ask, since they seem so very different from 
 those which Mr. Coin presents, and I am sure hia 
 figures are correct, since I have looked them up in the 
 authorities from which he claims to obtain tlhem." 
 
 "The table is compiled from the Statistical Abstract 
 of the Bureau of Statistics of the United States Treas- 
 ury Department, to Which Mr. Coin refers as a standard 
 authority on American prices. The variation or differ- 
 ence which you notice between Mr. C^n's figures and 
 mine arises from this fact: Mr. Coin's figures are all 
 for what I will call the markets of the consumers. 
 They do not represent the value of wheat or cotton 
 in the different years to their producers. The figures 
 given by me in this table exhibit the value of their 
 corn crop in the twelve states named to the farmers 
 therein. They are TSased upon returns by tihe farmers 
 
GOLDEN GRAIN AND GOLD. 19 
 
 themselves to the United States Agricultural Depart- 
 ment. Before trying to ascertain the significance of 
 the data in this table permit me to call your attention 
 to one fact about the figures representing the average 
 values per bushel and the total erop values for the 
 years 1870 to 1879. They are what are known in the 
 commercial world as currency values as contrasted 
 with or distinguished from gold values. Can you ex- 
 plain, my son, the difference between the two?" 
 
 "I think I can, father. During the war of the Ee- 
 bellion and for many years thereafter, until January 1, 
 1879, paper money, in which all ordinary commercial 
 transactions were conducted, was received with more 
 or less uncertainty by the general public. A paper 
 dollar was worth less than a gold or silver one. In the 
 markets of the United States such a paper dollar 
 would purchase less of the commodities in daily use 
 than would the gold dollar, and hence the prices of 
 any commodity, as corn, when expressed in currency 
 or paper money, were greater than when expressed 
 in the gold or silver money of that period. Thus from 
 
 1874 to 1875 the average paper dollar was worth a 
 little less than eighty-eight cents in gold. As a result, 
 while a bushel of com would in those years have sold 
 in the given states on an average for 37.8 cents, as 
 shown in the table, it was worth only 33.1 cents in 
 gold. Ajid in the same way, twenty-nine cents, whioh 
 you have as the currency value of corn in the years 
 
 1875 to 1879, were the equivalent of 27.5 cents in gold 
 in those years." 
 
20 FARMER HATSBBD IN TOWN. 
 
 "Permit me one question more in this connection, 
 my son. If we are to study the effect of the silver leg- 
 islation upon prices of farm products, which must we 
 choose for purposes of comparison, the gold or cur- 
 rency values of 1870 to 1879, and why?" 
 
 "We must choose the gold prices, father, and for 
 the reason that in studying the effect of that silver leg- 
 islation upon prices, we are inquiring how much more 
 or less gold a given quantity of any commodity will 
 purchase now than it would before or at the time of 
 the first enactment of that legislation. We cannot 
 find an answer to that inquiry save by reducing all 
 currency values to a gold basis. This only applies to 
 the values of 1870 to 1880 in the tables, since after 
 
 1879 all currency values are gold values, a gold, silver 
 and paper dollar being interchangeable." 
 
 "You are quite right, my son. Now we are ready 
 to study our table of corn prices and see what effect, 
 if any, the silver legislation of 1873 has had upon the 
 value of corn raised by them to the farmers of these 
 twelve Western states. The first thing to be noted 
 is, that when comparing the average gold values for 
 ten-year periods there has been a regular and con- ■ 
 tinuous advance since 1870. The average home value 
 for corn in these twelve states was in 1880 to 1889 2.4 
 cents higher per bushel than in the ten years preceding, 
 and that for the past five years was 6.4 cents higher 
 than for 1870 to 1879 and four cents higher than for 
 
 1880 to 1889. Do these figures bear out Coin's asser- 
 
OOLDSN QBAIN AND GOLD. 21 
 
 tions, made without any appeal to facts to sustain 
 them, that the farmers of the West are now obliged 
 to sell everything at one-half its price in 1870, or before 
 what he calls 'The Crime of 1873.' " 
 
 "No, father; far from it. They show the very op-, 
 posite. They prove that the average farm or home 
 value of corn in these twelve great states was in the 
 past five years 6.4 cents a bushel higher than in the 
 ten years 1870 to 1879, in which occurred the legisla- 
 tion which Coin calls 'The Crime of 1873.' This is 
 equivalent to an average advance in the home or farm 
 value of this great cereal in the twenty-five years last 
 past of twenty-three per cent. These figures, there- 
 fore, contradict the theory and statement of Coin. 
 They show that over a territory almost the size of 
 Europe, an amount of corn worth more than the cotton 
 or wheat crop of the nation actually advanced in twenty- 
 five years in home value twenty-three per cent, while 
 the theory called for, what Mr. Coin asserted had taken 
 place, a decline of fifty per cent." 
 
 "Let me illustrate, my son, the contrast between 
 the facts about home corn value in the West as they 
 exist and as they are asserted to be by Coin. I will do it 
 by three diagrams drawn to scale. The first represents 
 the gold value of corn as it averaged at the 
 farms in the West from 1870 to 1879. The second 
 exhibits that value for the past five years and 
 the third shows it as it would be according to 
 Coin. I might illustrate the difference between the 
 
22 
 
 FARMER HATSEBD IN TOWN. 
 
 facts of Western farm life and the fiction of Coin's 
 imagination in another way. I have at home a bin of 
 corn twenty-two feet each way. This is the space 
 into which Coin stowed away all the gold of the world. 
 The bin full of corn would from 1870 to 1879 have pur- 
 chased enough twenty-dollar gold pieces placed side 
 
 
 
 1890 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 TO 
 
 
 1870 
 
 
 
 
 TO 
 
 
 1884 
 ACTUAL 
 
 
 
 
 1890 
 
 TO 
 
 1879 
 
 
 VALUE 
 
 
 1894 
 COIN'S 
 STATE- 
 MENT 
 
 JIverage Parm Values of Corn/ 
 1870 to 187S and tSSO to /894 and 
 Coin's statemene of ifus latter 
 
 by side to have extended eighteen feet. In 1894 Coin's 
 theory would have had the corn sell for enough twenty- 
 doUar gold pieces to have reached nine feet or less 
 than half-way across the bin of corn. As a matter of 
 fact it did sell on an average during the years 1890 
 to 18^4 for enough gold twenty-dollar coins to reach 
 
GOLDEN GRAIN AND GOLD. 23 
 
 from side to side of the bin, twenty-two feet in length. 
 Now, I will ask. Do these figures show that the fanners 
 are better off or worse off In these twelve states on 
 an average than they were twenty-five years ago?" 
 
 "They indicate that so far as the home value of 
 this great crop is concerned they have improved their 
 lot in twenty-five years twenty-thtee per cent." 
 
 "Quite right. And thus my experience, which you 
 thought was exceptional, is the experience of the aver- 
 age farmer in these twelve states. But what changes 
 in the methods of cultivating corn have been made in 
 the past twenty-five years that affect the cost of rais- 
 ing that cereal and thus the net profit of the farmer?" 
 
 "The farmers have introduced better plows, better 
 corn planters and other improved farm machinery so 
 that a man can now raise a bushel of corn with an 
 expenditure of from one-half to two-thirds the labor 
 required in 1870." 
 
 "Now, then, my son, we have found in these West- 
 ern states within twenty-five years two great changes 
 in the raising of corn. The home value of that cereal 
 has advanced twenty-three per cent and its cost of. 
 production has decreased over thirty-three per cent 
 of the figures for 1870. This is a net gain of about 
 eighteen cents a bushel. Who has profited by this 
 gain? Into whose pockets has that gain gone?" 
 
 "Let me see," said the young man, scratching his 
 head. "The farmers pocketed the increased home value 
 of twenty-three per cent, but I guess the railroads 
 
24 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 gained the percentage due to the introduction of bet- 
 ter macliinery and better methods of cultivation. No, 
 they did ijot. For if they had gained it, the value 
 would have declined and we should have seen how it 
 actually advanced. For the same reason we know the 
 consumers did not gain it and hence we must admit 
 that the farmers have pocketed the whole result of 
 
 COEN FAEMKKS AS THE OEIGINAL "GOLD BCGS." 
 
 these two beuefloent dhianges in corn-raising in West- 
 ern America." 
 
 "The corn-raising faruiers, then, my son, are at pres- 
 ent pocketing a nice sum of gold each year, according 
 to your statements and those of Coin's, as the result 
 of the silver legislation of 1873. Those farmers, there- 
 fore,* may be pictured as 'gold bugs' whose golden grain 
 has been turned into gold and they themselves stamped 
 with the almighty doUar. Why is it that you silver 
 men never call corn by name or speak of the experi- 
 
GOLDEN GRAIN AND GOLD. 25 
 
 ence of the corn farmers in any of your talks about 
 prices and the re&ults of silver legislation, but rail in- 
 stead about gold and 'gold bugs' and everything golden 
 like this golden grain? Is the corn-raising farmer the 
 original 'gold bug' against whom you rail so much in 
 the interest of the owner of the mines of the white 
 metal, or wthy is it tfhat you all seem to be as afraid of 
 com as the devil is of holy water?" 
 
 The young man did not answer. His father, refer- 
 ring to the facts concerning the advancing prices of 
 com since 1873, said: 
 
 "According to these facts the net gain to the farm- 
 ers in these twelve states by reason of the economic, 
 industrial and financial changes which have takqp 
 place in twenty-five years amounts to eighteen cents 
 a bushel, or sixty per cent of the average gold value 
 of corn from 1870 to 1879. Will you kindly calculate 
 for me, my son, the total amount of that gain to the 
 farmers in the past five years?" 
 
 "Let me see, father. There were in the five years 
 1890 to 1894 5,243 million bushels of corn raised in 
 these states. This at eighteen cents a bushel would 
 give the farmer a gain of 943 million dollars." 
 
 "Now, tell me, my son, what" part that sum is of 
 the gold which is estimated to exist in the world at 
 present?" 
 
 "It -is about one-fourth of that gold." 
 
 "How large would an elevator need to be to hold 
 this 5,243 million bushels of corn? How large would 
 it have to be if constructed 100 feet high?" 
 
26 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 The young man figured a minute and replied: "It 
 would cover an area of 2.5 square miles and its con- 
 tents would alsot suflBce to bury Manhattan Island fif- 
 teen feet deep with corn." 
 
 "Now, my son, you have been to Mr. Coin's school 
 and learned how easy it would be for a few men to 
 comer the gold of the world. Suppose we set out to 
 corner this corn." 
 
 "Are you crazy, father? Don't you Enow that the 
 ayerage corn crop of a single year for 100 miles about 
 Chicago is so great that only fools have erer tried to 
 corner i^ save for a few days X)nly? How, then, can 
 you expect to organize a corner upon all this com 
 crop of these states for five years, a quantity of corn 
 so vast that the corn purchased for any grain corner 
 ever manipulated here in Chicago would appear like 
 an ant-hill besides a mountain as compared with it?" 
 
 "But," said the old farmer, "this corn, ,wMch you 
 say cannot be cornered, is worth only one-fourth of 
 the value of the gold in the world, that Mr. Coin has 
 ishown can be easily cornered because it can be massed 
 in a space twenty-two feet each way, no larger than 
 my corncrib at home. But gold and silver represent 
 wealth, and it is not so easy in practice to get a corner 
 on great aggregates of riches as it is to talk about it. 
 It would be infinitely easier to corner one crop of corn 
 than five. But it would be vastly easier to corner a 
 mass of corn burying Manhattan Island out of sight 
 than to corner the wealth represented by the gold or 
 
GOLDEN GRAIN AND GOLD. 
 
 27 
 
 silver in the world. This follows from the fact that 
 it is easier to move |1,000,000 of gold to breaE a cor^ 
 ner in that commodity than it is to move |1,000,000 
 of corn to break a corner in that cereal. If you ques- 
 tion these statements, please tell me how men can 
 
 COIN COBITEBrNa ONB-FOVBTH OF THB WOBLD'S GOLD, PT THB 
 SHAPE OF COHN COVBEING NBW YOEK 15 FEET DEEP. 
 
 oomer the riohes of the world in the shape of gold 
 when they cannot successfully corner a small part of 
 tthe same riclhes in the form of com, or, in other words, 
 how they can comer the larger while they are power- 
 less to corner the lesser?" 
 
28 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 "I can't answer your question," said the young man. 
 "I will have to ask Mr. Coin the next time I have a 
 chance to state the case to him." 
 
 "When you see him and speak to him about it, teU 
 him when he starts out to corner this pUe of corn 
 covering Manhattan Island I would like to see him. 
 After that,_ state the case of the corn farmer of the 
 West fully to him. TeU him how the farmers of 
 these twelve states raised 7,891 million bushels of 
 corn between 1870 and 1879, worth at the farm 
 2,557 million dollars in currency or on an average 
 thirty cents in gold per bushel. In 1890 to 1894 they 
 raised 5,243 million bushels with a farm value of 
 1,909 million dollars, or 36.4 cents a bushel. In the 
 twenty-five years the average price per bushel had 
 advanced 6.4 cents in gold and the farmer had lessened 
 the labor required to raise a bushel of corn 11.6 cents. 
 He had thus improved his lot to the extent of eighteen 
 cents a bushel. This amounts to a total gain for the 
 farmers of these twelve states of |943,000,006. State 
 this to him. Tell him this change has come since the 
 demonetization of silver. He has said all changes in 
 the value of farm products are due to the crime of 1873, 
 After you have stated these results, ask him in his 
 own words, if such be the fruits of the crime of 1873, 
 'Who can estimate the effects of these to the commerce 
 and business of the world? In what language can we 
 characterize the men behind the scenes, who, know- 
 ingly, are directing this world to the gold standard 
 
GOLDEN GRAIN AND GOLD. 29 
 
 and producing such unprecedented changes for the 
 agriculturists of such a vast empire as is contained 
 in these twelve states whose actual farm prices for 
 twenty-five years you thus place before him?'" 
 
 "But, father, he will think % am insulting him if 
 I ask him such a question." 
 
 "Let him be insulted then. He but insults the in- 
 telligence of the masses when he asserts in the face 
 of the figures already given that the silver legislation 
 of 1873 has reduced the value of all farm products in 
 America one-half. There has been no reduction in 
 com values to the farmers of the United States since 
 1875. Instead there has been a steady and continual 
 advance for twenty years. Coin advocates plunging 
 the United States into a war with Great Britain 
 over this money question. If you or others are in- 
 elined to follow that advice, remember General Sher- 
 man's definition of war. 'War is hell,' the great com- 
 mander said. Coin advises men to cease growing corn 
 and raise hell. It's a poor crop to cultivate, let me tell 
 you. To raise hell either in llie form of war with Eng- 
 land or in the shape of financial confiscation such as 
 Coin advocates won't pour any additional wealth into 
 the keeping of the farmers or of any other class of this 
 land. Coin appeals to the might of hate in human 
 hearts. He calls for volunteers on the side of human 
 passion and says in the long struggle of might with 
 right the former has generally triumphed. On the 
 strength of that assertion he bases his hope and proph- 
 ecy of success in raising hell. Misled'by such appeals 
 
30 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 to hate and passion, the American people may possibly 
 see the door of hell yawn open before them in the 
 future; but as it closes, as close it will after a season, 
 the last vision they will have. as they peer into the 
 
 A LAST VISION OF COIN'S HBLL. 
 
 vanishing gloom will be the forms of CJoin and his 
 associates lost in the flames which they have conjured 
 up out of the seething abyss of falsehood and national 
 and individual dishonor. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE KDIN WROUGHT BT SILVER LEGISLATION. 
 
 "How much pain have cost us the evils that have 
 never happened." 
 
 — Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 One of the most difiScult things for a young man to 
 
 learn after he has been at school awhile is that his 
 
 father knows just a little bit. The young man is full 
 
 of conceit and hates to have the .old man with his 
 
 facts and hard sense puncture Ms wind-bags and let 
 
 out the gas. It was thus with young Hayseed. He 
 
 had been in college nearly two years. He was in. 
 
 that period of school days that years ago gave to 
 
 sUch as he the name of sophomores or wise fools. 
 
 He had been unable to think of anything to offer in 
 
 reply to the facts about corn prices and the condition 
 
 of the corn raiser which his father presented. He was 
 
 not satisfied with himself. He wished he could be as 
 
 well contented in that respect as Coin. He went to bed 
 
 the night after the conversation with his father with 
 
 that idea in his mind, and had a strange dream in 
 
 which a passage of scripture, that Coin had placed on 
 
 the fly-leaf of hisi school book, issued June, 1894, played 
 
 in conaection with his frame of mind on retiring a 
 
32 FARMER BAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 prominent part. In his dream he saw his father on his 
 knees searching in a lot of reports of the Government, 
 of boards of trade, and other sources of exact infor- 
 mation, and saying, "Oh, give me a little more light 
 on these uncertain subjects. Amid so many uncertain- 
 ties lead me to a little clearer understanding of the 
 sources of , national and individual prosperity." His 
 father was at the time in a closet in the temple of 
 knowledge by himself. On a public corner was Coin, 
 saying, "I thank thee, O Lord of Heaven and Earth, 
 that I am not like the poor publican and farmer there. 
 I need not facts, since I have mastered the science of 
 finance. The all-sovereign power of financial law cares 
 not for facts concerning farm prices and why 
 should I?" (For illustration, see page 3.) 
 
 "Greeny" when, he awoke was at first not a little 
 disturbed by his dream. He began to be unsettled in 
 his mind. After dressing, he picked up Coin's latest 
 book and read. His distrusts vanished. Again he 
 saw the truths of finance face to face and not colored 
 and distorted by being beheld through such an opaque 
 screen of stubborn facts as his father had held up 
 between him and those truths so ably expounded by 
 Coin. 4^fter having read Coin for an hour he was 
 ready to renew the 'conversation of the night before, 
 when his father came in from his morning walk, and 
 together they went to breakfast. He began the con- 
 versation by saying: 
 
 "Don't yon think, father, that this is a pretty good 
 breakfast that we have before us? This is a flrst-clasa 
 
THE RUIN WROUGHT BT SILVER LEGISLATION. 
 
 33 
 
 restaurant. How much wheat sold in Kansas would it 
 talie to pay for this meal ?" 
 
 "Probably two or three bushels, according to our 
 appetites or fancy," said the old man. "Some men 
 spend here for a single meal, including wines, the price 
 of twenty bushels of wheat or corn in Kansas." 
 
 THE KANSAS FABMBB IN A CHICAGO BESTATJEANT. 
 [From Coin.] 
 
 "Does not that prove, father, what Cain said about 
 the increased cost of everything the farmer wants 
 to buy?" 
 
 "This very meal is the best argument possible in 
 opposition to Coin's theories and statements. Look 
 
34 PARMER HAtSfiED IN TOWN. 
 
 at the hotels of Chicago, witk their accommodations 
 for thousands upon thousands. They are supported in 
 magnificent style. At the Palmer House it takes one 
 hotel employe for every two guests. Then there are 
 all the splendid furnishings and buildings. They all 
 cost money. Twenty-five years ago Chicago could not 
 support such a hotel. Money was not plentiful enough. 
 It was too dear. Men did not have enough of it to 
 afford such a hotel. When the present Palmer House 
 was first erected after the fire, who ever heard of a 
 farmer patronizing it? But go inhere this day and you 
 will find on its register the names of from twenty-five 
 to fifty farmers and stockmen from different parts of 
 the United States. There are other hotels here, first 
 class ijj air their appointments, that cater especially 
 "to the patronage of farmers and stockmen. Twenty- 
 five years ago these farmer patrons could not afford 
 such hotels any more than I could have afforded at 
 home or in Chicago such a meal as we are now 
 enjoying." 
 
 . "But, father, there can be but few farmers stop- 
 ping at Chicago hotels at any time." 
 
 "There is where you are mistaken, my boy. Take 
 away the farmer patronage and you would shut up 
 one-fourth the hotels of this great city, hotels but few 
 of which it were possible to find in 1870, because the 
 farmers and others could not afford to patronize such 
 as these." 
 
 "But, father, why can you not look at the effects of 
 the crime of 1873 as they actually are?" 
 
THE RTJIN WROUGHT BY SILVER LEGISLATION. 35 
 
 "Why do you call the silver legislation of 1873 a 
 crime, my son?" 
 
 "Because it has brought hunger and pinching want 
 to widows and orphans. It is a crime because it ia 
 degrading the honest yeomanry of our land. A crime 
 because it is every year making it more dif&cult for the 
 average man and woman to get a decent living." 
 
 "May be you are right, my son. But does the food 
 people eat have any relation to this hunger and pinch- 
 ing want of which you speak?" 
 
 "Yes, certainly." 
 
 "Then if the working people and the farmers as a 
 class are being brought to hunger and pinching want, 
 as you and Coin assert, they cannot purchase as much 
 nor as good food as before? Am I right?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Now, right here, let me call your attention to one 
 little item. Think back as far as you can. You were 
 born in 1870, but you can remember something of the 
 way we lived in 1875. Did you at that time ever see 
 any canned goods, peaches, plums, and the like on 
 our table?" 
 
 "No, I don't think we ever had any." 
 
 "We did not; neither did any other farmer in our 
 section of the far West. No dealer had on his shelves 
 a single variety of such canned goods. They were 
 just banning to introduce such goods in 1870, as a 
 luxury for the rich in our large towns. Tin plate was 
 at the time imported in small quantities for roofing, 
 hot-air pipes and tinware for family use. To supply 
 
36 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 the tin plate of our nation seemed a matter of no im- 
 portance. How is it to-day?" 
 
 "Why, father, this tin-plate business has become 
 a subject for great political parties to fight over. Men 
 now see and know that we are using in the United 
 States annually over one pound of tin plate for every 
 bushel of wheat that we raise." 
 
 WHAT THE CANNBD GOODS 01" THE UNITBD STATES WHL BUY. 
 
 "Yes, and the greater portion of this tin plate goes 
 to make cans to supply a trade that hardly existed in 
 1870. Let us see, my son, if we are able to form some 
 idea of the extent of this canned goods trade! If we 
 are, we can see how the average man has drifted away 
 from hunger and pinching want, concerning which. 
 Coin so fondly talks. The tin cans in the United States 
 
THE RUIN WROUGHT BY SILVER LEGISLATION. . 37 
 
 made each year will now hold all the alcoholic liquors, 
 including beer, that are consumed in our land. Those 
 cans will also hold on an average the wheat or the 
 raw cotton of the United States that is annually ex- 
 ported and the value of their contents will greatly 
 exceed the value of that of exported cotton or wheat, 
 or that of the wholesale value of the alcoholic liq- 
 uors consumed. Then note the increased use of fruits. 
 Bananas, that I as a boy in Central New England 
 never beheld, are ' now as common and cheaper 
 than apples. The Illinois Central road in certain sea- 
 sons of the year ships north from New Orleans as 
 many carloads of this fruit a month as any one of the 
 Iowa roads ships of wheat in a month of its busy 
 season. And so I might go on and refer to oranges 
 and grapes from Europe and the fruit from California. 
 All are parts of the daily food of our farmers and of 
 our common laborers in all quarters of our land. One 
 more question, my son, in this connection. How does 
 the number of watches manufactured and sold in the 
 United States compare with that in 1870? Cive any 
 fact about watches and other articles of universal lux- 
 ury among farmers and laborers that you have learned 
 since you have been here in Chicago." 
 
 "I visited the watch factory at Elgin just before 
 the panic of 1893. They were expecting that year, 
 the manager told me, to make more watches than 
 could be found in the whole United States in 1870. 
 This factory was only one of a dozen large watch- 
 making establishments in the United States. Watches 
 
38 FARMEE HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 are but a type or illustration of the increased use of 
 jewelry and articles of personal adornment, fine 
 clotlaes and fine furniture of every description." 
 
 "Just so, my son. The facts given about canned 
 ^eads for the table, fruit, watches, and all the other 
 articles t)f common every-day life all go to show how 
 the people live at Resent as- contrasted with twenty- 
 five years ago. If the peoifle^are being crushed as you 
 say; if the silver legislation of 187S Ims caused this 
 change in the food and clothes of the nation ;Tl7Tm 
 call thia ruin, and destruction, I would like to know 
 what prosperity would be if we should ever find it. 
 The truth is, my son, hotels, the use of canned goods, 
 fruits, watches, and pianos, organs, books, and all arti- 
 cles of the kind have multiplied in the past twenty- 
 five years in this country like the leaves of the forest, 
 and they all cost money. Here are a few things now 
 used by the farmers but unknown to them before 1873. 
 To pay for these, money must come from some source. 
 It can only come from a people with increasing wealth 
 and growing resources. It can only come where the 
 purchasing power of labor and of everything that labor 
 creates, as wheat, corn, and oats, is increasing?" 
 
 "But, father, you 'know that cut nails have gone 
 down in price from |3.86 per hundred in 1859 to |1 
 in 1895. Pig iron, once |23.38 a ton, is now |12, and 
 all other values have decreased like these." 
 
 "All true to a certain extent, and yet when you 
 are talking of the nation's ability to purchase, you, 
 as Coin, are trifling when you select. one such little 
 article and try to measure the income of the nation 
 
THE RUIN WROUOHT BY SIIVBR LEGISLATION. 39 
 
 by its price. The income of the nation is what we 
 are interested in. It is measured indirectly by the 
 amounts of its purchases. The price of cut nails, or 
 cotton, or wheat tells us nothing about the purchasing 
 power of the land. That is to be found in the in- 
 creased or decreased sales of commodities such as 
 canned goods, watches, pianos, and books, the in- 
 creased sum paid to hotels and for excursions to Eu- 
 rope and to educate the rising generation, e Turning 
 to any one of these and a hundred other sources of 
 expenditure, we find our nation paying out double the 
 money, and in many cases ten and one hundred times, 
 what it did, in 1873. Such payments can only be made 
 out of an increased income and not a decreased one, 
 such as you and Coin say has fallen to the lot of the 
 producers. ^ They prove in their way the correctness 
 of my deductions given you last night, that the farm- 
 ers' increased profit on corn the last five years: in these 
 twelve states was 943 millions of dollars as compared 
 with the ten years 1870 to 1879. In the facts then 
 presented I called your attention to the increased net 
 income of the farmers. Now I call your attention to 
 the increased expenditures of those farmers, expendi- 
 tures only possible when there exists sudh an in- 
 creased income as I pointed out last night." 
 
 "But, father, you should look to the ability of the 
 people to save as well as to spend." 
 
 "No, my son. The great trouble of the past ten 
 years is we have not spent as much, as a nation, as we 
 ought. The income of this nation has been so great 
 
40 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 that men baye not learned how to spend a proper 
 amount. We have accumulated in the years since 
 1880 an amount of wealth equal to the accumulated 
 savings of Europe from the birth of Christ to the 
 year 1770. This saving so vast cannot be made out 
 of a decreasing income, a decreased purchasing power 
 of labor or commodities. It has only been rendered 
 possible by an unheard-of change in the opposite di- 
 rection. It comes only when caused by, or the accom- 
 paniment of, the decreased value of money, of gold, 
 if you please." 
 
 "But, father, you overlook the poverty, want of 
 employment, and suffering of the world." 
 
 "No. You are the one that really overloofo the evils 
 of that kind. The trouble is not that we have not pro- 
 duced enough for all. We have failed to distribute it 
 in a proper way. There are great evils and wrongs in 
 the world that justly claim and should receive the 
 attention of all tender-hearted and noble men and 
 women. They, however, seem to have escaped Coin's 
 attention and his gaze is fixed upon calamities that 
 never have existed, upon hunger tl^at has been fed 
 with peaches and cream, and nakedness that has been 
 clothed in sumptuous apparel with watches and dia- 
 monds thrown in. His failure to see hunger and -suf- 
 fering where it does exist and to lament over it where 
 it is not, reminds me of Mark Twain crying over 
 Adam's tomb. It- is an illustration of Thomas Jeffer- 
 son's remark of 'How much pain have cost us the evils 
 that have never happened.'^ 
 
THE RUIN WROUGHT BY SILVER LEGISLATION. 41 
 
 "Ah, my son, we should perceiTe what Coin and all 
 his sdhool fails to apprehend, — ^the poverty, misery, 
 and degradation that are in the world, — and not busy 
 
 :r^:U£-fff' I 
 
 T-^i mi i 
 
 /.' \ ,ff \^ v?/i'iP9:ffii I,". 
 
 coin's POVEETY — FED WITH PEACHES AND CBKAM. 
 
 ourselves with weeping over the evils that have never 
 happened." 
 
 "Where should we look for that poverty, misery, 
 and degradation if not where Coin points it out?" 
 
42 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 "Coin, my son, lays all Ms stress upon the depres- 
 sion in the* selling prices of wheat and cotton. In- 
 directly he thus bids us find the greatest want and 
 misery in the coulitry. Now, I will not deny that many 
 poor men in the country have had a hard and losing 
 battle with the fates, and yet I will say that misery 
 
 POVKBTY, MISBEY, AND DEGEADATION THAT 
 COIN FAILS TO APPREHEND. 
 
 breeds not in the country as it does in town. It needs 
 the city for its home, and there it multiplies like the 
 spawn of the lower orders of creation. Wages advanc- 
 ing more or less regularly in the cities, have since 
 1860 attracted to those centres of population vast mul- 
 titudes ill-fitted for the life of a great town. Cities 
 
THE RUIN WROUGHT BY SILVER LEGISLATION. 43 
 
 have raultiplied and grown like great sores upon the 
 body politic, and in them are the festering masses of 
 degradation, want, poverty, crime, sin, and misery, that 
 are at once the despair of statesmen and the burden 
 of the philanthropist. All this Coin misses while he 
 points us to the comparatively hard times of the least 
 successful among our farmers." 
 
 "But, father, you must know that the skilled work- 
 men in towns who have sedured the greatest increase 
 in wages between 1860 and the panic of 1893 were mem- 
 bers of trade unions. The unskilled and unorganized 
 workmen have been unable to obtain much actual ad- 
 vance in the past twenty-flve years." 
 
 "Quite true, my son. But the toilers fitted to suc- 
 ceed in a modern town are men and women who unite 
 with their fellows and thus become able to wrest a fair 
 share of the benefits of progress to themselves. It is 
 otherwise with a vast army of those who fiock to town. 
 Isolated and single-handed, they strive to contend 
 with the Moloch of modem Mammon in the form of or- 
 ganized capital. The secret of success in the battle 
 of life in our modem cities is for the toilers that which 
 the colonies perceived in the struggle 100 years ago , 
 with Great Britain. It is union. Our fathers in 1774 
 pictured the necessity of union by an emblem of a 
 snake cut into ten pieces with the motto, 'Unite or 
 Die.' Here is the old emblem. The city toilers who 
 have perceived the wisdom of the above advice have 
 won a fair success. They have seen wages more or 
 
44 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 less regularly advancing for twenty-five years. Em- 
 ployment has become more regular. But for those 
 without union it has been otherwise. Their fate is 
 symbolized by death. The unorganized toilers of our 
 modern cities in great numbers have seen their lives 
 wrecked and they themselves become the driftwood 
 of want and degradation, filling the slums of our towns 
 with a sodden mass of misery, out of which are re- 
 
 UNITE OR DIE 
 
 HEBE IS THE OLD EMBLEM. 
 
 cruited our armies of Coxeyites, tramps, beggars, vaga- 
 bonds, and criminals. They thus become such evils as 
 " to threaten our civilization unless a remedy is found." 
 "But, father, you seem to overlook the fact tb.at 
 ■some skilled men, members of labor unions, drift into 
 this army of the unemployed and at last become tramps 
 and beggars. The trade unions make mistakes. Ttey 
 enter at times upon gigantic and ill-advised strikes, 
 which they fail to carry to success. Such failures 
 
THE RUIN WROUGHT BY SILVElt LEGISLATION. 45 
 
 mean the permanent ruin of some of their members and 
 their sinking to the lowest depths of degradation. Do 
 not such failures warrant us in condemning these 
 unions, as so many thoughtful people are doing?" 
 
 "Labor unions, my son, are composed of human be- 
 ings, and as such are liable to nmke mistakes the same 
 as unions of capitalists. In the field of action labor or- 
 ganizations repeat the blunders of organizations of cap- 
 italists. The proportion of failures among them, how- 
 ever, is less than that of savings and other banks offi- 
 cered and directed by wealthy capitalists. The suffering 
 caused among the toilers by the great railroad strike 
 of 1894 does not compare with that produced by the 
 failure of some of our savings banks in the past. Why 
 should the rich demand charity for the errors and mis- 
 takes of their class and not be willing to extend it to 
 the craftsmen in these unions. The bitterness with 
 which the rich speak of the errors and mistakes of the 
 labor unions comes home to roo^t in the harsh judg- 
 ments which so many of the toilers pass upon all the 
 rich and especially upon the bankers. It becomes a 
 factor in the popular discussion of the silver and other 
 money questions. It inclines the organized toilers to 
 take sides against their unjust critics. A fuller dis- 
 cussion wiU, it is true, correct that first inclination 
 among them, but this tendency of one wrong to create 
 another must be distinctly allowed for in this connec- 
 tion. But I have allowed myself to drift somewhat 
 from what I started to say. I was speaking of the un- 
 
46 PARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 due crowding of people into the cities and its effects 
 upon prices and general prosperity." 
 
 "I wish, father, you would be more explicit upon 
 this point. It is one which I have never before heard 
 raised. What relation can this flocking of people to 
 the cities, and especially the undue multiplication of 
 unorganized labor in these cities, have upon prices 
 and general prosperity?" 
 
 "I will begin, my son, by saying that the crowd of 
 people moving to the cities in the ten years ending with 
 1874 was an important factor leading to the industrial 
 depression of that year. More people flocked to the 
 towns than could be legitimately employed t^ere. 
 Hence the want of employment that became apparent 
 in that year. Prices for all commodities fell because 
 the demand for them decreased owing to the number 
 of idle men. The same series of events were repeated 
 in the ten years ending with 1893 and with the same 
 results, although with not quite so marked evil effects 
 upon prices of farm products. In the years succeeding 
 1874 the prices of all farm products declined. In the 
 past five years only wheat and cotton have thus been 
 seriously affected, and wheat to a lesser extent than 
 corn after 1874." 
 
 "That cannot be, father. Everyone knows that you 
 are wrong in that statement." 
 
 "Let us see, my son. The average gold home value 
 of corn in the twelve Western states in 1870 to 1874 
 was 33.1 cents a bushel and in the next five years was 
 
THE RtllN ■WKOtJGHT BY SILVER LEGISLATION. 47 
 
 27.5 cents. Here was a decline of seventeen per cent. 
 If the currency figures had been taken as the basis of 
 comparison the decline would have been over twenty- 
 three per cent. The corresponding decline for wheat 
 in the same states was from 71.3 cents a bushel in 
 1885 to 1889, to 64.5 for the past five years, or 9.5 per 
 cent, or barely one-half the earlier decline of corn. 
 You see, my son, that I am right. Now as the undue 
 flocking of the driftwood of humanity to the cities in 
 the ten years ending with 1874 was a great factor in de- 
 pressing prices from 1874 to .1878, so a corresponding 
 movement in the ten years ending 1893 became a con- 
 trolling factor in the low prices of the present time." 
 
 "But, father, we had good times for several years 
 after 1880." 
 
 "Quite true„my son. But those good times did not 
 come to the nation ; the unemployed of our cities did 
 not secure regular employment until a vast army moved 
 from the cities to the country. That movement began 
 in 1874 and by 1880 it had reached its maximum. In 
 the years 1870 to 1880 the number of farms in the 
 Union is the result of this movement increased from 
 2,659,985 _to 4,008,907. A similar movement has be-" 
 gun at the present time. When the balance between 
 the towns and country is restored we shall again have 
 an advance of prices in all commodities, a more regu- 
 lar employment of our workers, as was witnessed in 
 the years 1880 to 1888, and shown in the table of corn 
 prices which I gave you last night. The country will, 
 
48 FARMER HAYSEBD IN TOWN. 
 
 however, get on its feet in a shorter period of time 
 than it did twenty years ago, since only wheat and 
 cotton of agricultural staples have declined in prices, 
 while twenty years ago all such staples were sold at 
 figures greatly reduced below those previously pre- 
 vailing. 
 
 "But, father, I must again say you miss the point 
 to which I have been trying to call your attention. 
 You seem to be bound to talk of subjects quite differ- 
 ent from those that I have in mind. I want you to 
 say something about gold as gold. Is it not ridiculous 
 to try to measure the property of the world by a pile 
 of metal no larger than your corn-bin, twenty-two 
 feet in each of its three dimensions? Why, the base 
 of that gold pile is less than the size of the wheat- 
 pit of the Chicago Board of Trade." 
 
 "Yes, my son. But after granting* thsLt, it does 
 not by any means follow that 3,900 million dollars 
 of gold is nothing more than a standing room for a few 
 bulls and bears to dance upon. Dealing with such il- 
 lustrations a person is led to feel and believe that 
 3,900 millions of money is a small and insignificant 
 thing. This is' the great mistake of Coin. A billion 
 or a half billion is a -vast aggregate of wealth. We 
 must get away from Coin's illustrations or we will 
 be unable to apprehend or comprehend in the least 
 all the significance of the farmers' gain the last five 
 years in raising" corn in twelve states of our Union, 
 as compared with their experience with that cereal 
 just at the time when the silver act of 1873 was passed. 
 
THE RUIN WROUGHT BY SILVER LEGISLATION. 
 
 49 
 
 Let us see if we cannot find something more therein. 
 Tell me, my son, what states in this group have lands 
 whose values are worth 3,900 millions. of dollars?" 
 
 THB FABMS OF THESE STATES A GOOD ILLTJSTBATION 
 OF THB GOLD IN THB WORLD. 
 
 "To make up the value of 3,900 millions of dollars 
 would require in 1890 the farming lands of Missouri, 
 Iowa, KansaSj Nebraska, North and South Dakota, 
 
50 FARMER HATSEBD IN TOWN. 
 
 and Minnesota and Wisconsin. It equals the value 
 of the farm lands of the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illi- 
 nois, Michigan, and Minnesota. It is a little over one- 
 fhird the value of all the farms of the United States. 
 You may miss the real significance of the figures for 
 these twelve states. Let me call your attention to 
 this fact. They include in their borders |7,069,767,154 
 value of farm lands out of the total of fl3,279,252,649 
 which existed in the United States in 1890. You will 
 note that these states have then over one-half the 
 farm property in the United States and are truly rep- 
 resentative of the condition of the farm producers of 
 the land." . 
 
 At this point the old gentleman took up the con- 
 versation by saying : 
 
 "Now consider for a moment the farms of these 
 states which together are required to balance or equal 
 in value these 3,900 millions of wealth. Thoge farms 
 stretch for a thousand miles over lands the most fer- 
 tile that the sun ever shone upon. Turn loose among 
 them all the bulls and bears of the wheat and corn 
 pits of the world and they are lost in the vast expanse 
 of this territory. Their presence and their influence 
 cannot be felt nor seen, and only rarely can be found' 
 the vanishing trace of their footprints. Thirty-nine 
 hundred millions of wealth is then something infinitely 
 greater than Coin pictures the gold treasures of the 
 globe. But, my son, after you have traveled, as I have, 
 many times over the broad expanse of these fertile 
 states and tried to form the best possible conception 
 
THE BUIN WROUGHT BY SILVER LEGISLATION. 
 
 51 
 
 of the wealth of lands and houses and stock, golden 
 grain and blooming fields and waving trees all bright 
 with sunshine, fruitful with rain and blessed with the 
 gifts of an aU-wise Providence, you have not yet seen 
 what even 3,900 millions of dollars mean. As leading 
 to some better idea of that meaning I will ask you to 
 state to me' the cost of your school each year, and the 
 amounts being spent yearly by your old playmates in 
 
 SOMS 07 THE 10,000 COLLEGB OIBLS FBOM: AMEBICAX FABMS. 
 
 Iowa. Also, give me any facts in your possession 
 about the development of schools in the past twenty- 
 five years." 
 
 The young man in reply said: 
 
 "You, father, are spending |1,000 a year for my 
 education in Chicago. Other parents are spending 
 some $100 and others f 1,000 to educate their children. 
 AU this from families which twenty-five years ago did 
 
62 FARMER HATSBED IN TOWN. 
 
 not spend a dollar that way because it could not be 
 had. Not only the farmers' boys but their girls are 
 going to these schools. AE the great colleges for young 
 ladies in the Union, with the exception of Vassar, have 
 been opened since 1870. Ten thousand young ladies 
 are now pursuing college courses where not over 500 
 were twenty-flve years ago." 
 
 Here the old gentleman interrupted by sayings 
 "Nearly half of those girls come from the farms, 
 or the homes of retired farmers. Books multiply on 
 every hand. The piano and organ are finding their 
 way with song and tones of harmony, and pictures and 
 art and beauty of adornment shed their radiance over 
 farm homes as never before. Ah, my son, here is some- 
 thing even more valuable than the lands of these 
 princely states that could be paid for by 3,900 miUion 
 dollars. Education, music, art, ciflture, and refine- 
 ment are passing into the keeping of the wide- 
 awake portion of our Western farmers as one and the 
 main result of the economic changes of twenty-five 
 years last past. When you comprehend what is meant 
 by this higher education, this added intelligence of 
 the farming masses, you will begin to see and know 
 what $4,000,000,000 really signifies and how the stand- 
 ing room for a few bulls and bears is a poor illustration 
 thereof to try to impress upon the mind of him who 
 would know the real meaning of finance. The 'smooth 
 little financier,' as he calls himself, may paint a small 
 board crib yellow, place upon it some turrier signs of 
 
THE KUIN WROTTGHT BY SILVER LEGISLATION. 53 
 
 bears and bulls and label it 'Knowledge of Finance.' 
 Looking steadily thereat the yellow structure created 
 by Coin is seen to be a painted sham and the gloss 
 and the glow fall off faster in the sunlight of true ideas 
 than Coin can replace with his brush of fancy dipped 
 in the oils of day-dreams." 
 
 coin's sham illusteation of the gold of the woeld. 
 
 The young man here called his father's attention 
 back to the subject of com, about which they had been 
 talking the night before. He said : 
 
 "But, father, I grant all you say about the true 
 significance of a great sum like four billions of money. 
 I think you give me a far better idea of its meaning 
 than did Professor Coin, but you have not touched his 
 
54 TARMBR HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 remarks upon the subject of corn as he stated it yes- 
 terday. He said, you remember, 'Corn does not seek 
 distant markets. This is partly on account of its small 
 price per bushel. It cannot always stand the freight. 
 Its use is not so general as wheat and it seeks a home 
 market. On page 215 of the report of the Chicago 
 Board of Trade for 1872 you will find that the corn 
 crop of the State of Illinois for the year 1872, which 
 controlled the market price for the spring and sum- 
 mer of 1873, was 217,628,000 bushels; while by this 
 year's report the crop of 1893, which controls the pres- 
 ent price, was 160,550,470 bushels. The demand for 
 corn now, with nearly double our population, is greater 
 than it was in 1873, and yet in 1873 the corn crop was 
 57,000,000 bushels greater in this state than it was 
 last year. This overproduction in 1872 accounts for 
 its low price in 1873. The gold standard accounts for 
 the low price now.' " 
 
 "I am glad, my son," said old Hayseed, "that you 
 call my attention to this remark of Mr. Coin. He did 
 state some things correctly; as, for example, the pro- 
 duction of corn in Illinois in 1872 and 1893. But his 
 other statements of facts are far from the truth. This 
 is the case with his declaration that the use of corn 
 is not so general as that of wheat. In 1890 the per 
 capita consumption of corn was thirty-one bushels, 
 while that of wheat was 5.9 bushels, or less than one- 
 fifth part of that of corn. Corn, as I said, has for the 
 farmers of the United States a home value about 
 
THE RUIN WBOUGHT BY SILVBK LEGISLATION. 55 
 
 equal to that of botli wheat and cotton, and the corn 
 crop of these twelve states alone has a farm value 
 greater than that of all the wheat or cotton raised in 
 the Union. Mr. Coin, if he wishes to have any con- 
 sideration from honest and intelligent men, must not 
 try to ignore the greatest single staple crop of the 
 world in any such manner. Again, Mr. Coin must not 
 refuse to look facts in the face. He is like the white 
 man who went out hunting with an Indian. They 
 shot a useless buzzard and a turkey. They had agreed 
 to divide their game equally. At the close of theday 
 the Indian asked, 'How shall we divide the birds?' 
 The white man said, 'You may have the_buzjzard and 
 I will take the turkey, or I will take the turkey and 
 you may have the buzzard.' The Indian scratched his 
 head a moment and asked, 'Why you not talke tiirkey 
 tome?'" 
 
 "Why, father, you by this language infer that Coin 
 employs guile at times in his use of figures and that he 
 twists and shapes his explanations to suit his facts 
 and his facts to suit his theory." 
 
 "Exactly! Coin, in giving the figures for Illinois 
 for 1893, seeks to make others believe that the national 
 crop of that year was small while it was large, and 
 says the low price was caused by silver legislation. Here 
 the effect of a large crop is a turkey to Mr. Coin in 
 1872, but is a buzzard in 1893. He restates the matter 
 so as to have the turkey fall to his lot again and no 
 account is taken of the effect of large crops in 1893 
 
56 PARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 upon corn' prices. A large crop was the only factor 
 operating to affect' corn prices in 1872. It gave to 
 corn in that year in the twelve great states a farm 
 value in gold on an average of 25.7 cents. In 1893, 
 after twenty years of the results of silvet legislation, 
 a per capita crop of corn, much larger than in 1872, 
 has a farm value in these same states of 30.6 cents on 
 an average per bushel. If the effect of a large crop 
 had been acting alone as in 1872, and other things 
 had been as in the earlier years, the farm value of this 
 crop could not have been to exceed fifteen cents per 
 bushel. Some force raised it to thirty cents. Mr. 
 Coin says the price of corn was fixed in 1893 by the 
 silver laws. Be it so. Then we have Mr. Coin saying : 
 
 " TJarge crops fixed the price of corn at fifteen cents 
 a bushel in 1893. Large crops plus the silver legisla- 
 tion gave it a value of thirty cents a bushel on an aver- 
 age. Hence the silver legislation of twenty years had 
 the effect in 1893 of doubling the price which otherwise 
 the farmers would have received for their corn.' " 
 
 "If silver legislation explains and is the cause of the 
 difference in the average farm value of corn in Illinois 
 and Iowa and these other ten states in 1872 and 1893, 
 then the farmers can but ask for more legislation of 
 the same kind, since, according to Coin's argument, it 
 has been the means of doubling the farm value of corn 
 in twenty-five years." 
 
 "But, father," said the boy, "you know he never said 
 anything like that, but rather the opposite." 
 
THE RUIN WROUGHT BY SILVER LEGISLATION. 57 
 
 "I know that, my son. I can, however, show the 
 meaning of Coin's general propositions when we come 
 to square them with the facts about the corn prices 
 as they have been for twenty-five years. Coin takes in 
 and deceives people who know nothing about home 
 values of farm products in the past quarter of a cen- 
 tury. He may possibly find converts to his ideas 
 among the wheat farmers of Kansas, but he cannot ac- 
 complish anything with the old corn-raisers of Iowa, 
 Illinois, or Indiana. His pesky, lies stating the smaller 
 use of corn than wheat; his wabbling when he ascribes 
 one cause to a fact in 1872 and assigns a different one 
 in 1893; his misstatements about the actual condition 
 of the good farmers of oiir country, all look innocent 
 enough to one wlio is unfamiliar with them, but they 
 are as dangerous in one way as the rattlesnakes which 
 they resemble in so many particulars. And yet corn- 
 raising has indirectly freed the country from rattle- 
 snakes and will be the means of destroying these pesky 
 reptUes which Coin, aijiong others, is letting loose into 
 our midst." 
 
 "How is that?" said Greeny; "I don't understand 
 you, father.'' 
 
 "Why, don't you know, my son, that our profit in 
 raising corn comes mainly from feeding it to swine. 
 The hogs are the great enemy of rattlesnakes. The 
 country was full of them when I began farming in 
 Iowa. They kept us in mortal terror so long as we 
 raised wheat, but when we began to raise corn and 
 
68 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 feed it to the hogs, the rattlesnakes Tanished. The 
 hogs rooted out the snakes and ate them up. How I 
 have enjoyed seeing a hog with one of those varmints 
 in his mouth, shaking the life out of it. But just as the 
 rattlesnakes flourished so long and where we raised 
 wheat but vanished with the corn and the hog, so these 
 pesky fallacies of Coin about fifty-cent dollars, the 
 crime of silver demonetization, and the whole associ- 
 ated brood of vipers in the Northern states have no 
 home where the com tassels wave as symbols of farm 
 prosperity. If you want t© find those vipers work- 
 ing their destruction on a large scale, go to the wheat 
 regions. The wealth that the hogs bring to these 
 great states roots out these financial varmints as the 
 swine themselves rooted out the rattlers long ago. The 
 hog may not have much sense himself, but he is a suc- 
 cess in helping humanity to fight snakes. (For illustra- 
 tion, see last page of cover.) 
 
 He aids man to convert the golden grain into gold in 
 a steady stream. He is the great modern alchemist, 
 and if you, my son, begin to tremble lest the world's 
 crop of gold may be gathered into the whelat-pit for bears 
 and bulls to dance and fight over and you be left in rags, 
 go to raising com and set your hogs to killing snakes and 
 turning grain into gold. The hog in the United States 
 will thus in forty years root out and place in the farm- 
 ers' hands more gold than the calamity howlers say can 
 be found in the world. Do you ask me how the hog can. 
 give the farmer more gold than exists? That may be 
 a puzzle to the theorist, but to a practical man it is not. 
 
THE RUIN WEOUaHT BY SILVER LESISLATION. 59 
 
 Hence, I say, my son, if you find yourself perplexed 
 over the gold and silver question, raise corn and let 
 the hog root out for you your share of gold. He al- 
 ways has done it for the farmers who relied upon him. 
 He will continue to do it. What the nation needs 
 now is a repetition in the nineteenth century o^ that 
 miracle of the first, when Jesus bade certain devils, 
 who tormented men, enter into some swine feeding 
 near by. The devils obeyed and the swine (true friends 
 of man) plnnged into the sea and drowned their tor- 
 mentors. Let the hogs get hold of them and someway 
 or other in the nineteenth century, as in the first, they 
 will destroy all kinds of varmints. Have but a grain 
 of faith, my son. See how the hog wUl kill snakes and 
 turn golden grain into gold, and free humanity from 
 devils of financial heresy." 
 
 By the time the old man had finished his remarks, 
 as above, the hour had arrived for young Hayseed to 
 start for the lecture of Coin, and so the subject was 
 (topped for H^ tiihe being. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE LOSSES OF THE WESTERN STATES BY SILVER 
 DEMONETIZATION. 
 
 "One of the most striking differences between a cat 
 and a lie is that a cat has but nine lives." 
 
 — Mark Twain. 
 
 Greenman Hayseed was very anxious that his 
 father should meet Coin. So was his father. He him- 
 self had been quite a favorite of young Coin. On the 
 day of the last conTersation he attended the school of 
 Coin and asked the "smooth little financier" to dine 
 and spend the evening with him. Coin, who had met 
 at young Hayseed's room a lot of enthusiastic silver 
 cranks, gladly consented to be present. The young 
 man invited a half-dozen of his classmates to dine 
 with him and his father and Coin. The young man 
 was so anxious for Coin to meet his father that he 
 could hardly wait the passage of the slow-moving 
 hours. Six o'clock at last arrived and with it came 
 Coin and the others to the rooms, in which young 
 Hayseed had served a fine repast by a local' caterer. 
 The conversation soon turned to the subject of money 
 and prices. The young man began by remarking: 
 
LOSSES BY SILVER DEMONETIZATION. 61 
 
 "By the way, Mr. Coin, father here has some posi- 
 tive ideas quite different from yours concerning the 
 condition of our Western farmers, and the actual 
 standard of prices of the things purchased and sold 
 by them. We had a long talk last night and this 
 morning about corn, and the prices which the farmer^' 
 of Illinois and Iowa have realized for the same during 
 the past quarter of a century. I wish you would con- 
 vert him to our way of thinking." 
 
 Coin replied : "Possibly your father does not under- 
 stand our position. He may not know or be familiar 
 with the legislation wtich has so disastrously affected 
 the civilized world. Permit me briefly to state the 
 same. The value of the property of the world, as ex- 
 pressed in money, depends on what money is made of, 
 and how much money there is. All writers on political 
 economy admit the quantitative theory of money. 
 Common sense confirms it. So if the quantity of 
 money is large, tlie total value of the property of the 
 world will be correspondingly large as expressed in 
 dollars or money units. If the quantity of money is 
 small, the total value of the property of the world will 
 be correspondingly reduced. Property measures its 
 value in money, and money measures its value in prop- 
 erty. Money may increase in value by reason of its 
 scarcity. When this is the case it brings more prop- 
 erty, property brings less money. 
 
 "In the same way I understand," said the old gen- 
 tleman Hayseed, "that whenever property brings more 
 money it is because property has increased by reason 
 
62 PARMER HATSBED IN TOWN. 
 
 of its scarcity or the relative demand therefor, or 
 money has decreased by reason of its increased relative 
 abundance." 
 
 "Your understanding of the subject," said Coin, 
 "is correct. The same lay/ of supply and demand ap- 
 plies to money in all its forms as applies to any other 
 specific class of property. If a certain number of bush- 
 els of wheat is a normal supply for the world's use, 
 and only half that quantity of wheat is produced, 
 wheat is worth about twice as much per bushel as if 
 the normal amount had been raised. A bushel of 
 wheat will buy twice as much money as it would have 
 bought if there had been a normal quantity. This 
 rule applies to money. If there is a normal quantity, 
 it measures its value in property at a certain price 
 subject to supply and demand affecting property only. 
 If a normal quantity of money on a sound financial 
 basis is maintained, values of property and debts with 
 reference to the time of contraction and payment will 
 be equitably adjusted, and fluctuations in values will 
 depend on locality and supply and demand of property, 
 not money. Until 1873 the primary money of the world 
 was both gold and silver at a parity. They were vir- 
 tually one metal. The demand for primary money 
 was met by a supply of both metals. The relative 
 taluations of property to money and money to property 
 adjusted themselves accordingly. Then came the aban- 
 donment of the use of silver as primary money by the 
 United States, followed by Germany, four months 
 later, and then by the -Latin union, and recently by 
 India. A new standard ot measuring values was set 
 
LOSSES BY SILVER DEMONETIZATION. 63 
 
 up. Silver and gold combined were displaced by gold 
 alone." 
 
 "Was silver displaced by gold in Asia or the Span- 
 ish American states?" asked Mr; Hayseed. "Is there not 
 as much silver at present in those countries as the 
 primary money of the people as there ever was?" 
 
 "Assuredlyl" said Coin. 
 
 "Has the United States and the countries of Europe 
 lessened the total amount of silver in use among them 
 as money?" 
 
 "No, sir. On the contrary, the total amount of sil- 
 ver in use in the civilized nations of the world has in 
 the past twenty-five years been largely increased, espe- 
 cially by the unprecedentedly large silver coinage of 
 the United States in those yearsi But I do not refer 
 to the use of silver as money but only its use as pri- 
 mary money, the money of ultimate redemption. Sil- 
 ver was deprived of the privilege of free coinage at 
 the mints and use as primary money. It thus became 
 the property of the world, to have its value also meas- 
 ured by gold. As the standard for measurement in 
 the countries making the change was only one-half 
 of What it had been, it meant the decline in value 
 of all property." 
 
 "Here, Mr. Coin, is where I shall have to beg leave 
 to differ with you. You admit that there is vastly 
 more silver used as money now than in 1873. If 
 used as money it aids in establishing prices the world 
 over; at least this is what I claim in this connection. 
 You deny this and claim instead that prices are not 
 
64 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 established by the amount or quality of money in circu- 
 lation and used to pay debts and purchase commodi- 
 ties, but alone by the volume of money that is stamped 
 under one particular system- of coinage. This to me 
 seems nonsense, as it would be to say that silver 
 stamped by a die painted white is money while stamped 
 in one painted yellow is not money. Let us honestly 
 see the truth of such a statement as yours when tested 
 by history. Gold and silver circulated as money thou- 
 sands of years before they were ever coined under free 
 coinage or any other system of stamping those metals 
 in mints. Now, if your statement about the method 
 of coining silver is correct, that ancient use of un- 
 stamped gold and silver could not have had anything 
 to do in establishing prices for other commodities. 
 But such use did fix prices as much as any money now 
 aids in establishing them. The stamping of gold and 
 sUver in a mint under free coinage or any other system 
 of coinage does not give valine to those metals. It 
 merely gives the world notice how many grains of 
 these commodities are contained in a given coin. It 
 is not the method of stamping gold or silver, but their 
 use, that aids in fixing prices. It is the same with all 
 other objects employed as money. You yourself ad- 
 mit that the greenbacks without gold or silver assisted 
 during the war times in establishing prices in the 
 United States. Why, then, do you deny to the silver 
 used as money to-day the power or influence that you 
 ascribe to the greenbacks for twenty-eight years?" 
 
LOSSES BY SILtEfi, DEMONETIZATION. 65 
 
 ^Greenbacks," answered Coinj "during the days of 
 the suspension of specie payments were primary money 
 and hence assisted in fixing prices. When specie pay- 
 ments were resumed greenbacks ceased to be primary 
 money." 
 
 "Just so, Mr. Coin. Then if your theory of primary 
 money fixing prices is sound, the prices of all articles 
 should have fallen at once when by the fiction of law 
 greenbacks, Jan. 1, 1879, ceased to be primary money 
 and became money of redemption. There was no such 
 change, but rather the opposite. Prices advanced after 
 1879 instead of declining as they should by your theory. 
 You and I, Mr. Coin, differ in this respect. I say if 
 other things, the quality of the money, the general in- 
 dustrial condition, etc., remain the same, the amount of 
 money in circulation aids in modifying or determining 
 prices. If the volume of money increases prices will 
 advance. If that volume diminishes prices will be 
 lower. You say these statements are true only of 
 money put into circulation under free coinage. The 
 test of the pudding is in the eating, as the old proverb 
 expresses it. We have seen how your theory does not 
 square with the facts about money before the general 
 coinage of the precious metals. It does not agree with 
 the known changes in prices which followed the re^ 
 sumption of specie payments in 1879. The facts of 
 those two periods, ancient and modern, do agree with 
 my statement about the relation of money to prices. 
 Let us further apply your statement and mine about 
 money to the condition of affairs to-day." 
 5" 
 
66 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 "I understood you to say that, as the result of this 
 change in money standards, there has been a decline of 
 all values in all countries making it. Do you in this 
 statement mean to include all parts of the United 
 States and all classes of people therein?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Then you say that grain prices to the producers 
 of the great West have declined one-half, or that gold 
 in this section will buy of the farmer twice as much 
 grain as twenty-five years ago?" 
 
 »?7-2 
 
 If-'^r 
 
 in> IS- 96- 
 
 COIN SAYS THAT PKICES HAVjE DBOPPKD ONE-HALP AND 
 DEBTS BBMATN THE SAME. 
 
 "I will state this in another way. Where in 1870 
 the farmers were able to receive two dollars for a cer- 
 tain amount of grain they now receive but one. As 
 the result of these changes the value of gold increased 
 just as the value of your wheat would increase if the 
 double duty of both com and wheat were put upon 
 it. Remember that money has no way of expressing 
 its value except by what it will buy. The gold of a 
 gold dollar may double or treble in value, but so 
 
- LOSSES BY SILVER DEMONETIZATION. 67 
 
 long as it is the unit of value it will still be called 
 a dollar, and when expressed in terms, of money 
 no increase in its value will be indicated. It only ex- 
 presses its value in its purchasing power. If a doUar 
 buys a bushel of wheat during a time when the sup- 
 ply of wheat is normal, and the conditions continuing 
 normal, a dollar will buy two bushels of wheat, then 
 the dollar has doubled its purchasing power." 
 
 The old gentleman Hayseed had listened atten- 
 tively to what Mr. Coin had been saying. At this point 
 he thought it worth while to ask a further question, 
 as follows: 
 
 *1 agree with you in much of your exposition of 
 the relation of money and the valuation of commodi- 
 ties. We may, however, possibly differ in our applica- 
 tion of the same. To discuss such questions under- 
 standingly, two individuals must be sure that they 
 are using words in the same way. Before you go fur- 
 ther permit me"a few more questions." 
 
 "Certainly," said Coin, much relieved by the frank 
 statement of the old gentleman. His words lifted 
 from his mind the fear that possibly he might have 
 difficulty in maintaining his position before his ad- 
 mirers with the old farmer. 
 
 "If I understand you," continued the old gentle- 
 man, "you teach that where the supply and demand 
 of both money and commodities continue the same, 
 if money buys more of the commodities, we are to infer 
 that the intrinsic value of money has raised or ad- 
 vanced?'' 
 
68 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 "You rig!htly apprehend my meaning," replied Coin. 
 
 "Under the same conditions, if money buys less com- 
 modities we can infer that the value of money has de- 
 preciated, and if it buys the same it is unchanged?" 
 
 "You are quite right in your inferences," s^id Coin, 
 inwardly congratulating himself upon the old farm- 
 er's thorough understanding of the subject. 
 
 "I infer from the words you use that your system 
 of finance allows for temporary and local modifica- 
 
 GOLD DEPBECIAIES BECAUSE IT BUYS LESS OF THESE COMMODITIES. 
 
 tions of your general propositions. Thus, if one of two 
 different states or great sections of a country had a 
 famine and the other large crops you would expect to 
 find higher prices for grain in the country or section 
 with the famine and lower where plenty prevailed. 
 The purchasing power of money would be modified 
 by the temporary and local variations in the supply 
 and demand of the commodities to be purchased." 
 
LOSSES BY SILVER DEMONETIZATION. 69 
 
 "You are quite right," said Coin. 
 
 "In the same way, varying supplies of money due 
 to local and transient causes will affect prices. In 
 a time of bank panics men have to sacrifice, as we say; 
 that is, to sell objects below their current price. Money 
 is worth more. Men have to pay a higher rate of in- 
 terest for its use than in times or places where money 
 is plenty?" 
 
 "Yes, that is correct," said Coin, inwardly chuck- 
 ling at the nice way the old farmer was stating it, 
 uttering at times his own words, and 'Greeny' could 
 hardly believe his ears. His father seemed to talk 
 so different with Coin than he had the night before 
 with him. He began to wonder if it was all due to his 
 own lack of ability to draw out his father. The latter, 
 however, after receiving Coin's reply, continued : 
 
 "Then, of two states or sections at the saine time 
 with good crops the world over, you would naturally 
 expect the purchasing power of money, due to such a 
 cause as that of the silver legislation to which you 
 refer, to be enhanced more where money for local 
 causes commanded a higher rate of interest than in 
 the one where great quantities of material wealth 
 made interest rates low? You will find it greater in 
 the farming sections of the West than in the money 
 centres of the East. The debtors of Kansas will note 
 the change more than the creditors in New York. The 
 value of CTOTps on the farms in Minnesota will change 
 more than the prices of grains in the great markets of 
 the world like Liverpool or Hamburg. Would they 
 not, Mr. Coin?" 
 
70 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 "Yes," replied Coin. These questions were new to 
 him and he began to wonder whither the old farmer 
 was leading him or what he was aiming at. Not un- 
 derstanding him, he began to be a little perturbed. 
 
 "In the same way," said Hayseed, "if you wanted 
 to ascertain the effect of a famine in Russia upon 
 prices in Eussia, you would have to prosecute your 
 inquiry in that country and not in America, Australia, 
 or Argentina. The Russian famine affected prices 
 in all the countries named, but its appalling and 
 destructive effects as well as its greatest advance 
 in prices were alone to be noted in the famine- 
 stiicken district. In America we could note the 
 effect of the famine in the prices of wheat, but the 
 effect of the famine thus to be noted in our midst 
 was the effect in Russia modified by an infinite num- 
 ber of outside causes. To learn the effect of any 
 cause upon those immediately concerned we must not 
 study that effect by proxy, but go to the parties con- 
 cerning whom we desire information. Do we want to 
 know the effect of any force or influence or legisla- 
 tion in California we must not prosecute our inquiry 
 in Patagonia but in the Golden State. So if we de- 
 sire to ascertain the effect of the silver legislation of 
 the past twenty-five years upon the producers of the 
 world, we must go to the producers and not into the 
 markets of the consumers. We must go to those pro- 
 ducers where the effect of silver legislation can be 
 noted apart from the changes in the cost of produc- 
 tion or transportation. For if we seek for the effects 
 of silver legislation where may be found the effects 
 
LOSSES BY SILVER DEMONETIZATION. 71 
 
 of other mighty economic changes, it will be difficult 
 to separate the influences of silver legislation and 
 speak understandingly of the same?" 
 
 "I think you are right," said Coin, "although I do 
 not fully apprehend your application of it." 
 
 "I will be more explicit. Do we want to learn . 
 the effect of silver demoneti^tion upon the farmers 
 of Iowa, we must examine prices in Iowa and not those 
 in Thibet or Mongolia, or even Liverpool, New York, 
 or Chicago. If we want to find the effect of that leg- 
 islation upon the producer, we must ascertain the 
 home or farm value of the produce raised and not the 
 price at which it is disposed of by speculators. We 
 must separate from our inquiry the large or small 
 profits of the middlemen and speculators and of the 
 transportation companies. When we are asking about 
 the effect of one cause upon the producer we must 
 stick to our text and learn how much gold he can pur- 
 chase with his toil, or, what is Ohe same, with the com- 
 modities of which he has to dispose. Do we want to 
 know the effect of silver legislation upon the producers 
 living on our great American prairies, we must go to 
 the farmers and inquire what are the home or farm 
 values of the great staples in the West, and at. the 
 doors of the farmers, before they have been modified 
 by the work of the railroad companies or the dishonest 
 and unscrupulous acts of our bulls and bears here 
 in Chicago and in other great markets. Am I not 
 right, Mr. Coin?" 
 
 Coin saw that Mr. Hayseed had made no illogical 
 use of his own premises. He had but expressed them a 
 
72" FAEMEK HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 r 
 
 little more in detail than he himself had. There was 
 therefore but one answer possible for him to make. 
 It was: 
 
 "I think you are correct, Mr. Hayseed." 
 "I am glad," said Farmer. Hayseed, "that you can 
 as fully agree with me as I agreed with you at the 
 outset of our conversation this evening. Now let us 
 apply these principles upon which we seem to be 
 agreed to stand. Let us ascertain what has been the 
 effect upon the agriculturist producers of the great 
 West, of the economic changes, including the so-called 
 demonetization of silver since 1870. We will take all 
 the Northern states of our Union between the Missis- 
 sippi River and the Rocky Mountains, including Mis- 
 souri, Iowa, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Ne- 
 braska, and Kansas. With the exception of the first, 
 they are comparatively new states, states whose settle- 
 ment and cultivation have opened up a territory of 
 productive lands so vast that the cereals produced 
 by them give price to American markets and furnish 
 all the grain for export from the Atlantic and Gulf 
 ports of our nation. The farmers of these states are 
 par excellence producers, and if anywhere in the world 
 can be clearly found the results of the demonetization 
 of silver upon the producers, it is within the confines 
 of these states covering a territory of 516,185 square 
 miles. This is equal to four times the territory of 
 Great Britain and Ireland with the Kingdom of Por- 
 tugal added thereto. It is substantially the size of the 
 Empire of Germany, Austria, and Hungary, Denmark 
 and Switzerland, or that of France, Spain, and Italy. 
 
LOSSES BY SILVER DEMONETIZATION. 73 
 
 In 1890 there was in these seven states a population 
 of 8,890,439, largely devoted to agriculture and the 
 transportation of the products of the farm. In the 
 five years 1870 to 1874, inclusive, these states, accord- 
 ing to the United States Department of Agriculture, 
 raised 1,121,613,000 bushels of corn with a home value 
 to its producers of |397,407,270. In the last five years 
 these same states raised 3,187,764,216 bushels, of a 
 home value, at the farms of the producers, of |1,087,- 
 545,000. The average gold home value of this corn was 
 in the tea years 1870 to 1879, 25.9 cents a "bushel. For 
 the next ten years 1880 to 1889, it was 28.6, and for 
 the last five years 1890 to 1894, it was 34.1 cents. The 
 average gold value at the farm for the whole period 
 of twenty-five years was 29.2 cents a bushel. The fig- 
 ures for Dakota were not separated by the government 
 ofllcials in the reports until 1880 and hence are not 
 included in the foregoing until that year." 
 
 One of the young men present at this point said: 
 'Will you kindly express the relative change between 
 the different ten-year periods in terms of per cent, gain, 
 or loss, upon the amounts or values for the earlier 
 years?" 
 
 Mr. Hayseed answered at once: "The home value 
 of corn of these seven states averaged for the last five 
 years thirty-five per cent higher than the correspond- 
 ing values in gold of the same cereals in the years 
 1870 to 1879, before the demonetization of silver, or be- 
 fore the world could have been affected by that legis- 
 lation in the least. There is here to be noted a regu- 
 
74 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 lar and continuous increase in the averages for ten- 
 year periods instead of such a decrease as Coin's 
 theories call for and as he asserts exists. This con- 
 tinued advance in the home value of com in these 
 seven trans-Mississippi states is about the same as in 
 the five states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and 
 Wisconsin. In those states the home gold values were, 
 in 1870 to 1879, 32.2 cents; 1880 to 1889, 37.8 cents; 
 1890 to 1894, forty cents, and for 1870 to 1894, 35.9 
 cents. Here =was an increase in the home values of 
 corn for the last five years over those of 1870 to 1879 
 of twenty-four per cent, or 7.8 cents a bushel. The cor- 
 responding increase in the seven states west of the 
 Mississippi was 8.2 cents a bushel. The percentage 
 of gain was somewhat different, but the actual gain 
 per bushel in cents is practically identical. The dif- 
 ference noted is no greater than the possible margin 
 of error in the government estimates." 
 
 The young man who had once before asked a ques- 
 tion, now spoke up, saying: 
 
 "WUl you kindly tell us, Mr. Hayseed, what light 
 your figures throw upon the relative purchasing power 
 of gold in terms of corn or of corn in terms of gold since 
 1870?" 
 
 Mr. Hayseed answered : 
 
 "Corn buys more money on the average in these 
 seven trans-Mississippi states than it did twenty years 
 ago, or gold buys less corn, as we may prefer to state 
 it. It is the same with the states east of that river. 
 
LOSSES BY SILVER DEMONETIZATION. 
 
 75; 
 
 Where once it took on an average 25.9 cents in gold to 
 buy a bushel of com in 1870 to 1879, it now requires 
 34.1 cents. The purchasing power of gold has in these 
 seven Western states in twenty-flve years so depreci- 
 ated in terms of corn that where in 1870 ten dollars 
 would buy thirty-six bushels it will now only buy thirty 
 bushels. Commodities in a financial balance are heav-, 
 
 GOLD TIP, BECAUSE CHEAP; COMMODITIES DOWN, BKCATTSE DBAB. 
 
 ier relatively than they formerly were. Hence the 
 financial situation can be illustrated, Mr. Coin, by one 
 of your pictures. It is a picture, however, which you 
 have improperly explained or labeled. It is this pic- 
 ture showing a balance with commodities in one scale 
 
76 FARMER HATSEBD IN TOWN. 
 
 and gold in another, the commodities being down and 
 gold up. The commodities are heavier than the gold. 
 Gold is the lighter; that is, in. a financial balance it is 
 worth less than the commodities which it formerly bal- 
 anced. The gold has depreciated relatively in im- 
 portance or value or weight, or the commodities have 
 appreciated; hence the gold has gone up in the bal- 
 ance, as the lighter or less important one is bound to 
 do. The cause which has effected this change I believe 
 you call the crime of 1873. By that I suppose you mean 
 to assert that it has caused the price of bread and meat 
 made from corn to advance for the consumers of the 
 world. Am I not right, Mr. Coin?" 
 
 Mr. Coin, thus appealed to, stammered and essayed 
 to speak. For several minutes he had been uncertain 
 whether he was actually listening to a man in the 
 flesh or whether he was not in a dreadful nightmare. 
 After a moment he came to himself sufflcient to say, 
 "Have you not made a mistake in your figures, Mr. 
 Hayseed? What is your authority for the same?" 
 
 "I have taken them from the Statistical Abstract of 
 the Treasury Department, which I once understood you 
 to say was the best possible authority." 
 
 **I cannot dispute that authority." But recovering 
 himself a little from the dazed condition into which 
 Mr. Hayseed's figures threw him, he continued by say- 
 ing: 
 
 "Corn, you know, is an exceptional grain." 
 
 "Possibly," said Mr. Hayseed. "We will take the 
 
lOSSBS BY SILVER DEMONBlIZATlON. 
 
 77 
 
 figures for oats in the same states together with Ohio, 
 Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Here they 
 are. In the five years 1870 to 1874, these states raised, 
 not including the Dakotas, 743,308,000 bushels of oats, 
 with a home value of |246,070,720. The same states, in- 
 cluding the Dakotas, in the last five years, raised 2,378,- 
 591,968 bushels, worth |710,904,607. The average per 
 bushel in 1870 to 1879 was 26.5 cents in gold. In the 
 next ten years that average was 26.2 in gold. For 
 1890 to 1894 this average was 29.9 cents. For 1870 to 
 1894 it was 27.2. Here is to "be noted a gradual and 
 continued increase in twenty-five years of 3.4 cents 
 a bushel on an average. This is equivalent to an ad- 
 vance of thirteen per cent of the earlier value. The 
 corresponding advance of the seven states west of the 
 Mississippi River was 3.1 cents." 
 
 That you may better see the relation of these aver- 
 age home values of corn and oats in tlLose twelve 
 Western states in the past twenty-five years to the sell- 
 ing price of silver in London, I will place those values 
 and prices in parallel columns. I will in this follow 
 Coin's method of comparing wheat, cotton, and silver, 
 I will use the average for ten- and five-year periods to 
 eliminate the- yearly fluctuations due to transient 
 causes : 
 
 YEAK. 
 
 Home Gold Vaiues Pee Bushel. 
 
 Price of Silver 
 Per Oz. 
 
 
 Corn. 
 
 Oats. 
 
 1870-1879 
 1880-1889 
 1890-1894 
 
 30.0 cts. 
 32.4 cts. 
 36.4 cts. 
 
 26.5 cts. 
 26.2 cts. 
 29.9 cts. 
 
 $1.24 
 
 1.04 
 
 .83 
 
78 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 <'r 
 
 The values of farm commodities are seen to rise 
 steadily with the decline of the selling price of silver. 
 The values of corn and oats rise in a Western farm sec- 
 tion, where you said the demonetization of silver would 
 show its greatest effects, and where prices are the best 
 index of the effect of that silver legislation. If the 
 decline of silver prices, if the so-called demonetization 
 of silver has had any influence upon the prices of farm 
 products in these Western states it has been to ad- 
 vance those prices. How do these changes agree with 
 your theory of money and with mine?" 
 
 "I will have to admit, Mr. Hayseed," replied Coin, 
 "that this advance in the average home gold values of 
 these great cereals in the'West is such as would be ex- 
 pected if all money in circulation in the United States 
 assists in determining prices. It is the opposite of 
 what would result if only what I call primary money 
 aids in thus establishing prices. These figures agree 
 then with your theories about money and discredit 
 mine." 
 
 "They show then, Mr. Coin, that your distinction be- 
 tween money and primary money in fixing prices is a 
 myth and a dream of the fancy, as I said at the begin- 
 ning." 
 
 The student, who had twice before interrupted Mr. 
 Hayseed with questions, now said: 
 
 "Please state, if you can, Mr. Hayseed, a little more 
 clearly, the changed purchasing power of gold and oats 
 in these states in 1870 and 1894." 
 
LOSSES BT SILVER BEMONETI^ATION. 79 
 
 "I will try to comply with your request. Permit 
 me to do it by giving, you a concrete illustration. I 
 wni take the case of the average farmer in these twelve 
 Western states. By average farmer, I mean one whose 
 experience agrees with the average results shown by 
 the tables to have followed from the raising of grain 
 in these states. Our average farmer is in debt and 
 is obliged to raise money to meet his obligations. His 
 average experience in raising money by the sale of his 
 
 IHB FABMEB'S GAIH IS A TBADE FOB GOLD. 
 
 farm products in the ten years 1870 to 1879 and in 
 the five years 1890 to 1894 would have been as foUows: 
 In the earlier years he goes to town to see on what 
 terms he can purchase gold to pay for his mortgage. 
 He finds the price of money way up and oats way 
 down. He goes to all the dealers who have money to 
 sell and the best trade he can make requires him to 
 haul 3,774 bushels of oats to market to purchase 
 $1,000 of gold. The same farmer in the average of 
 the years 1890 to 1894 has this same amount of oats 
 to dispose of. He goes to market to see on what 
 terms he can buy $1,000 of gold. The market price of 
 
80 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 gold is down or that of oats up. There are a number 
 of dealers who want the oats. They begin to tell him 
 what they wiU give him in addition to the needed gold 
 as a bonus or premium, or what they will throw in 
 with the $1,000 gold in return for his oats. He finally 
 takes up with the best, offer. He hauls his oats to 
 town, receives therefor his $1,000 in gold and also his 
 
 
 A MHASUEK OF THE DEPRECIATION OF GOLD. 
 
 bonus, a choice of a self-binding reaper or a buggy, 
 articles which in 1870 were sold in his town for |350, 
 but which at present command a selling price of only 
 $125. I should, however, correct myself. The reaper 
 which he received in this trade is a great improvement 
 over the one which he could have purchased in 1870. 
 With the later machine one man can as driver per- 
 form all the work that was performed by one man as 
 
LOSSES BY SILVER DEMONETIZATION. 81 
 
 driver, a second as raker and eight as binders, twenty- 
 five years before. The reaper or the buggy is the 
 measure of the decline in the value of |1,000 of gold 
 in twenty-five years. When the farmer made this 
 trade for oats he inquired about a corresponding trade 
 in corn. For the amount of this grain which on an 
 average was required to purchase |1,000 m gold in 
 1870 to 1879, the farmer in 1890 to 1894 could have 
 received a little more than for his oats employed in 
 the above described transaction." 
 
 After making the foregoing statements, Mr. Hay- 
 seed turned to Coin and said : "Now, Mr. Coin, be 
 frank with us. Do not oats and corn in these states 
 on an average have an enhanced value as compared 
 with the condition of affairs twenty-five years ago? Is 
 not the pijrchasing power of these farm products 
 greater relatively in terms of gold than in the earlier 
 years?" 
 
 Mr. Coin had been thoroughly surprised by Mr. 
 Hayseed's figures of home values of corn and oats in 
 these twelve producing states of the West. He had al- 
 ways quoted the prices of wheat in some one or other 
 of the great markets for the world's consumers, like 
 New York or Idverpool. He had never been obliged 
 to look the producer's figures squarely in the face be 
 fore this occasion. He could not collect his senses 
 fittingly to reply when the old farmer gave him the 
 farm prices of corn for these Western states. Eut it 
 was otherwise after he had listened to the figures for 
 oats. 
 
82 FAEMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 In reply to Mr. Hayseed's question^, he said: 
 
 "These twelve states make up but a part of the 
 Tinted States, and the experience of the farmer therein 
 may be and is exceptional. We must be guided By 
 the general rule and not by the exceptions." 
 
 "But these states raise over one-half the grain and 
 produce over one-half the meat that is marketed in the 
 United States. In these states the demand for money 
 is greater than in the other states of the Union. The 
 supply of money is less. Money thus commands a 
 higher rate of interest and hence, according to your 
 theory, Mr. Coin, we should have the reduction of farm 
 prices due io silver legislation greater than in the 
 older parts of the country." 
 
 "That is true, but I must insist upon the exceptional 
 character of these states. They may raise over half 
 of the farm productions of the United States, but 
 they produce but a small part of the grain of the world. 
 We must go to all the nations of the world and not to 
 the farms of a few states for our index of changes in 
 prices since 1873." 
 
 "I will agree with you here, Mr. Coin, but we must 
 go to the farms of the great producing countries and 
 not to the place where the consumers purchase the sup- 
 plies. We must go to the farmers of Argentina, Russia, 
 and India, as well as to the farmers of our twelve 
 Western states. Can you give us the average farm 
 prices in gold of these grains in these countries?" 
 
 "No, sir. Theie are no available figures for the 
 same." 
 
LOSSES BY SILVER DEMONETIZATION. 83 
 
 "In the absence of these figures I will ask you a few 
 questions. Is not the cultivation of grain increasing 
 in those lands faster than the population? Where 
 there is such an increase, men in all ages, in all busi- 
 ness enterprises, infer that there is profit. So we may 
 infer that in the great agricultural regions whose prod- 
 ucts fix the' prices in the martets for the consumers, 
 there has been, and is, profit in grain-raising at present 
 prices the same as we have found for corn and oats in 
 these twelve states." 
 
 To this Mr. Coin could frame no reply. He tried 
 to turn the subject of conversation. He said: 
 
 "It is true that the average farmer in these Western 
 states can for his oats and corn buy $1,000 as cheaply as 
 twenty-fiveyears ago and have a buggyor reaper thrown 
 in as a bonus. The grain farmer in Russia, India, and 
 Argentina can also purchase more gold on an average 
 than years ago with a certain number of bushels of his 
 farm products. But in the case of those farmers, as of 
 the Western farmers Mr. Hayseed has referred to, the 
 buggy or reaper represents the changes in the charges 
 for transportation from the far West to the seaboard 
 and to other ultimate markets of consumption that 
 have been brought about in various ways since 1870. 
 I cannot give you the exact figures which represent 
 this reduction in transportation rates between the 
 Kansas, Nebraska, or Dakota farmers' and the con- 
 sumer in New York City. I can only give you an ex- 
 hibit of the same between Chicago and New York and 
 
84 I'ARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 from that approximately estimate the difference for 
 the farmers of Kansas and other reinote states. For 
 the purpose of comparison I take No. 2 corn, No. 2 
 spring wheat, and No. 2 mixed oats in New York and 
 the corresponding grains in Chicago. I compare prices 
 in the two cities in different years, reducing all figures 
 to a gold basis. Doing so, I find that while the difference 
 in 1872 between the average gold prices in Chicago and 
 New Yotk was for oats 17.3 cents a bushel, for corn 
 25.8 cents, and for wheat 32.6 cents, the same differ- 
 ence in 1873 was for oats 16.7 cents, for corn 24.7 cents, 
 and for wheat 34.7 cents, and in 1892 the corresponding 
 difference was only 6.9 cents for oats, twelve cents for 
 corn, and 12.8 cents for wheat. From these facts I 
 know that the cost of transporting grain from Chi- 
 cago to the seaboard had declined on an average in 
 twenty years for oats about ten cents a bushel, for corn 
 thirteen cents, and for wheat over twenty cents. Ex- 
 act figures for 1894 would show a still greater reduc- 
 tion in the charges for transportation between Chicago 
 and the seaboard. This reduction in freight rates be- 
 tween Chicago and New York is not over two-thirds 
 the corresponding reduction for the average producer 
 in these twelve states. We can say, therefore, that 
 the freight rattes between the average farm of these 
 states and the seaboard in twenty-five years declined 
 fifteen cents per bushel for oats, twenty cents for corn 
 and thirty cents for wheat. For the states west of the 
 Mississippi Eiver this decline was much greater. The 
 
LOSSES BY SILVER DEMONETIZATION. 85 
 
 farmer is justly entitled to Ms share of these changes 
 in transportation rates, and your figures show not that 
 gold has depreciated in value but that the farmer has 
 secured a part at least of the benefits justly belonging 
 to him as the results of reduced cost of transportation. 
 Your figures show that the farmers have gained in 
 these twelve states 6.4 cents a bushels, or about thirty- 
 two per cent of those results for corn and 4.1 cents a 
 bushel, or twenty-seven per cent of those for oats." 
 
 "Quite right," said Hayseed. "I agree fully with 
 you in all that you have said. I only referred to the 
 silver question to show what I consider your fallacy 
 in dealing with wheat prices. The figures for corn and 
 oatsi show that the farmers in these states, as the re- 
 sults of the inventions and changes in the methods of 
 producing corn and other grain and transporting it to 
 the seaboard, have been able to secure a very "large 
 gain for themselves. Let us see if we can estimate 
 its magnitude. They keep to themselves all the bene- 
 fits due to lessened cost of raising grain in the states. 
 They have substituted a plow that turns a wider fur- 
 row than the one employed in 1870. Where once in 
 planting com they had to mark the ground both ways 
 and have two men to plant, they now dispense with 
 marking and one man and one team will do the work 
 formerly performed by four men and three teams in 
 planting. Other great gains are to be noted in the 
 use of the self-binding reaper for cutting oats, wheat 
 and other smaU grain. Taking all improvements to- 
 
86 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 gether it can safely be said that the farmer's cost of 
 raiping corn or any small grain has been reduced over 
 one-third in twenty-flve years. All this gain the aver- 
 age farmer is shown by the figures here presented to 
 have kept for his own benefit and, in addition, to have 
 reaped an advantage due to lessened transportation 
 rates of a sum equal to seventeen per cent of the pres- 
 
 PAEM MOETaAGE CHASM FILLED BY PBOFIT ON COKN. 
 
 ent selling price of his corn and of fourteen per cent 
 of the present home value of his oats. The total rela- 
 tive gain due to these two causes for the farmer in 
 these twelve states in the past five years amounts for 
 corn and oats alone to about 1,225 million dollars. It 
 is the share of those farmers in the results of the 
 
LOSSES BY SILVER DEMONETIZATION. 87 
 
 economic progress of the present over the condition of 
 affairs in the West twenty-five years ago. It will pur- 
 chase nearly one-third of all the gold or silver in the 
 world and practically pay for one-seventh of the farms 
 now existing in the vast territory embraced in the 
 twelve states. 
 
 "Let me state the vastness of this sum in another 
 way. This 1,225 millions of dollars which the farmers 
 in these twelve states gained in the past five years 
 from their oats and corn, over and above what they 
 would have gained therefrom if the average prices had 
 prevailed which ruled during the ten years 1870 to 
 1879, is suflflcient to pay all the home farm mortgage , 
 debts of these states and leave almost enough to pay 
 the similar debts in the other states of the Union. 
 The difference on corn alone would more than pay these 
 debts in these twelve states. Some writers are wont 
 to speak of those debts as if they were a chasm open- 
 ing in the earth and threatening to swaUow up our 
 farm homes and destroy our national life as did that 
 fabled chasm that appeared in ancient Eome when a 
 noble leader was found to threw himself in as a substi- 
 tute and thus saved the state. But here we find that this 
 chasm of debt can be filled for these twelve states by 
 the increased value and decreased cost of raising corn 
 for five years. The average farmer, if content to live 
 as in 1870, will pay off his debt in five years with the 
 increased net income from his corn crop." 
 
 Here young Hayseed interrupted his father by say- 
 ing: 
 
88 FAEMEE HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 "If the farmers have realized this immense relative 
 gain as compared with the earlier experience, what 
 has become of the money? It has gone somewhere. 
 You can't stow away, in practice, any 1,225 million 
 dollars in a napkin." 
 
 "The money, my son, has gone to purchase watches, 
 carriages, furniture, canned goods, fruit, and all sim- 
 ilar supplies. It has paid the expense of sending 10,- 
 000 children — boys and girls— ^to college. It has en- 
 abled countless retired farmers to travel to California 
 and even to Europe. It has purchased better clothes. 
 It has been used in buying more lands. I called your 
 attention, my son, this morning to the immense ex- 
 tension of human expenses along all these lines. We 
 here see where the money comes from to pay the bills." 
 
 Turning to Mr. Coin, Mr. Hayseed continued: 
 
 "We have found in the figures for the crops of these 
 states an approximate estimate of the benefit which 
 has come to their farmers in twenty-five years as the 
 results of the economic changes of that period, in- 
 cluding the effects of the so-called demonetization of 
 silver. Or, at least, we have found the part of that 
 benefit which follows or accompanies the cultivation 
 of corn and oats in these states. The greater share 
 of the corn and oats of these states is fed to swine and 
 cattle and sent East in the form of meat, lard, butter, 
 cheese, but mostly in the form of hog products. Some 
 one has to pay for all this gain secured by the West- 
 ern farmers. Who is it?" 
 
LOSSES BY SILVER BEMONETIZATION. 
 
 89 
 
 "The consumers," said Coin. 
 
 "Quite right," said Hayseed. "But where do they 
 reside?" 
 
 "In the East and in Europe," said Coin. "In those 
 sections reside the people who purchase the surplus 
 food products of the West?" 
 
 "thb financial situation can then be eepeesented in this wise." 
 
 "Then the East is aiding in the support of the West. 
 The financial situation can then be represented in this 
 wise:" (The old gentleman went to a blackboard in 
 the room and rapidly sketched a map of the United 
 States with a huge swine, labeled "The West," with 
 
90 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 his fore feet in New York and Pennsylvania, and eat- 
 ing out of a trough extending from New England to 
 Washington. The hind legs of the hog rested in Kan- 
 sas and Iowa, and seven lusty pigs labeled Iowa, Kan- 
 sas, Missouri, Nebraska, Minnesota, and South and 
 North Dakota, were drawing the nourishment from 
 the mother. Uncle Sam was looking on and saying to 
 a wee bit of a pig marked R. I., "Gro West, little fellow, 
 and grow up with the country.") 
 
 When the old man had finished his picture the young 
 fellows were laughing heartily thereat. Coin saw he 
 was in a tight box and did not want to talk longer with' 
 the old man until he had had time to look up some 
 facts and figures which had occurred to him. He, how- 
 ever, took occasion to say, "You have, in all that you 
 have said, forgotten or neglected to consider the facts 
 concerning the two great staples of American agri- 
 culture, wheat and cotton. They tell a different story. 
 I wish I had tinie to stay and discuss them with you, 
 but cannot. I must say good-night to you all." And 
 extending his hand in his smooth way to the members 
 of the party, he took his departure. His frame of mind; 
 as he went, illustrated the truth of Mark Twain's re- 
 mark which stands at the beginning of this tale. The 
 old man had destroyed several lives to the untruth 
 about the effects of silver legislation upon prices and 
 the condition of the farmers, yet Coin had in his make- 
 up, as had his fellows of kindred ideas, a hundred 
 more lives to the same fiction. 
 
LOSSES B7 SILVER DEMONETIZATION, 
 
 91 
 
 On the basis of a decline in the price of wheat 
 and cotton in New York and, Liverpool, Coin asserts 
 a decline in the value of all farm products and in the 
 selling price of everything of which anyone wishes to 
 dispose. He knew better, as is seen by the many ex- 
 amples Coin himself gives on page 43 of his school-book 
 of articles sold at the prices in 1870. His office cat, 
 looking at the picture on that page and afterward 
 hearing Coin repeatedly assert the old statement of 
 a universal decline of prices due to silver demonetiza- 
 tion, came to present an appearance something like 
 that shown in the accompanying illustration. Does 
 not Coin's talk about the effect of silver legislation 
 now begin to exhibit a little of the same cast of counte- 
 nance? 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE KET TO WESTERN FARM PROSPERITY. 
 
 "He is useless on top of the ground. He ought to 
 be under it, inspiring the cabbages." 
 
 — MarJc Twain. 
 
 When Coin had left the room the night of the din- 
 ner at young Hayseed's, the father of the young man 
 heaved a sigh, and said, "That man makes me tired. 
 He is one of those fellows who moves on a track. His 
 tongue runs like an engine so long as he can keep the 
 conversation going on the lines he has laid down. The 
 moment he is switched off from those lines he is as 
 helpless as a ditched locomotive. He has a fixed lingo 
 about wheat, cotton, and silver; and upon these themes 
 
THE KEY TO WESTERN FARM PROSPERITY, 93 
 
 he can in his way talk your arm off. But he cannot, 
 or will not, long converse upon an^^ other subject re- 
 lating to finance, prices, and the like. Neither will 
 he consent long to discuss his favorite themes save 
 in his stereotyped way. You all saw how, when I 
 confined the subject to the prices of corn and oats in 
 the West Instead of wheat in Eastern or European 
 cities, he had pressing business. He left, and we had 
 not finished our first cigar; and you have told me, my 
 son, how he liked to linger and talk and smoke with 
 you boys until the small hours of the morning." 
 
 There was a silence in the room for a moment. 
 Then one of the young fellows named Hans Breiten- 
 f elds, a German, spoke up. Yoiing Breitenfelds' father 
 was a large landholder in Germany, and the young 
 man, after finishing his education at home, was visit- 
 ing America to see and learn something about the 
 New World. The subject of silver and the prices of 
 wheat, corn, and pork interested him greatly. The 
 depression in prices of farm products at home had 
 been immense. It had been even greater than was 
 indicated by the figures of Coin, showing a decline in 
 the average shipping value per bushel of the wheat 
 that had been exported from America from 1872 to 
 1893. Before visiting America he had traveled in Eng- 
 land and found the agricultural situation there, in 
 some respects, worse than at home. In England, as in 
 Germany, people were talking about the depression 
 in the prices of farm products. Parliament in both 
 countries had investigated the cause of that deprea- 
 
94 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 sion. That depression was a vital subject for him- 
 self and his father's family. It was slowly bankrupt- 
 ing them. Was there to be no end t» it for the farmers 
 in Germany? How could the evils of the present situ- 
 ation in that country be remedied temporarily, even if 
 not permanently? To find answers to these questions, 
 if possible, was the main object of his visit to this 
 country. 
 
 Mr. Breitenfelds said: 
 
 "I have found in England and Germany men argu- 
 ing that the silver legislation was the cause of low 
 prices. I was familiar with the iprice quotations em- 
 ployed by the advocates of that proposition in the Old 
 World. I thought thiat, when I reached the United 
 States, I would have new figures. But instead I find 
 the advocates of the free coinage of silver using only 
 a part of the price quotations employed in Europe. 
 There the prices of. all agricultural staples are de- 
 pressed. Here only two seem to be thus affected. 
 Hence silver men only refer to wheat and cotton 
 prices in their argument. They prepare no new tables 
 of even these prices. They have no figures for the 
 value of even their favorite commodities to the Ameri- 
 can producer. They give the figures employed in Eu- 
 rope, ihe prices of wheat and cotton to the consumers." 
 
 "And you have noticed, no doubt," said Mr. Hay- 
 seed, "that there is no necessary or even possible con- 
 nection between the wheat and cotton prices for the 
 consumer and the effect of silver legislation upon the 
 producers of the worid." ^ 
 
THE KEY TO WESTERN FARM PROSPERITY. 95 
 
 "I thank you heartily, Mr. Hayseed, for calling my 
 attention to that fact by your conversation this even- 
 ing with Mr. Coin. It was a new phase of the discus- 
 sion. In my country the prices to the consumers are 
 approximately the value of the products to the farm 
 producers. So it is in England and most other Euro- 
 pean countries as a rule. But our producers do not 
 establish their own prices. Those depend upon the 
 prices of the products of foreign countries such as 
 yours here in the Western American states. Our 
 prices, the prices in Liverpool and New York and 
 even those of such a market as this here in Chicago, 
 prove nothing about, the values of grain to the Ameri- 
 can producers, and to quote the changing price of 
 wheat and cotton to the consumers as proof of the ef- 
 fects of silver legislation upon the American grain 
 producers is therefore absurd." 
 
 "The remarks of Mr. Hayseed and yourself," spoke 
 up one of the young men. present, "remind me of a 
 story. In the country town where my parents reside 
 they have a village debating society. One night they 
 were debating some subject and a fellow who thought 
 he was very bright spoke and closed his speech with 
 the following words, "Stick an iron bar in the fire and 
 it will expand, consequently the moon is inhabited." 
 He started with indisputable premises, but built upon 
 them a conclusion that bore no necessary or possible 
 relation to the starting point So it seems to me with 
 the argument for free coinage of silver as we hear it 
 propounded in the United States, No one disputes 
 
96 
 
 FARMER HA1SEED IN TOWN. 
 
 the prices of wheat in the markets of the consumers. 
 They have fallen greatly in the past twenty-five years. 
 So have the prices of cotton. But such prices to the 
 consumers no more show the effect of silver legislation 
 
 COIN PEOVING THE SETTLEMENT OP THE MOON BY SILVKB GBANKS. 
 
 upon the American farmers than the expansion of an 
 iron bar with heat proved the assertion that the moon 
 is 'inhabited, although the silvery light of that lumi- 
 nary may prove to Coin its settlement by a colony of 
 silver cranks." 
 
THE KEY TO WESTERN FARM PROSPERITY, 97 
 
 "Just SO," said Mr. Breitenf elds. "The fallacy here 
 is more transparent than in Europe, and hence it seems 
 strange that more have been caught with it than with 
 us in the Old World. Possibly the greater experience 
 of the European people with statistics has led them to 
 be less liable to be led away with sophistries." 
 
 "You have come, then," said one of the young men, 
 "to accept the truth of that statement of the witty 
 writer, who said that lies were of three degrees of 
 
 comparison. Positive, 'lie;' comparative, 'd d lie;' 
 
 and superlative, 'statistics.'" 
 
 "That is it, exactly, my young friend. Nothing is 
 more deceiving than columns of figures in the hands 
 (rf men who do not fully .understand the subjects with 
 which they are dealing. Parallel or contrasted col- 
 umns of figures such as those relating to wheat and 
 cotton and silver prices prove nothing of necessity 
 anywhere. This was pointed out to me in England 
 by one who had seen the same table of figures usually 
 given by Coin a:nd other advocates of the free coinage 
 of silver. He said, 'These figures remind me ot a book 
 that once had a large sale and commanded great at- 
 tention in England. It was a book upon the temper- 
 ance question. Its author had gathered the statistics 
 of the consumption of strong drink and those for crime 
 in his country and in the world for 250 years. He 
 arranged tl^e two classes of statistics in parallel col- 
 umns as Coin had his wheat; cotton, and silver prices. 
 The book thus arranged seemed to show that every- 
 where for 250 years, when the average consumption of 
 strong drink increased crime decreased, and when the 
 
98 FABMEK HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 per capita drink bill decreased crime increased.- Hence 
 the writer inferred that the free use of strong drink 
 was the greatest possible prevention and remedy for 
 crime. The figures were absolutely correct, being 
 based upon government returns, but the, tables omitted 
 the data for a third factor that was the connecting 
 link and the cause of all the variations in the use of 
 drink and the commission of crime. The omitted and, 
 really, the only determining, factor was the financial 
 condition of society in different years. When times 
 were good, men purchased more luxuries, including 
 strong drink. On such occasions the motives for 
 crime against property, with which the book alone 
 dealt, decreased. So, also, when financial depression 
 came, drink decreased and crimes against property in- 
 creased. The varying consumption of drink had, how- 
 ever, no direct relation to the changing ratios of prime. 
 One could not be said to be the cause of the other," 
 
 "The logic of the English writer referred to, as well 
 as that of the inexperienced debater aboOt the iron 
 bar," said Mr. Hayseed, ''was better than that of the 
 advocates of the free coinage of silver. In the world 
 at the present time there are a thousand powerful 
 forces and influences at work tending to depress prices. 
 To omit all those forces and influences and confine 
 one's attention to the parallel columns of silver and 
 wheat prices is utterly inexcusable." 
 
 "Mr. Hayseed," said Breitenfelds, "I have been 
 greatly interested in what you have said this even- 
 ing. There has been something breezy in your re- 
 
THE KEY TO WX8TEBN FARM PROSPERITY. 99 
 
 marks. You have taken us away from the wheat-pits, 
 where bulls and bears are dancing and howling, and 
 conducted us to the farms and shown us the value 
 of corn and oats to the producer in the great West. 
 I want to have more information along the same line. 
 Will you therefore kindly tell us something further 
 concerning farm prices in the great centres of produc- 
 tion in the extreme West of the United States, the 
 section that is now dominating the world's prices of 
 cereals and meat products? Also, something about 
 farm mortgage debts and the ability of farmers to meet 
 their obligations now as compared with twenty-five 
 years ago? But first kindly tell us something about 
 wheat prices in these same seven trans-Mississippi 
 states about which you have spoken in connection 
 with corn and oats." 
 
 Mr. Hayseed said: "Those states in the five years 
 1870 to 1874 raised ^18,084,000 bushels of wheat with 
 a farm value of $271,867,380. This was in currency 
 an average of 85.2 cents a bushel. In gold it was, 
 however, only 74.8 cents. These figures do not include 
 the data for the Dakotas. If it did, the foregoing aver- 
 ages would be somewhat reduced, owing to the greater 
 distance of those territories from the primary markets 
 than such states as Iowa, Missouri, and Minnesota. 
 The average for 1875 to 1879 was^ in currency 80.2 
 cents and in gold 76.2 cents a bushel. The average for 
 1880 to 1884 was 77.5 cents a bushel. The next five 
 years it was 65.3 cents and in the last it was 61.1 
 cents. In the last five-year period ending with 1894 
 these seven states produced 947,954,007 bushels of 
 
100 PARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 wheat with a total home or farm value of $579,030,334. 
 
 "You will notice here a decrease in the average home 
 -gold value for wheat in the seven states from 1870 
 to 1894' of 13.7 cents a bushel, which is 18.3 per cent 
 of the average gold farm value of the earlier years. 
 This relative decline is only about one-third as great 
 as that exhibited in the tables of Coin, which show the 
 decline for the consumers of Europe and the New Eng- 
 land states." 
 
 "But do you not think, father," said young Hayseed, 
 "that this decline of even 13.7 cents a bushel on an 
 average in these seven states in twenty-flve years was 
 due to the demonetization of silver? If it was not, how 
 do you account for the same?" 
 
 "If silver legislation affected prices of agricultural 
 products it would, affect all products alike. Here, it 
 is true, we find wheat prices declining, but that decline 
 occurs in the same states and in the same period of 
 time in which the greater staples — corn and oats — 
 have their average price increased by a greater per- 
 centage than the, wheat- prices were lowered. The 
 cause lessening the selling price of wheat is therefore 
 one that only affects wheat. It cannot, therefore, be 
 anything relating to silver legislation. It is due to 
 the fact that wheat is largely exported and the other 
 grains are not. Wheat prices are established by the 
 American grain competing in Europe with the wheat 
 raised by cheap labor in Argentina, India, and Russia. 
 The other grains have their prices established by sup- 
 ply and demand in the United States. The farm values 
 of corn and oats are but little affected for the whole 
 
THE KEY TO WESTERN FAEM PROSPERITY. 101 
 
 country by changes of transportation. Most of those 
 grains are fed to stock on the farm, and the only way 
 that freight charges modify their vajue is in the vary- 
 ing cost of shipping live stock and dressed meat. The 
 farmer himself is the great consumer of corn and oats 
 and the farm value and consumer's price are prac- 
 tically identical for the country as a whole. It is oth- 
 erwise with wheat. Its consumers are far removed 
 from the producers, and hence in all figures for wheat 
 values the world over we trace the effect of trans- 
 portation upon the same." 
 
 "These figures," said Mr. Breitenfelds, "which you 
 have given us for the total and average home value of 
 wheat in these seven states may not, therefore, exhibit 
 the actual changes in those values to a farmer in any 
 given locality in their wide expanse of territory." 
 
 "You are correct," said Mr. Hayseed. "Thus the re- 
 duction of 13.7 cents in the average home value of 
 wheat in these seven states in twenty-five years is at 
 the present time the average cost on the great grain- 
 carrying railroads of the West of transporting sixty 
 pounds of freight 436 miles. Wheat on those roads is 
 made to bear a heavier carrying charge on the average 
 than corn, and hence this reduction of 13.6 cents is not 
 far from the average railroad charge at the present 
 time in these seven states for carrying a bushel of 
 wheat 325 miles. Now, in twenty-five years last past 
 the centre of wheat culture in these seven states has 
 moved nearly, if not quite, that number of miles far- 
 ther from the markets of the consumers. The wheat 
 raised is subject in these states, therefore, to an added 
 
102 E'ARMER HATSHEDf IS TOWN. 
 
 carpyiag charge equal to the cost of moving gr'ain 
 from the preaeQt centre of wheat ptoduetion in these 
 States to its old centre, or 325 miles. This being the 
 c^se, we must infer that on the whole the home talue 
 of a bushel of wheat at any particular town in these 
 states averaged in the paM five years not far from 
 what it averagfed in the five years 1870 to 1874 Iri fact 
 I know this to be the case for many towns. The aver- 
 age farmer at Rochester, Minnesota, and other' towns 
 twehty-flve miles west of the Mississippi River in 1809 
 and 1870 realized about the same for his wheat as in 
 1893 and 1894. The farmer in the Red River Valley, 
 325 miles away from the final market, receives the 
 old Rochester price less the cost of shipping the wheat 
 to Minneapolis or' Duluth. The farmers of Dakota, 
 Kansas, Nebraska, and northwestern Minnesota fix 
 the average value for wheat in these states at present 
 and hot those of Iowa and southeastern Minnesota 
 as twenty-five years ago. Hence the reduction of 13.7 
 cents in the average home value of wheat in the group 
 of states." 
 
 "Your statement of facts, joined with your figures 
 for prices," said Mr. Breitenfelds, "clearly show that 
 the average wheat farmer has not greatly suffered in 
 these wheat states from a fall of prices. He receives 
 less than before, because he has moved where Ms 
 wheat has to be hauled 325 miles farther than in 1870. 
 The silver legislation is not to be accredited with the 
 change any more than it is responsible for ttie extra 
 haul by team for a farmer who had. sold his old farm 
 
THE KEY TO WESTERN FARM PROSPERITY. 103 
 
 near the railway and located thirty miles away from 
 a railroad station." 
 
 '"You hare it exactly. The farmer is sometimes 
 justified in selling his farm and moving thirty miles 
 from the railroad by reason of the cheaper or better 
 lands thus obtained. The difference in the cost of land 
 justifies the extra cost of hauling his products to mar- 
 ket. So on a great scale the farmers in the Red River 
 Valley have the ben.efit of cheaper land than in south- 
 easlern Minnesota. They choose the cheaper lands 
 and heavier freight charges. They do not lose but 
 little, if ahy, by the choice." 
 
 "You have shown us," said Mr. Breitenfelds, "how, 
 under the same condition of transportation charges 
 and limitations as in 1870 to 1874, the wheat r3,ised by 
 the farmers in these states on an average brought 
 nearly, if not quite, the same average home or farm 
 price in 1890 to 1895 as in 1870 to 1874. That simply 
 shows us the relative purchasing power of wheat in 
 tefms 6t gold or gold in terms of wheat. What is the 
 relatrte purchasing power of wheat in terms of the 
 ccHnmodities which the farmer needs on his lands?" 
 
 "A thousand bushels of wheat in Dakota or Kansas 
 in 1894 win purchase about double as much farming 
 machinery of an improved pattern as twenty-five years 
 before. It will also buy nearly double as much of clothes, 
 furniture, or other articles of household use as it 
 would in the earlier years. Measured in terms of these 
 farming implements and other commodities u«ed on 
 the farm, the home value of wheat has been enhanced 
 
104 PARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 in twenty-five years almost as much as gold in Liverpool 
 has been enhanced in terms of wheat." 
 
 "What change in twenty-flve years do you note in 
 the charges for the services that wheat received be- 
 tween the producer in these Western states and the 
 consumer in Europe?" 
 
 "The average cost of carrying a bushel of wheat 
 from Minneapolis to Liverpool in the form of flour is 
 at least forty cents less than the cost of sending a 
 bushel of unground wheat was in 1870. Then there 
 is a further reduction in freight rates west of such 
 local markets in Minneapolis. Then the change in 
 the profits of the millers of the United States has been 
 very large. When the Pillsburys erected their great A 
 mill at an expense of |1,000,000, it was said at the time 
 that their profit for a single year would pay for the 
 cost of the mill. They made oyer one dollar on every 
 barrel of flour turned out by them. Now they are 
 satisfied with a profit of twenty-five to thirty-five cents 
 a bjarrel. Millers are also now able to obtain more 
 good flour out of the same amount of grain than for- 
 merly. This saving amounts to several cents on every 
 barrel of flour to the Eastern or European consumers. 
 In the items now noticed in this review we find a dif- 
 ference in the charges of the middlemen, the men be- 
 tween the producer and consumer, the traders, the 
 millers, and the transportation companies of from sixty 
 to eighty cents a bushel. Do we not have in these 
 figures an explanation of practically all the reduction 
 
THE KEY TO WESTBRN FARM PROSPERITY. 105 
 
 in the price of wheat that has taken place in Ham- 
 burg and Liverpool since 1870?" 
 
 Mr. Hans Breitenfelds had been an intensely in- 
 terested listener to every word of Mr. Hayseed's. He 
 said in comment thereupon : 
 
 "The vast quantities of grain produced in these 
 seven Western states aid other vast quantities' from 
 other American states and the other quantities poured 
 into the world's markets from Argentina, Russia, In- 
 dia, and Australia make up such totals that German 
 grain production seems insignificant. This latter pro- 
 duction has but little power in establishing the world's 
 prices for grain and meat. The German producer is 
 but a fly on a cart-wheel as compared with the great 
 army of producers in western United States and the 
 other countries named. The prices of aU farm com- 
 modities in Hamburg, Liverpool, and New York meas- 
 ure the results of the economic changes of a quarter of 
 a century last past upOn the consumers. The values 
 at the farm doors of the seven great states here con- 
 sidered measure the results of those changes upon the 
 producers. The grain and meat consumers of Europe 
 and New York have gained by the decrease of sixty 
 to eighty cents a bushel in the price of wheat and cor- 
 responding reductions in the cost of beef, pork, lard, 
 and other food products. For them the decline of 
 wheat prices measures the extent of a world revolution 
 in the interest of the mechanic and laborer greater in 
 its beneficence than any economic change that time 
 
106 
 
 FARMER HATSEED IN XOWN. 
 
 has chronicled with the possible exception of those 
 following" and due to the discovery and settlement of 
 America." 
 
 "But Mr. Coin calls this decline in prices a calam- 
 
 THH SHIPS WITH WHICH COLUMBUS DISCOVEBKD AMEBICA AND 
 OPBUED NEW OPPOET0NITIBS TO STBDGGLINQ HUMANITT. 
 
 "I wish to asKj Mr. 
 
 ity," said one of the young men, 
 
 Breitenfelds, if its effect is not a calamity upon the 
 
 farmer of your own country?" 
 
 "Yes, it is," said the latter. "But it is such a 
 calamity as the discovery of America was to the Mags 
 
THE KEY TO WBSTBKN FARM I'SOSPBEITY. W7 
 
 and lords and barons of Europe. The discovery of 
 Aiflericg;, opeftMg new opportunities to struggling, 
 suffering humanity, broke the power and tyranny of 
 the trtlied and privileged of Europe and Opened the 
 way for the development of human liberty. So the 
 cheap bread and meat rendered possible to the artisan 
 of Europe by the economic change in transportation 
 rates is breaking the land monopoly of the rich few 
 in the Old World. It is a plowshare tearing up the soil 
 of inherited wrongs, and In due time will come, in the 
 Old World as in the New, a splendid harvest of added 
 liberty, privileges, and opportunities for the struggling 
 masses." 
 
 "Young Hayseed here interrupted Mr. Breitenfelds 
 with the question: "Do you not have a silver party 
 in Germany composed of those who believe that silver 
 demonetization has been a great factor in depressing 
 prices? And has not the influence of this party led 
 your government to take steps to unite in calling ari 
 international conference to secure the remonetization 
 of silver by a universal treaty?" 
 
 'Ttes," said Mr. Breitenfelds. "But the conference 
 is a myth. It will not be held in any seriousness. The 
 emperor sees the real enemy of his throne and he 
 strikes at it. It is the American hog. His presence 
 in Germany, or, what is the same thingy the sale of 
 American pork in that country has so disturbed 
 prices as to threaten the stability of the throne itself. 
 You can describe the situation, by saying the hog has 
 
108 
 
 tARMEK HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 rooted out the foundation of the throne in so far as it 
 rested upon agriculture.. The emperor perceives this 
 and he tries to exclude the porkers before they do more 
 mischief and leave things where the American steer, 
 in the form of cheap beef, will come tilting into the 
 arena and knock over the whole structure. The hog 
 
 XMFEBOB WILHSLU TBYING TO KILL THB AMEBICAN HOG. 
 
 question is the only serious thing which our rulers see 
 and they are wide-awake and sharp of sight. The 
 American hog must not be allowed to get her living 
 under the throne and leave her hind legs in America 
 to fatten her young and thus give wealth to your farm- 
 ers. That is the situation as Wilhelm beholds it. He 
 is trying to kill the American hog. He can't do it. 
 
THE KEY TO WESTERN FARM PROSPERITY. 109 
 
 His associates are trying to keep the American steer 
 at a distance. The silver conference talk is a part of 
 the scheme to aid the German rulers in keeping out the 
 competition of American pork and beef. They are 
 bound to protect themselves in some way from that 
 competition. They do not want too much trouble with 
 the United States over the hog and steer and so they 
 raise this diversion over silver, knowing well that there 
 are thousands of ill-informed gudgeons in America who 
 will bite at the bait, thrown out in that way, to catch 
 suckers. The silver men, in the hopes^ of gaining the 
 Germans to their side of the Quixotic scheme of turn- 
 ing fifty-cent pieces into dollars, will pat the people' 
 of the fatherland on the back and call them good fel- 
 lows and do nothing for the American hog or his pro- 
 ducer, — the American farmer. Oh, it is a nice scheme, 
 and you should thoroughly admine the intelligence and 
 shrewdness of our rulers in "the perplexing dilemma 
 caused by the free sale of American food products in 
 our markets. There is nothing Quixotic in our em- 
 peror's scheme, whatever there may. be about the 
 dream of theorists concerning the fiat of governments 
 changing permanently the value of two metals or two 
 cereals. The Germans are a practical race. They 
 deal with practical questions in "a pra(3tical way. They 
 look after their own interests by practical measures 
 against the American hog, beef, and wheat, and leave 
 the theorists of the New World to enjoy their dreams of 
 perpetual motion in finance and of the creation of 
 something out of nothing by act of congress. The 
 
no 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 corn-growing farmers of tUe TJnited States should 
 see this fact and not be carried away with the silyer 
 lunacy, as are the nien whose occupations bring them 
 less into practical relations with the world as it really 
 exists." 
 
 Continuing, Mr. Breitenfelds said:. "Permit me now 
 to change the subject. Mr. Hayseed, there Is some 
 variation in the results which you have presented, 
 showing the change in the home values of com, oats, 
 and wheat in your new and great West. How would 
 you strike a balance between them all and show the 
 sum total of the changes in farm values in the twelve 
 great Middle states of your Union in the past twenty- 
 five years?" 
 
 "I would mass the figures for all the three grains. I 
 would secure the sum total of the bushels of the three 
 cereals raised, their total homie value, and the average 
 Of the same. Doing that, I find the results shown in 
 the following tables giving the combined production 
 of corn, oats, and wheat for twenty-five years in the 
 twe'lve states named: 
 
 FiTe-Year 
 Periods. 
 
 Total Froduc- 
 tions, Buahali. 
 
 3?a<Ml Home Valuer 
 in Cunency. 
 
 Average Cnr- 
 rency Value 
 Per Bushel. 
 
 1870-1874 
 1875-1879 
 1880-1884 
 1885-18H9 
 1890-1894 
 
 4,651,758,000 
 7,112,368,786 
 8,496,021,589 ' 
 10,082,749,000 
 9,268,592,471 
 
 $2,258,479,7.30 : 
 2,751,007,064 
 3,807,406,401 
 3,362,808,307 
 3,681,323,637 
 
 48.5 £ta. 
 
 38.7 cts. 
 
 44.8 cts. 
 33.4 cts. 
 39.7 cts. 
 
 1870-1894 
 
 39,601,489,846 
 
 $15,861,105,139 
 
 40.0 cts. 
 
 Average gold value per bushel 1870 to 1879, 39 cents. 
 Average gold valne per bnshel 1880 to 1889, 38.6 cents. 
 Average gold value of twenty-five yeais, 39 cents. 
 
THE KEY TO WESTERN FARM PROSPERITY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 "The corresponding figures for Illinois, Indiana, 
 Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan are: 
 
 Hve-Year 
 Feiiods. 
 
 Total Production, 
 BuBhete. 
 
 Total Home Values 
 in Gunencj. 
 
 Arerara Cur- 
 rency Value 
 Per Bushel. 
 
 1870-1874 
 1875-ltt79 
 1880-1885 
 1885-1889 
 1890-1895 
 
 1,691,895,000 
 2,990,937,616 
 4,506,663,334 
 5,711.316,000 
 5,423,140,502 
 
 -$750,031,840 
 1,003,744,898 
 1,738,716,973 
 1,726,830,803 
 2,031,707,068 
 
 44.3 Cts. 
 
 33.5 cts. 
 38.8 cts. 
 30.2 cts. 
 
 37.6 cts. 
 
 1870-1894 
 
 20,323,952,452 ' 
 
 $7,251,031,582 
 
 36.6 cts. 
 
 "Awrage gold value per bushel 1870-1879, 34.4 cents; 1880- 
 1889, 33.9 cents; 1870-1894, 34.9 cents. 
 
 "In the twelve states the average selling price to the 
 farmers increased for these three cereals .7 cent a 
 bushel in twenty-five years; for the seven states west 
 of the Mississippi this increase was 3.1 cents, and for 
 the five states east of that river it was .8 cent. In 
 other words, the gold selling price of thein grain in- 
 creased for tiie farmers of these seven great states 
 about nine per cent since the silver legislation of 1873. 
 Possessed of the foregoing data, we can estimate with 
 tolerable accuracy the net gains of the farmers in these 
 states by reason of the economic changes of the world 
 in the past quarter century. In the first place, I note 
 that, though residing 150 miles f arlier from the world's 
 markets than in 1870, the average farmer has actually 
 iuereased the average selling price of his grain by .7 
 cent a bushel. The average farmer west of the Mis- 
 sissippi resides from 250 to 300 miles farther from 
 
112 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 market, and yet sells his grain for an average of 3.1 
 cents more than in 1870. Here is a significant gain. 
 In addition, the average farmer has gained all the re- 
 sults of better methods of farming and the improved 
 machinery used in farm operations. This cannot be 
 less than one-third the present home value of the grain 
 raised by him. Taking account of these items of gain 
 and allowing for the increased average haul of his grain 
 to market, we see that the total net gain of the average 
 farmer in these twelve states residing in the same local- 
 ity as in 1870, is not far from seventeen cents a bushel. 
 For the farmers west of the Mississippi this gain 
 averages not les^ than twenty cents a bushel. This 
 gain measures the farmer's increased earning and 
 spending power, the increased purchasing power of his 
 wages or labor. It represents from 44 to 55 per cent 
 of the average home value of the grain raised by him 
 in the years 1890-1894. The farmer in the states' west 
 of the Mississippi averaged more than the farmer east 
 of that river." 
 
 Here a young man, who had been a close student 
 of the question of wages and prices in the United 
 States, asked a fourth question. He said: 
 
 "Mr. Hayseed, will you kindly state to us how these 
 results obtained by you from a study of the economic 
 changes affecting the farmers compare with the results 
 secured by the United States Senate investigation un- 
 der the direction of Hon. Carroll D. Wright, United 
 States Commissioner of Labor?" 
 
THE KEY TO WESTERN FARM PROSPERITY. 113 
 
 'Tjet us see," rejoined Mr. Hayseed. "That investiga- 
 tion allowed that the average day's wages were, in 1870, 
 113.9 per cent of what they were in 1860, and in 1891, 
 173.5 per cent of what they were at the beginning of the 
 Civil War. The gain from 1870 to 1891 in the pur- 
 chasing power of wages in the manufacturing indus- 
 tries of the United States was fifty-two per cent. This 
 
 THIS FABMKE RAISES COEN AND MAKES MONEY. 
 
 is eight per cent more than the average gain for the 
 farmers of these twelve states from an analysis of the 
 home value of these three great crops^corn, wheat, and 
 oats. The two conclusions practically agree, since the 
 senate investigation showed a larger gain than fifty- 
 two per cent in the skilled callings and a less in com- 
 mon labor. The experience of the "Western farmers 
 
114 i-ARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 as a whole, therefore, coincides with that of the great 
 body of wage-earners in the East. The purchasing 
 power of toil has in twenty-five years improyed East 
 and West from forty to fifty per cent relatively. The 
 wage-earner in the East and the farmer in the West 
 can employ this increased purchasing power of his 
 labor in either of two ways. He can save it to pay 
 debts or buy lands, or, in other words, add to his fixed 
 wealth. He can also use it to isecure more comforts 
 and luxuries for himself and family. I have already 
 shown briefly how the latter is so widely practiced 
 among the more prosperous farmers of these states." 
 
 "But you cannot claim that all the farmers of the 
 West are as prosperous as your figures seem to indi- 
 cate for the average?" said Mr. Breitenfelds. 
 
 "No. There is a wide difference in the prosperity of 
 farmers in ^hese states at present. Those who stick 
 mainly to wheat are less successful than those raising 
 corn and oats and feeding hogs and engaged in making 
 butter and cheese or raising garden truck, fraits, and 
 like products. The farmers with a well-diversified sys- 
 tem of agriculture, as has been shown by the studies 
 ol the Minnesota Bureau of Labor and other investiga- 
 tions, are making and saving much more than the farm- 
 ers raising wheat as their great staple. The wheat- 
 ' raiser is discontented with his lot and is clamoring for 
 the free coinage of silver or other devices for securing 
 cheap monfiy. The thing clamored for is not the rem- 
 edy for the evils of the present American conditions. 
 The situation is in some respects as it was in South 
 
THE KEY TO WESTERN FARM PROSPERITY. 115 
 
 Carolina in 1860. When that state passed its ordi- 
 nance of secession some enthusiasts rushed into the 
 laboratory of a noted chemist, who was analyzing a 
 specimen of phosphates used as a fertilizer of the soil. 
 The enthusiasts announced the secession of South Caro- 
 lina and added, 'Now the state will be prosperous,' 
 
 THIS FABMEB &AISES WHEAT AKD IS FODB. 
 
 The chemist replied, What the state needs for pros- 
 perity is not secession but more manure.' So I would 
 say for those who advocate free coinage of silver as a 
 remedy for the less prosperous condition of the wheat 
 farmer, 'Silver legislation is not what you need. 
 Rather, you need more manure, — diversified husbandry. 
 Try that and you will realize the average of prosperity 
 to which I have here called your attention in these 
 
116 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 seven states. Eemember, however, the receipt for good 
 times of the old South Carolina chemist, 'More ma- 
 nure.' All hail to the inspiration of the South Caro- 
 lina professor and Mark Twain. Here is a chance for 
 those flfty-cent-doUar-men to show their patriotism 
 by applying Twain's remark, 'He is useless on top of 
 the ground. He ought to be under it inspiring the 
 cabbages.' " 
 
 \'^^rxi.^%<^^w-- 
 
 
 IKSPIBING THB CABBAGBS, 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE RUIN WROUGHT FOR WESTERN DEBTORS BT 
 SILVER LEGISIATION. 
 
 "If you would know the value of money go and try 
 to borrow some." 
 
 "Industry pays debts, while despair increases them." 
 
 — Pow BicharcPa Almanac. 
 
 The young men who had been present at the dinner 
 with Greenman Hayseed, when Coin was unable to an- 
 swer the latter's father, had, as a whole, become greatly 
 interested in wh'at the old farmer had had to say about 
 the prices of Western farm produce. They desired to 
 hear CJoin and the farmer discuss the subject of farm 
 debts. Greenman Hayseed had among the boys come 
 to be regarded with a little more respect than before 
 the dinner. The other boys had seen what "Greeny" 
 had been slow to perceive, that his father was a b'et- 
 ter posted man than Coin. They expressed this latter 
 idea to Greenman, and, of course, he was flattered and 
 hence readily entered into the scheme of having his 
 father meet Coin and talk over the subject of farm 
 debts. Between the set they agreed to have one of their 
 number, a farmer's son from Minnesota, by the name 
 of William Yeomans, entertain the crowd, including 
 Coin, the following night. Coin was invited and ac- 
 cepted Yeomans' invitation. Lart:er, when Coin arrived 
 
118 FAEMEE HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 at Yeomans' room and found Mr. Hayseed present, he 
 felt, mad all through, but tried hot to show his dis- 
 pleasure. Dinner had hardly begun when Yeomans 
 said to Coin: 
 
 "Mr. Coin, I have had a little conversation to-night 
 with Mr. Hayseed here about the. debts of the world. 
 I tried to state to him your ideas about this subject. 
 He could not agree with them. He denied that the 
 debts of the present were more crushing than they were 
 twenty-five years ago. I am afraid that I did not state 
 your ideas upon the subject correctly. Will you kindly 
 repeat here for Mr. Hayseed the substance of what 
 you have said in your lectures about the effects of sil- 
 ver legislation upon the debt-owing farmers of the 
 land?" 
 
 Coin was inwardly pleased that the topic suggested 
 was not the home value of grains in the West, since 
 he had looked, it up and found the old gentleman's 
 figures absolutely correct, inasmuch as they were based 
 upon the figures of the United States Government au- 
 thorities, which he had been in the habit of quoting. 
 The subject of debt was one of his strongholds. He 
 very readily and graciously began: 
 
 "You remember, possibly, the question which Mr. H. 
 F. Eames, president of the Commercial National Bank 
 of this city, asked in our school the other day. He 
 said, 'Suppose values do decline and get on a lower 
 plane? Can't the farmer who gets fifty cents for his 
 wheat buy as much of the world's goods with that fifty 
 cents as he formerly did with la dollar? And if this is 
 
THE ETIIN WROUGHT FOR WESTERN DEBTORS, 119 
 
 true, and I think it is, wherein does it make any^ differ- 
 ence?' You will also remember how at the lecture I 
 illustrated my answer by means of two large rubber 
 globes or balls, one about half the size of the other. 
 Speaking at the time upon the subject and referring 
 to the smaller globe, I said: 
 
 conr SATS debt incbeasbs and wealth decbeases. 
 
 "This ball, as proportioned to the largest one, indi- 
 cates the debts of the world, which are, if we include 
 debts of all kinds, about 200,000 millions of dollars at 
 the present time. The total value of all the property 
 of the world in 1890 was labout 450,000 millions. This 
 value has been shrinking, and will continue to shrink 
 until it is about one-half its present size, as repre- 
 sented by this largest ball. But this ball, which repre- 
 sents debts, will not decrease any. Its present ten- 
 dency is to grow larger. When this ball, which repre- 
 
120 FAEMEE. HATSBB^'IN TO#N. j; .. 
 
 sents the value of all property, has shrunken to half 
 its size it will be about the size of this one, represent- 
 ing debts. The history of nations shows that when 
 the debts of a country are two-thirds of the value of all 
 its property, disintegration sets in, strLkes, riots, revo- 
 lutions, provisional governments, as with our neighbors 
 in South America at the present time. When you re- 
 duce wheat to fifty cents and all other property ac- 
 cordingly, you don't reduce debts at all. You only make 
 it harder to pay them," 
 
 Here the old gentleman Hayseed interrupted him 
 by the remark: 
 
 "I think, Mr. Coin, you are a little off in some of 
 your statements. Thus, you say, in, speaking of the sell- 
 ing or market value of the property of, the world, 
 'This value has been shrinking and will continue to 
 shrink until it is about one-half its present size.' Now 
 if this be true, how does it happen that in ten years 
 from 1880 to 1890, years since the silver legislation of 
 1873, the national wealth, the market or real value 
 of property in the United States, increased frpm $43,- 
 642,000,000 to 165,037,091,197 ? This increase of wealth 
 in the United States, in which you say the value of 
 property is lessening, was |21,395,091,197. Now, when 
 I state this increase in the value of our nation's prop- 
 erty in millions of dollars, I confess it means but 
 little to the average man, myself included. Let me 
 state it another way. This increase in the value of 
 property in the United States in the ten years ending 
 with 1890 represents a simi equal to the savings of the 
 
THE EUIN WROUaHT FOR WESTERN DEBTORS. 12l 
 
 nations of Europe from tlie beginning of time down to 
 our declaration of independence. But Great Britain 
 and' France each increased its wealth by about the- 
 same amount and other European nations to a some- 
 what smaller extent. How can the market value of 
 
 SAVING UNDKB PEKE COINAGE AND UNDER THE AMEBICAN 
 SYSTEM COMPAEED. 
 
 the property of the world increase to this degree and 
 yet all such values decrease as you say they have^" 
 
 "This increase, I should say, Mr. Hayseed, is due to 
 the modem use of machinery. It represents the amount 
 of new property created and added to the wealth of the 
 world. Property has been created so much faster than 
 
122 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 the decline of prices that the sum total of the whole 
 ham been increasing." 
 
 "Be it so, Mr. Coin. You say that all property since 
 1873 has decreased in the United States fifty per cent 
 in value. To keep the face value of the nation's estate 
 intact, an amount of new wealth must have been cre- 
 ated in the passing years equal to the original value of 
 that estate. And further, each dollar of value found to 
 exist to-day in addition to that of 1880 represents two 
 dollars of values as they existed In 1873. Such sup- 
 positions call for the actual creation and saving in the 
 United States between 1880 and 1890 of a quantity of 
 wealth in the form of commodities equal to 80,000 
 million dollars worth of property measured by the 
 standards of 1873. This is a sum equal to the accu- 
 mulated savings of Europe and America from the be- 
 ginning of time to 1810 and possibly as late as 1830. 
 How can you explain such vast savings as these which 
 your theory actually calls for?" 
 
 "Not all the decline in silver and the consequent de- 
 cline in the value of commodities which I have alluded 
 to took place between 1880 and 1890. Only about one- 
 half of it fell within those years." 
 
 "Then, Mr. Coin, we will strike out one-half of my 
 figures. We have left 40,000 million dollars worth of 
 wealth saved by the people of the United States in ten 
 years, a saving equal to all the property in the country 
 in 1880. Here, then, according to your statement, we 
 have the savings of the United States alone in ten years 
 of universal ruin caused by the crime of 1873 greater 
 
THE BTIIN WKOUQHT FOR WESTERN DEBTORS. 123 
 
 than the savings of Europe for 1,800 years of prosper- 
 ity under the free coinage of silver. How, as an hon- 
 est, truthful man, oan you reconcile this comparison or 
 these figures with your statement of the people being 
 crushed by shrinking values?" 
 
 "Why, Mr. Hayseed, any schoolboy ought to be able 
 to answer you; The increase in the national wealth 
 represents the savings of the people." 
 
 "Please tell me, if I may be allowed to interrupt you, 
 whether men as a rule a,re able to save most out of a 
 decreasing or increasing income?" 
 
 "Out of an increasing income, of course." 
 
 "Then how does it happen, Mr. Coin, that out of de- 
 creasing incomes, the United States since 1873 added 
 to its national wealth a sum greater than all its people' 
 had saved before that year from the first settlement 
 at Jamestown, Va.? Men cannot save unless they are 
 making something, unless they are receiving some- 
 thing." 
 
 "When I say the values of property are decreasing, 
 I am referring to the values of the property in the 
 hands of the masses. I have in my books pointed out 
 how the rich are being benefited by this silver legisla- 
 tion. The rich are becoming richer out of the increas- 
 ing incomes, while the poor are becoming poorer out 
 of the decreasing incomes. It is one gigantic robbery 
 of the people by the few rich.'' 
 
 "The rich may be stealing from the poor. I will not 
 discuss that question at present. It concerns the 
 
124 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 equity of tte distribution of property. I wish, to talfi 
 about its accumulation. ''The rich or the poor cannot 
 saTe what has not been created or does not exist. The 
 rich cannot steal from the poor what they have never 
 had. They cannot rob them of what they have never 
 earned. If there has been no robbery then the rich 
 and the masses alike have saved this great addition in 
 the national wealth since 1873 out of increasing in^ 
 comes. If the rich have stolen this wealth from the 
 others, they have robbed the masses of the results of 
 increased earnings on their part.- But in neither case 
 could national riches be increased, as they have been, 
 without increased earnings on the part of the people.^ 
 But you are telling us that the earning power of the 
 people, and hence their saving power, is only one-half 
 of what it was in 1873." 
 
 "It is all a question of fact at last and not of theory," 
 said Ck)in. "I don't care a fig for your proofs of in- 
 creased income and earning power and savings and 
 addition to the national wealth since 1873. I know the 
 fact to be, that when you reduce wheat to fifty cents 
 a bushel where it ought to be a dollar, and don't reduce 
 debts, you make it harder to pay them. It may be that 
 our property is increasing in amount some way or 
 other, but debts are increasing faster than property, 
 and these debts are crushing the farmer and business 
 men of the land to the earth." 
 
 "By your statement, Mr. Coin, about the effect of fifty 
 cent wheat, I suppose you refer to the average wheat 
 farmer of the West and Northwest. You mean, among 
 
THE RUIN WEOUQHT FOB WESTERN DEBTORS. _ 125 
 
 other things, to assert that he cannot meet hia obliga- 
 tions as readily as in 1870? I suppose you are willing 
 to allow that the farmer raises in these states some 
 other grain besides wheat, such as those greater sta- 
 ples, corn and oats. We should in any discussion of 
 the debt-paying power of the farmer include all his 
 resources for meeting them, should we not?" 
 
 Mr. Coin did not like this question. He did not wish 
 to talk of com and oats. He wanted to talk wheat 
 only, and yet he had said that all property had declined 
 as well as wheat and hence he had to say: 
 
 "Why, of course, any other treatment of the question 
 would be unfair; but before you go to quoting prices 
 in this connection I wish to call your attention to one 
 fact. You are not entitled to reduce the currency 
 prices or values of grain in 1870 to 1878 to a gold basis. 
 The farmer's debts were then in currency and we must 
 look at his debt-paying power from a currency basis." 
 "Be it so," said Mr. Hayseed. "You are here at 
 the outset demanding an unjust advantage in this mat- 
 ter that averaged over twelve per cent in the nine years 
 1870 to 1878. The farmer'in the years 1870 to 1878 did 
 have his debt-paying power reduced by twelve per cent, 
 but that was not. due to the silver legislation. It was 
 the result of the return by the nation to specie pay- 
 ments, which had been suspended since 1861. But giv- 
 ing you this advantage, let us see what changes the 
 average farmer in these seven states west of the Mis- 
 sissippi River has witnessed in his debt-paying power 
 since 1870. Let us take the case of a farmer with 160 
 
126 PARMER HATSBED IN TOWN. 
 
 acres of land in southeastern Minnesota worth f 3,000, 
 on which he had a mortgage of $1,000. To secure a 
 loan for that amount of money for three years at twelve 
 per cent annual interest this farmer had to give in 1870 
 a bonus or commission to the, agent who secured the 
 loan for him of |125, secured by a second mortgage, 
 payable, with interest, in one ye^r. The total pay- 
 ments by reason of inrterest on this loan aggregated an 
 average of sixteen per cent per annum. The foregoing 
 was the most favorable terms on which he could secure 
 the ready cash needed to purchase farming implements 
 and machinery to cultivate his land. Some of his neigh- 
 bors who had rich relatives and friends in the East 
 negotiated loans on a little better terms. They did 
 not have to pay any agent's commission. They were 
 able to act as their own agents and thus by that fact 
 eairn or save the amount of such commission. But 
 where there were a few such' favored farmers there 
 were others whose necessities forced them to pay even 
 greater bonuses on loans than this average farmer. 
 Some paid in 1870 as high as two per cent a month on 
 farm loans, counting the agent's commission and in- 
 terest. The average interest paid was not far from 
 that of the case cited, sixteen per cent per annum." 
 
 "Pardon me a moment," said young Yeomans. "I 
 wish to remark upon the correctness of your state- 
 ment, Mr. Hayseed. If my father were here to give 
 his experience in Minnesota in borrowing money, he 
 would draw a stronger picture, especially if he were 
 allowed to go back to 1860 for his figures. He bor- 
 
THE RUIN WROUGHT FOR WESTERN DEBTORS. 127 
 
 rowed money in Goodhue County in 1860, giving a 
 bonus that made his rate of interest over four per cent 
 a month and the public deed records in the bflSce of the 
 recorder of deeds for our county show mortgages fore- 
 closed with rates of interest stated in the mortgage 
 notes of ten per cent a month. But while these high 
 rates prevailed in the days of Minnesota as a territory 
 and in the early sixties, the supply of money so in- 
 creased before 1870 that it had fallen to about the 
 figures stated by Mr, Hayseed, sixteen per cent a year 
 on an average." 
 
 After young Yeomans had concluded his remarks, 
 Mr. Hayseed resumed: 
 
 "In trying to show the debt-paying power of the 
 average farmer in 1870 and 1894, I will assume that 
 he raised an amount of corn, oats, and wheat that was 
 the average for the seven states west of the Missis- 
 sippi Eiver. He was therefore more successful in 1870 
 and in 1890 than was the man devoting his attention 
 to wheat-raising alone. The average home or farm 
 value for the grain raised by this farmer in south- 
 eastern Minnesota in 1870 to 1874 was 44.3 cents a 
 bushel in currency. At this price the farmer had to 
 raise and dispose annually of 361 bushels on an aver- 
 age to meet his interest payments on his |1,000 mort- 
 gage. It was a hard task," and when it was done and 
 taxes paid and family clothed, the farmer had left 
 but little to set aside as a sinking fund to meet his 
 mortgage when it came due. If he had good crops and 
 good prices he finally succeeded, otherwise he lost all 
 by, foreclosure, as hundreds did iu southern Minnesota 
 
128 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 from 1869 to 1881, The same average farmer located, 
 in 1890 to 1894, 300 miles farther to the west and north- 
 west, and raising wheat, com, and oats in the same 
 general proportion, has a farm and borrows money 
 to improve the same. He finds money in terms of gold 
 and of grain cheaper than twenty-five years ago." 
 
 Here Mr. Coin interrupted him by saying, "You 
 have made a mistake. The price of money cannot vary 
 when stated in terms of money. It can only vary in 
 terms of the commodities which it will purchase." 
 
 "I shall have to beg leave to differ with you," said 
 Mr. Hayseed. "That is the great fallacy of all persons 
 belonging to your school of finance. The best test 
 for the- value of money is the one described by Poor 
 Richard in his almanac 100 years ago. He said, 'If you 
 would know the value of money, go and try to borrow 
 some.' The relative value of money is measured at two 
 different times by the rates of interest charged for its 
 use. When the value of money increases, its rate of 
 interest increases, and the reverse. Hence, I say the 
 value of money may vary in terms of money." 
 
 Here Mr. Coin interrupted. He said : 
 "The money paid for the use of money may vary, but 
 that is a different thing from the value of money itself. 
 I may go to the livery in this city and can hire a horse 
 to-day for one-half of what I could ten years ago, but 
 I can also buy that horse for one-half of what I could 
 at that time." 
 
 "Is there then any connection, Mr. Coin, between 
 the money needed to hire a hors^ or the commodity and 
 the value of that horse or commodity?" 
 
THE RUIN WROiraHT FOR WESTERN DEBTORS. 
 
 129 
 
 "Of course, a very close relation. The one varies 
 with the other." 
 
 "Then you and I must agree about money. We 
 differ only in the way of stating the same thing. You 
 say the sum paid for the use of a commodity varies 
 with the value of that commodity. I won't quarrel 
 with you. The fact to which we both agree in reality 
 is that the value of money as of other commodities 
 
 THE VALUB OF A HOESB OE OF MONEY DKCBEASES WITH 
 THE MONET CHAEQED FOB ITS TTSB OE INTEEBST. 
 
 varies from time to time. That changing value is indi- 
 cated by the changing sum charged for its use. TJie 
 interest rate in the West having fallen in twenty-five 
 years one-half, the value of money has thus fallen one- 
 half." 
 
 "But I say the use of money is different from money 
 
 itself," insisted Coin. 
 
 "You make a distinction without a difference since 
 you say the hire of a horse varies with its value. The 
 
130 FARMER HATSBBD IN TOWN. 
 
 falling mercury is neither the same as nor the cause 
 of the cold weather, but it measures its intensity. So 
 the varying rate of interest measures the varying value 
 of money in the markets of the world. The value of a 
 horse, as of money, decreases with the money charged 
 for its use or interest. The value of money in the 
 West in 1870 was such as to enable its possessors to 
 demand and secure from twelve to twenty-five per cent 
 per annum for its use. Interest paid in money was the 
 measure of the value of money to both lender and 
 borrower. Money measured the value of money in as 
 true a sense from this point of view as commodities 
 measured it from another. Now, where money meas- 
 ured in money was worth from twelve to twenty-five 
 per cent of itself each year in 1870, it was worth only 
 eight per cent, including commission, in 1894. The 
 average farmer, whom I selected to use as my illus- 
 tration, thus could buy the use of money at one-half 
 what he paid for the same in 1870. At eight per cent 
 he had to pay only eighty dollars per annum for his in- 
 terest. This would call for only 214 bushels of his 
 grain, when his interest twenty years before used up 
 861 bushels." 
 
 "But with the decreased price of 1890 to 1894 that 
 would make but little difference," said Coin. 
 
 "That may be in connection with your theory, but 
 in practical business affairs any farmer can tell you 
 to the contrary. The farmer in 1890 to 1894, after 
 paying his interest out of the 361 bushels of grain 
 used up for interest, has left 147 bushels of a home 
 
THE RUIN •VTROUGHT FOR WESTERN DEBTORS. 131 
 
 cash value of |55.00. If the fanner sells this grain 
 and uses it as a sinking fund it will enable him to 
 pay off his principal in twelve years witKbut the ex- 
 penditure of another cent from any other source. The 
 value of money expressed in money and grain had so 
 decreased that what grain before the silver law of 1873 
 barely sufiQced to pay interest on a |1,000 loan would 
 in 1890 to 1894 have been enough to pay the interest 
 and to liquidate the principal also in twelve years. 
 In terms of grain, money had become cheaper as well 
 as in terms of money or interest." 
 
 "Please tell us, Mr. Hayseed," said young Yeomans, 
 "what the result would have been if a comparison had 
 been made on the basis of the average currency value 
 of corn, oats, and wheat in these seven states in the 
 ten years 1870 to 1879." 
 
 "The average currency home values of these three 
 grains between 1870 and 1879 were 37.5 cents a bushel. 
 To pay the interest of $1,000 at sixteen per cent in 
 those earlier years would have called for 427 bushels 
 of grain. This in 1890 to 1894 would pay the interest 
 at eight per cent on the same loan and leave eighty dol- 
 lars to be placed in a sinking fund for the liquidation of 
 the principal. This would pay ofE that principal in a 
 little over nine years. This is the truest and best il- 
 lustration possible of the relative average burden of 
 debt upon the Western farmer now and twenty-five 
 years ago. The modern Shylock may be demanding 
 his bond of the farmer and get it. However, it does 
 not take the farmer's blood, or even flesh, to meet it, 
 
132 FAEMBB HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 as it did in these Western states in 1870 or even in 
 1880. Much less does it take that blood as in the 
 earlier years 1860 to 1865." 
 
 "But, Mr. Hayseed, you must admit that debts have 
 not lessened in the passing of the years since 1873," 
 said Coin. 
 
 "In that you are wrong," replied Hayseed. "Debts 
 of all kinds have decreased. You are also wrong when 
 you say, as you have in your books and lectures, that 
 it is now more difficult to pay debts than in 1873. The 
 whole question turns upon this ability to meet debts. 
 The farmer and all other debtors have their conditions 
 improved in proportion as their ability to meet and dis- 
 charge debts increases. The simple decrease in inter- 
 est rates, the lessened value of money in terms of 
 money, has rendered it easier to meet debts than be- 
 fore the silver legislation of 1873. But the Western 
 farmer, in the matter of meeting his debts, has gained 
 in other respects even more than by the lessened value 
 of money in terms of money. By improved methods of 
 ' farming he is able to cultivate nearly twice as much 
 land with the same amount of human labor as twenty- 
 five and thirty years ago. As a result where, in 1870, . 
 by a certain amount of labor he could raise ,427 bushels 
 of corn, oats, and wheat to pay the interest on |1,000, 
 he can now raise from 600 to 700 bushels. That amount 
 of grain in 1890 to 1894 would, according as the 
 smaller or larger figures are found to be more correct, 
 have sufficed to meet the interest charges and pay off 
 the principal in three or four years. In other words, 
 
THE RUIN WROUGHT FOR WESTERN DEBTORS. 133 
 
 the labor, which from 1870 to 1879 barely sufficed on 
 a Western farm to pay the interest on a $1,000 loan, 
 in 1890 to 1895 would have enabled the farmer to pay 
 the principal and interest on such a loan made Jan. 
 1, 1890, before the close of the year 1894. In -terms of 
 labor, the value of money has lessened even more than 
 in terms of money or rates of interest." 
 Here Coin interrupted With the remark: 
 "There must be some error in your reasoning some- 
 where, Mr. Hayseed. I think your argument is a reduc- 
 tio ad absurdum. It contradicts itself by the very, 
 extreme conclusions to which it leads. It flies in the 
 face of everything that is known about Western farm 
 mortgage debt, everything that the farmers of the 
 West have to say about the matter. Debts are in- 
 creasing faster reMively than farm property, and fore- 
 closures are increasing faster than either. Look at 
 the increase of mortgage debt as shown by the census 
 for 1890. You must be crazy, Mr. Hayseed, when you 
 assert that the value of money has decreased in the 
 West in twenty-five years. You are led away by your 
 theories. Why, Mr. Hayseed, whenever our theories, 
 put in practice, lead to a contradiction of well known 
 facts we should know ourselves, what all sane people 
 perceive, that our theories are false. Facts are stub- 
 born things and fancies must all give way before them. 
 Theories and beliefs are as powerless to stand before 
 facts as a bull is to stop a moving locomotive." 
 
 "That is just what I have been trying to show you, 
 Mr. Coin," said Farmer Hayseed, "I am simply trying 
 
134 FARMER HAYSEED TS TOWN- 
 
 to get you to look at the farm facts here in the West 
 squarely in the face. I have shown you that where 
 your theories call for a decline of a home gold value of 
 farm products since 1875 of one-half, there has been a 
 great advance on the average in these Western states. 
 Your theories making money more scarce would call 
 for doubled interest rates. I have called your atten- 
 tion to a decline of one-half. I have pointed to the un- 
 disputed fact that labor is more eflcient on the farm 
 now than formerly and that men can till more corn, 
 wheat, and oat land than formerly, and that as a result 
 a given amount of labor, which twenty-flve years ago 
 barely sufficed to pay the interest on a given Ipan, will 
 pay that interest and in from three to five years pay 
 the principal as "well. Here are the facts of the case, 
 no one of which you can dispute. And yet, sitting on 
 your bull of theory about the evils of silver legislation 
 you are trying to stop the momentum of those facts. 
 Better get out of the way of such facts or you and 
 your bull will both get hurt." 
 
 "But you don't meet the facts to which I call your 
 attention, the growing farni mortgage debt of the 
 Union; the increasing foreclosures of those mortgages; 
 the increase of farm debts faster than the value of 
 farms," said Coin. 
 
 "Oh!" said Farmer Hayseed. "Let us see. You 
 have said in your illustration with two balls represent- 
 ing property and debts that the ball that represents 
 debts will not decrease. Its present tendency is to 
 grow larger. The value of property represented by 
 
THE RUIN WROTJaHT FOR WESTERN DEBTORS. 135 
 
 the larger ball is shrinking and will continue to shrink 
 and hence the two balls, or the value of property and 
 of debts, will more and more approximate one another. 
 Do you mean to say this is the case of all these West- 
 ern states as well as of the world?" 
 
 "It is true of every state and nation. It is a fact 
 based upon the immutable laws of finance as well as 
 of common sense," said Coin. 
 
 "J am sorry that I shall have to tell you to take 
 your bull, which you call the immutable laws of 
 finance, out of the way of my locomotive of facts or 
 take the consequence," replied Farmer Hayseed. "First, 
 I ask you to look squarely in the face the facts 
 about farm mortgage debt in such a state as Minne- 
 sota, which is a type of all the Western states. I will 
 take the census figures for 1890. They show that the 
 mortgage debt in Minnesota upon farms used as 
 homes was in that year P7,709,574. This sum did not 
 include mortgages upon leased farms which, however, 
 we are told was a small relative amount. The total 
 farm debt was therefore somewhat larger than the sum 
 represented by the figures just given, and yet it did 
 not much, if any, exceed $39,000,000. The mortgage 
 debt of the same class of property in 1880 can readUy 
 be shown to have been thirty-five or thirty-six million 
 dollars. The mortgage debt of Minnesota farms in- 
 creased in the ten years from 1880 to 1890 only three 
 or four million dollars. But, while the farm mortgage 
 debt in ten years increased only three or four million 
 dollars, the farmers increased their resources in the 
 
136 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 form of farming machines and implements |3,826,690. 
 The increase in this one item of farm resources balanced 
 the increased farm debt. But the increase in the value of 
 farm machinery in ten years was but a small fraction 
 of the increased wealth of the farmers of Minnesota. 
 In the ten years, in which three to four million doUars 
 were added to the amount of their debt, they increased 
 their wealth in live stock $26,820,862 and the value 
 of their farm lands, $146,335,210. The increase of 
 Minnesota farm debts in ten years was only 2 or 
 2.5 per cent of the increase of the values of farm prop- 
 erty. Property increased forty times as fast as debts. 
 How long, Mr. Coin, wpuld it take at this rate of in- 
 crease for the farm debts of Minnesota to equal the 
 value of the farm possessions? You seem to hfesitate 
 for an answer. Let pie tell you. It will take as long 
 for these farm debts to overtake the farm resources and 
 envelop all the farmers in such a ruin as you paint, 
 as it would for a dried codfish to climb a barber pole, 
 tail first, with a bag of gold in its mouth." 
 
 Here young Yeomans, whose home was in south- 
 ern Minnesota, said: 
 
 "Mr. Hayseed, your figures do injustice to that por- 
 tion of Minnesota in which I reside. I refer to the 
 oldest settled section of the southeastern part of the 
 state. In the twenty-three oldest settled counties in 
 1880 the farms were worth, according to the United 
 States Census, $124,488,668. The value of the same 
 farms increased so that in 1890 they were worth $158,- 
 
THE ROIN WROUGHT FOR WESTERN DEBTORS. 187 
 
 813,671. Here is an increase of twenty-seven per cent 
 in farm values in a section of country where Mr. Coin's 
 theory calls for a decrease of from thirty to fifty per 
 cent. Property increases in 
 value where he says there is a 
 decrease. How is it with debts'? 
 These, he says, remain the same 
 if they do not actually increase. 
 The facts disclosed by a study of 
 the census figures are the very 
 opposite of those which Mr. 
 Coin asserts, not from an ap- 
 peal to the records, but merely 
 on the authority of his theories. 
 The mortgages recorded in this 
 group of counties, against all 
 acre property, in this same ten 
 years decreased 22.7 per cent 
 in number, 27.4 per cent in 
 the acres covered and 14.9 
 
 DEBTS OVEETAKINO WEALTH, pgj, ^^j^^. -^ ^j^q amOUUtS 
 
 involved. But a large share of the mortgages at 
 present recorded in these |twenty-three counties 
 on acres are not against farms, but against specu- 
 lative and business property of various kinds. Taking 
 account of this fact, the Minnesota Bureau of Labor 
 found that the relative amount of mortgages on farms 
 in these twenty-three oldest counties had in 1890 de- 
 creased to forty per cent of its proportion ten years 
 before." 
 
138 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 "Then," Mr. Hayseed said, "the facts about mort- 
 gages in Minnesota show that there is a decrease of 
 over half in debts and an increase of twenty-seven per 
 cent in property where Mr. Coin's theories call for an 
 increase of debts and a decrease of property. The 
 facts all contradict the assumption about values and 
 debts of every kind claimed or asserted by the ad- 
 vocates of the free coinage of silver. The investiga- 
 tions of the Minnesota Bureau of Labor showed in 
 all parts of the state an increase in the value of farm 
 wealth and an actual or relative decrease in the 
 amount of farm mortgage debt. What is true of that 
 state is doubtless true of aU the twelve states for 
 which I have given statistics of the prices of farm 
 products. Now what can you tell us, Mr. Yeomans, 
 ijoncerning the relative frequency of farm mortgage 
 foreclosures in Minnesota at the present time as com- 
 pared with those of ten, twenty, or thirty years ago?" 
 
 "In the sixty-five agricultural counties of Minnesota 
 in 1881 the State Bureau of Labor found 1,166 fore- 
 closures on acre property. The amounts of those fore- 
 closures were |1,210,113 and they involved 132,250 
 acres of land. Eleven years later, in 1892, there were 
 743 foreclosures on acr*es in these counties, the amount 
 of foreclosure sales was $724,637 and involved 108,423 
 acres. The acre foreclosures in eleven years decreased 
 for the state nearly fifty per cent during a period in 
 which the farmers nearly doubled their wealth. This 
 is for the state as a whole. In the twenty-three old- 
 est settled counties, in which the value of farms in- 
 
THE BUIN WKOUGHT TOR WESTEKN DEBTOaS- 1S9 
 
 . 3m 4rai yeaiB twenty-ftree per cent, the farm 
 foreclosures so decreased in the fourteen years 1880 
 to 1894 that they were only one^tenth as numerous 
 relatively in 1893 as in 1880. The decreased foreclos- 
 ures here noted correspond with your facts and statis- 
 tics, Mr. Hayseed, concerning the advanced value of 
 farm products and the decreased value of money and 
 contradict all of Mr. Coin's theories about the effect 
 of silver legislation upon the industrial classes in the 
 West." 
 
 "It is as I said a moment ago, Mr. Coin. You will 
 have to take yourself and bull off the track in front of 
 the moving locomotive of fact, whether relating to the 
 value of farm property, farm produce, or farm debts. 
 The silver question is one that must be settled at 
 last by facets. Theories about silver and money how- 
 ever fanciful, cannot long stand before the momentum 
 of truth. The American people want the whole truth 
 about silyer as money and the recent changes in prices, 
 wealth and debt, and will have the same. When 
 they gain that truth the silver bull of fancies will per- 
 ish." (See illustration, page 4.) 
 
 Thus remarked Farmer Hayseed at the conclusion 
 of young Yeomans', statement about the foreclosure of 
 mortgages in Minnesota. Then turning to Yeomans 
 again, he asked: 
 
 'What can you teU us further about foreclosures 
 on farms in Minnesota in the years before 1880?" 
 
 "They were more severe than in 1880 or 1881. Fore- 
 
140 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 closures have risen or fallen for a long time with the 
 prices of wheat and the production of that cereal. 
 When wheat prices were high, foreclosures were fewer 
 in number, and when wheat sold for a small price fore- 
 closures were more numerous. Grood crops lessened 
 foreclosures and poor ones increased them. The heav- 
 iest relative amount of farm foreclosures in Minnesota - 
 occurred just at the breaking out of the Civil War, 
 in 1860 and 1861, and then in the years 1869 and 1870. 
 In those periods about thirty per cent of the mortgages 
 executed were foreclosed. In 1889, 1890, and 1891, 
 years of excessive foreclosures in Minnesota, the fore- 
 closures were relatively only one-fifth of what they were 
 in 1869 and 1870, four years before the so-called de- 
 monetization of silver. The farmer in the Eed Kiver 
 Valley with low prices of wheat has only a fraction ' 
 of the foreclosures of the wheat farmer of southern 
 Minnesota, three or four years before what Mr. Coin 
 calls the crime of 1873. In the oldest counties of 
 southern Minnesota the foreclosures of recent years 
 have been less relatively than business failures in the 
 United States at any time in the past seventy-five 
 years." 
 
 Turning to Mr. Coin at this moment, Mr. Hayseed 
 
 said: 
 
 "Do the greatest number of failures ordinarily oc- 
 cur in the business world in times of decreasing or in- 
 creasing incomes?" 
 
THE RUIN WROUGHT FOR WESTERN DEBTORS. 141 
 
 "They occur always with decreasing incomes. The 
 failures to-day are proof of thfr crushing and destruc- 
 tive effects that have followed the crime of 1873." 
 
 Mr. Hayseed made no special comment upon this 
 reply. He merely asked: 
 
 "If we find for any class of people, at two different 
 times or places, that the number of failures is two or 
 flye times as great in one as in the other, what in- 
 ference ought we to draw from the fact?" 
 
 "We should conclude that the average net income 
 of the class investigated was only one-half or one-fifth 
 as great relatively in the times when the most failures 
 occurred as when the fewest." 
 
 "Let us apply your answer to the farmers. Here 
 is an exhaustive study of mortgage foreclosures, or 
 financial failures, among the farmers of Minnesota for 
 twenty-five years. Mr. Yeomans has called our at- 
 tention to it. It was made by the Minnesota Bureau 
 of Labor. It showed that the wheat farmers in the 
 Red River Valley, 300 miles farther from the con- 
 sumer than those of southeastern Minnesota, had in 
 1889 to 1891 one-half the mortgage foreclosures of 
 the farmers of that southeastern section in the years 
 1880 and 1881 and one-fifth the foreclosures of 1869 
 and 1870 or in 1859 and 1860. In 1892 and 1893 the 
 foreclosures among those Red River farmers were less 
 than one-tenth as numerous relatively as among the 
 farmers of southeastern Minnesota three and four 
 years before the crime of 1873. The foreclosures of 
 
142 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 1889 to 1891 were in the Red River region mainly 
 caused by frosted wheat and other injuries to the crops. 
 Those of 1869 and 1870 and those of 1892 and 1893 
 were caused alone by low wheat prices. To show the 
 riiin wrought by the crime of 1873 upon the wheat 
 farmer of the West, we must compare the foreclosures 
 of 1892 and 1893 in the Red River Valley with those 
 of 1869 and 1870 in such counties as Mower and Good- 
 hue. Doing so, we see how the farm failures have 
 been decreased by the crime of 1873 to one-tenth "of 
 their former proportions. If your 'crime' has this ef- 
 fect upon farm foreclosures, give us some more of it 
 and give it quickly, so that we may decrease these 
 farm failures to one-tenth their present proportions." 
 "Your figures do not show all the changes for the 
 better in the farmer's condition," said young Yeomans. 
 "These Red River farmers have to see their wheat pay 
 freight charges for a haul of 250 to 300 miles or from 
 ten to fifteen cents a bushel to bring that wheat into 
 as favorable a situation with the markets of the world 
 as was that of the old farmers in Goodhue County in 
 1869 and 1870. The wheat farmer of Minnesota can 
 raise wheat, pay ten to fifteen cents more relatively 
 per bushel for hauling it to Liverpool and yet realize 
 in 1892 and 1893 a net profit that reduces the failure to 
 one-tenth the proportions three or four years before 
 the crime of 1873." 
 
 "But," said Coin, "times have changed since 1869. 
 The farmers have the benefit of better machinery and 
 
THE KUIN WROUGHT FOR WESTERN DEBTORS. 143 
 
 better methods of farming. These should reduce farm 
 foreclosures." 
 
 "All true," replied Hayseed. "But you should think 
 of this when talking of a decrease of prices. These im- 
 provements everywhere lessen the cost of production 
 and hence sooner or later must affect prices. Those 
 improvements explain all the depreciation of prices 
 which you claim was caused by the so-called demoneti- 
 zation of silver. Farm prices in the United States 
 have not in the great centers of production been as 
 yet affected by these changes, save with reference to 
 the two staples of export, — wheat and cotton. Com- 
 petition with foreign cheap labor robs the farmer with 
 reference to these two staples of the benefit of twenty- 
 five years of industrial progress. He loses nothing 
 upon other and greater staples marketed at home. 
 Just contrast the price of potatoes with that of wheat. 
 They are everywhere in the United States worth more 
 than in 1873." 
 
 "Yes," said Coin. "Put we don't raise potatoes 
 nough as a nation to Supply our demands." 
 
 "Greater fools, then, we must say, are the farmers 
 who go on raising wheat and complaining of low prices. 
 Here are potatoes with prices advancing for twenty- 
 five years because not enough are raised. If a farmer 
 can make fifty dollars net for an acre of potatoes and 
 raises an acre of wheat with two dollars net income 
 from it, he may delude himself that he is ruined by 
 the low prices of wheat caused by the crime of 1873. 
 
POTATO FAMILY LAUGHING AT WHEAT FABMBB, WHO EAISES QBAIN 
 AT A LOSS WnSS PIVIiBSIFIED CBOFS WOULD SBCUBB A FBOFIT.^ 
 
THE RUIN WROUGHT FOR WESTERN DEBTORS. 145 
 
 Any hard-headed man knows the farmer is not affected 
 by silver legislation. He is ruined because he is a fool 
 to raise wheat at a loss when he might raise something 
 else with a profit. 
 
 "In fact we can fancy the Potato family sitting on 
 the fence and laughing at the wheat farmer and wheat 
 and telling them as the simple of mind to come to them 
 and learn wisdom, the secret of making money. Culti- 
 vate crops for home markets at a profit and not raise 
 them for the benefit of foreign customers at a loss." 
 
 "The experience of the farmers in southeastern Min- 
 nesota confirms the thought," said Yeomans. "Find- 
 ing wheat prices declining owing to foreign competi- 
 tion, those farmers went into diversified farming about 
 ten years ago. As a result the farm foreclosures are 
 less than one-fifth of those of the wheat-raising farmers 
 of the same state. They have reduced their farm 
 failures to less than one-fiftieth of what they were in 
 1869 and 1870." 
 
 "Here," said Hayseed, "you see the force of Poor 
 Richard's advice : 'Industry pays debts, while despair 
 increaseth them.' Coin here utters the cry of despair 
 over a fictitious crime against silver. Debts in fancy are 
 increased for the land. Some men fold their hands 
 and the actual debts increase. They keep on in their 
 old way raising wheat. They won't learn any- 
 thing. They pay the penalty. Others diversify 
 crops and learn how 'industry pays debts.' They 
 owe, as in southern Minnesota, one-third as much 
 
 10 
 
1^6 FARMER ftATSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 relatively as in 1880 and lose one-fiftieth part as 
 much by mortgage foreclosures as in 1870. Well 
 might such farmers apply by modification an old 
 proverb to the wheat-grower of the Northwest, 
 who is complaining of hard times caused by silver 
 legislation: 'Fools raise wheat, and wise men eat the 
 bread made therefrom.' The simple of mind talk about 
 silver, but the wise by industry acquireth the same. 
 But leaving this digression about methods of success- 
 ful farming, let us not forget, Mr. Coin, the moving 
 locomotive of facts confronting your bull of fancies 
 about the results of the silver act of 1873. Farm 
 prices in the great productive farm regions of the 
 United States in twenty-five years have increased. The 
 purchasing power of farm labor has increased. The 
 cost of producing farm staples has decreased. Eates 
 of intcBest, measuring the value of money, have de- 
 creased. Farm mortgage foreclosures have decreased 
 to a greater relative degree than debts. How and 
 where shall we find the ruin wrought among the West- 
 ern farm debtors by what you call the crime of 1873? 
 Your silver bull has lost its tail of woe and, I fear, 
 like Mary's little lamb, will never, never find it again, 
 unless it drinks at the fountain of fabrication and de- 
 ception, where all evil spirits are retailed." 
 
THE RUIN WROUGHT FOB WESTERN DEBTORS. 147 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ONE HUNDRED TEARS OF LBGISI/ATION CONCERN- 
 ING GOLD AND SILVER. 
 
 "Private credit is wealth, public honor is security, 
 
 the feather that adorns the royal bird supports its 
 
 flight; strip him of his plumage and you pin him to the 
 
 earth." 
 
 — Junius Letters. 
 
 "Look here, upon this picture, and on this." 
 
 — Samlet. 
 
 Coin had been uneasy all the evening. He did not 
 like the subject of conversation. The longer they 
 talked pf farm prices, farm debts, farm mortgage fore- 
 closures, and the like, the less he enjoyed it. He bore 
 it until with the last remarks of Hayseed it became 
 unbearable. He determined to make a break. He 
 began by saying: 
 
 "Hard times are with us. The country is dis- 
 tracted; tens of thousands are out of employment; the 
 jails, penitentiaries, workhouses, and insane asylums 
 are full; the cry of distress is heard on every hand; 
 commerce is at a standstill. It is time for wisdom and 
 sound sense to take the helm. We must return to the 
 customs of our fathers before these evil times came 
 
GOLD AND SILVER IBGISLATION. 149 
 
 upon US, before the crime of 1873 robbed the people 
 of their right of the free coinage of silTer." 
 
 To this Mr. Hayseed replied: 
 
 "If you think that by a return to old financial laws 
 and regulations you wiU escape the evils to which you 
 so graphically call our attention by your school-book 
 and lectures you are greatly mistaken. The suffering, 
 the want of employment, the increase in the number 
 of hungry and half-starved men in 1893 to 1895 does 
 not equal that of 1857. At that time men known in 
 the Eastern States as 'Codgers' filled country women 
 with fright. They were the same class of people which 
 under later financial disaster became known as 
 'tramps.' The condition of affairs in 1837 was worse 
 than in 1857, and so if we would escape the evils of 
 to-day by flying to those under the financial condition 
 which you praise, we would but jump from a half- 
 warmed frying-pan of discontent into the seething 
 flames of industrial torment. 
 
 "Uncle Sam has passed through many seasons of 
 hard times, low prices, panics, and is not now to be 
 frightened by them or by any bogies or artificial light- 
 ning bugs, however labeled, that designing demagogues 
 lying in wait for him by the way may* flout in his face." 
 
 Coin saw that the old farmer had read American 
 financial history too much to be led away by any such 
 a tack. He knew how the sufferings and losses to be 
 noticed in modern industrial circles were slight when 
 compared with those of fifty or seventy-five years ago. 
 
150 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 UNCLS SAM UNFBIOHTBNED BY MANT7FACIUBBD BOGIES. 
 £From San Franoiaco Wasp.] 
 
 Nevertheless lie delighted to talk about them with 
 those who were unread in the annals of the past. Mr. 
 Hayseed's answer showed him that it was dangerous 
 to converse long with him on that subject. He took 
 another tack. He said : 
 
 "But you know, Mr. Hayseed, that under the earlier 
 coinage laws of the United States, those of 1792, 1834, 
 and 1853, we had down to 1873 gold and silver walking 
 arm in arm into the mint of the United States. The 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 
 
 151 
 
 unlimited demand for them created by free coinage 
 always enabled these two metals thus to enter that 
 monetary institution of the land on a parity of con- 
 dition!" 
 
 GOLD AND SILTBB ENTBBINQ THK MINT ABU IN ABM. 
 [From Coin.] 
 
 "I know quite well," replied ^.the farmer, "that gold 
 and silver walked arm in arm into the mint from 1792 
 to 1853, but after a short stop in that institution they 
 
152 FARMER HAYSEED IN a?OWN. 
 
 walked out and at the door they shook hands in fare- 
 well. They were never seen in company together 
 among the people, nor did any farmer or laborer in 
 the land ever see them together save on the steps or 
 within the walls of the mint. The two metals never 
 circulated together. The history of United States 
 money illustrates in finance the truth of a saying we 
 plain farmers have. A child can lead a horse to wa- 
 ter, but an army of men cannot make him drink. Your 
 'unlimited demand of free coinage' led a limited 
 amount of these two metals into the mint. It was as 
 powerless to make them walk together among the 
 people as for an army to compel a horse to drink out of 
 the river. The coinage laws regulate the entrance of 
 metals into the mint. They are powerless to regulate 
 their circulation." 
 
 "You are mistaken," said Coin. "If you had lis- 
 tened to my sixth school lesson you would have known 
 better. I there called for the enactment of a law mak- 
 ing it a forfeiture of the debt to discriminate in favor 
 of one form of national currency as against another. 
 Our national currency should be as sacred as our 
 national flag. The Government should not allow any 
 discrimination between gold and silver." 
 
 "Such laws as you suggest," said the farmer, "are 
 as powerless as the pope's bulls against a comet. They 
 have been tried time and again in history. Turn to 
 Macaulay's History of England, Volume 3j and read 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 158 
 
 his account of the effort of King James to enforce such 
 laws in Ireland. Not only were debts forfeited, but 
 men were imprisoned and threatened with death to 
 make them take the king's money. It availed not. 
 The law of supply and demand and not the statutes 
 of kings and congresses regulates the circulation of 
 gold, silver, and other metals as primary money." 
 
 "But the United States laws for fifty years enabled 
 gold and silver to enter the mints arm in arm for free 
 coinage." 
 
 "True; but they never circulated as the result of 
 law. The law of 1792 authorized a gold dollar to be 
 made with one-flfteenth as many grains as the dollar 
 of silver. The demand and the supply of the world 
 for gold as a commodity of exchange gave it a greater 
 value, and hence of the twenty odd million doUars of 
 gold coined before 1834 there were in the United States 
 in 1834, according to the report of the Secretary of 
 the Treasury in 1836, only about |1,000,000, and of 
 that sum only a diminutive portion was in active cir- 
 culation." 
 
 To this Coin replied : 
 
 "Gold is the money of the rich, and the bankers 
 have it in their possession and transport it as they 
 can secure a profit to their advantage. Silver is the 
 money of the common people, and the bankers cannot 
 control it. Hence gold should be made subordinate 
 to silver. Its value should be reduced as it was in 
 
154 
 
 lAEMBE HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 1834 as compared "with silver, and so make it circulate 
 side by side with that metal. The law of 18.34: was 
 calculated to correct the evil of which you speak and 
 keep gold in America. That law established the ratio 
 of sixteen to one for the two metals. It did succeed 
 in attracting) and keeping gold in circulation in our 
 midst." 
 
 "Quite true, Mr. Coin; and yet American-coined 
 gold and silver parted as before, at the mint door. The 
 only difference is, that now silver took its departure 
 to foreign lands, while before 1834 gold bade its com- 
 panion farewell for a voyage across the seas. Ameri- 
 
 MIMTA^J. 
 
 GOLD AND SILVES SHAKINQ HAKSS IN FABSWBLL, 1792 TO 1854. 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 155 
 
 can-coined silver gradually left the hands of the people 
 for the merchants' coffers and thence it passed to the 
 bankers. They care nothing for metals. They like 
 to make a profit on silver as well as on gold and hence 
 shipped it out of the country to realize its price as a 
 commodity above that established by the law of con- 
 gress. But while the bankers shipped American silver 
 coins out of the country, they brought old, worn, and 
 depreciated Spanish and Mexican coins in and placed 
 them in circulation. These coins were many of them 
 worth less then eighty cents on a dollar of their face 
 value. Men quarreled over them. They passed cur- 
 rent so long as the Spanish pillars on them could be 
 perceived. Often I have seen these coins placed on a 
 hot stove to bring out these pillars. The act of con- 
 gress could take silver to the mint arm in arm with 
 gold, but in the face of the greater law of supply and 
 demand, American silver left the land. Power could 
 not make this silver horse drink any more than it had 
 the gold one before 1834. That act made silver the 
 bankers' money. The bankers are not such fools as 
 you paint them, Mr. Coin. They do not choose the 
 money by its color or weight, but just as they can make 
 a profit on it." 
 
 "But, Mr. Hayseed, you ought to know that Ameri- 
 can-coined gold and silver began to circulate together 
 after 1854. They then began to walk together among 
 the American people." 
 
156 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 "It is true, Mr. Coin, but after they ceased to enter 
 the mint on an equality. The American silver in circu- 
 lation was none of it coined under a free coinage pro- 
 vision after 1853. It has never entered- the mint arm 
 
 GOLD AND SILVER WALKING TOGKTHEE AMONG THK 
 PEOPLE SINCE 1854. 
 
 in arm with gold since that year. It had been pur- 
 chased by the Government as a commodity. It has 
 been coined at a profit. This treatment of silver as 
 a commodity by the Government and its coinage into 
 token money was more effective in putting it into cir- 
 culation than free coinage. In 1853, under free coin- 
 age of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one, not much 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 157 
 
 American silver was in circulation. In 1894 there was 
 in the country, under the continued application of the 
 principle embodied in the coinage law of 1853, 615 
 millions of silver used in the American monetary sys- 
 tem." 
 
 "But the act of 1873 took away the unlimited de- 
 mand for silver existing under all previous legislation 
 and the price of silver began to fall." 
 
 "Bight here, Mr. Coin, I want to know what you 
 mean by 'unlimited demand for silver?' " 
 
 "It was the demand that existed in the United 
 States for that metal before 1873." 
 
 "Ah, I see. You use the word 'unlimited' not in 
 the sense of 'boundless,' but with the meaning of 
 'vague, uncertain, or indefinite.' This was the demand 
 for silver coinage from 1834 to 1853 in the United 
 States. Your meaning is now clear. I can see your 
 consistency. I can understand how the fixed definite 
 coinage of silver as token money under the laws of 
 1853, 1878, and 1890 did put 100 times more silver into 
 circulation in the United States than the 'unlimited' 
 or vague demand for that metal created by the acts 
 of 1834. Until I caught your use of 'unlimited' in the 
 sense of 'vague or uncertain,' I could not see how a 
 limited demand for a metal money would put more 
 of it in use than an unlimited. Now it is all plain. I 
 am much obliged for your clearing up the mystery in 
 my mind." 
 
158 tAKMEB HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 "But, Mr. Hayseed, I did not use tlie word 'unlimited' 
 in any such sense. I employed it rather with, a mean- 
 ing which approximates that of infinite." 
 
 "Be it so," said Farmer Hayseed. "You say on page 
 27 of your school-book, 'When the mints of the world 
 are thrown open and the governments say, "We will 
 take all the silver and gold that comes, an unlimited 
 demand is established.' Now I ask, What would hap- 
 pen if the United States should attempt to coin iron 
 subject to the same rule as, once the governments in 
 the.01d World did? Could the unlimited (?) demand, 
 as you call it, thus created between iron and gold at 
 the ratio of 1 to 16 or 1 to 100, or at any other ratio, 
 * 'be maintained?" 
 
 "No; simply because the supply of iron at any of 
 the ratios mentioned, or at any other, would be greater 
 than thiQ demand." 
 
 "But, Mr. Coin, the supply of iron under such an 
 arrangement would be limited. The present very large 
 output of iron in the United States is of less value than 
 the egga whidh the hens of the country produce. Hence 
 your 'unlimited demand' (?) created by free coinage is 
 one so small and insignificant in its proportions that 
 the hens of the land would 'cackle' it to scorn. It 
 seems to me that before you tell us much more about 
 the unlimited (?) power or demand created by the free 
 coinage of silver you had better go to school to the hens 
 and from them learn to 'cackerlate' just a little. From 
 them you can learn at least tKat an 'unlimited' (?) de- 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 
 
 159 
 
 mand for silver under free coinage can never be less 
 titan can be met by such a limited supply a's can be 
 furnished by the biddies of the land. Such logic as 
 you use about 'unlimited' (?) demand for silver under 
 free coinage needs to be met alone by the cry of 'Shoo!' 
 
 with which the country women drive the fowls from 
 their doors. The words 'unlimited (?) demand' are 
 catchwords to entrap the unwary, those never looking 
 behind the letters to the ideas which they represent." 
 Mr. Coin did not know what to say to this. He 
 
160 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 stammered out, however: "The people do not want 
 iron for money, and you cannot make anything circu- 
 late as money unless the people so desire it." 
 
 "It is the people, then, Mr. Coin, and not the gov- 
 ernments that create the demand for any suhstance as 
 money? I am glad to hear you say this, since it lets 
 out the gas from your balloon concerning the unlim- 
 ited (?) demand for gold and silver under free coinage. 
 Governments can create no demand for the use of gold 
 or silver, iron or copper, as money. The demand for 
 the use of these substances as money comes from the 
 people in business transactions. Free coinage laws are 
 powerless to create or establish the use of gold and 
 silver as money. The use of gold and silver as money 
 rests not upon acts of congresses, but springs from the 
 flat of the Almighty, who alone fixes the supply and 
 demand for these metals. God's flat, and not the flat 
 of men assembled in legislature, makes these metals 
 useful as money. This being so, will you kindly ex- 
 plain why you call the coinage act of 1873 a great 
 crime?" 
 
 "It was the passage of the act in that year which 
 stopped the possibility of free coinage of silver. It 
 was a dastardly crime." 
 
 "Permit me to ask a question. How much silver 
 had been coined under a free coinage provision during 
 the twenty years before 1873?" 
 
 "From 1840 to 1873 there were $88,360,233 of silver 
 coined in the United States." 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 161 
 
 "You are pettifogging, Mr, Coin. You have not an- 
 swered my question. How much silver entered the 
 mints of the United States for.free coinage during the 
 years 1853 to 1873? You hesitate. You evidently 
 don't want to tell these young men Let me tell them. 
 The Government in those years purchased and coined 
 as token money |62,T23,695.80. This was purchased 
 and coined under the same general condition as gov- 
 erned the purchasing and coining of silver under the 
 acts of 1873, 1878, and 1890. But while in those twen- 
 ty-one years the United States purchased 62 million 
 dollars' wortti of sUver as a commodity to be coined and 
 •ifculated as token money, it received under ttie pro- 
 vision of free coinage from 1855 to 1867 |1,939,550 of 
 silver. In the next six years it thus received and 
 coined $3,584,798 of silver under that provision. None 
 of this silver coined after 1862 was coined for use as 
 money in this country, but for export in settlement of 
 tcade balances. It was to meet the demand of this 
 use of eoined silver in the Orient that the act of 1873 
 authorized the coinage of what was known as trade 
 dollars. But counting the amount coined between 
 1862 and 1873 in with the other money coined under 
 tiie free coinage provision of the law of 1853, we have 
 as the total amount of such coinage from 1853 to 1873 
 inclusive, $5,524,348. With the exception of this small 
 sum the Gjovemment in these twenty-one years coined 
 no silver that came to the mint save as a commodity 
 to be purchased by the United States as it purchased 
 other needed supplies of the nation. Hence, I say, 
 
162 FAEMBR HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 silver ceased to enter the mint arm in arm with gold 
 in 1853 and not in 1873, In 1853 the two metals for 
 the first time began to walk side by side and to circn- 
 late on equal terms among the people in trade. How 
 was the people robbed by this legislation, either of 
 1853 or 1873? Silver was not demonetized. It is stiU 
 Inoney. The United Statjes now uses five dollars of 
 silver as money to one in any year before 1873. This 
 silver is all a legal tender for debts." 
 
 "But silver is no longer priniary money even though 
 it is still a legal tender to pay debts. It is not the 
 money of redemption. Silver is a token money. It is 
 redeemable in gold. The value of property is deter- 
 mined primarily by the amount of redemption money 
 in use in any given country and property has fallen 
 in the United States since 1873 by the relative amount 
 of silver which has been reduced from actual money 
 to token money. - It has been reduced to the degree in 
 which our stock of primary money has been lessened." 
 
 "For the sake of argument, I will, Mr. Coin, grant 
 all the foregoing assumptions, although I am frank to 
 say they involve many fallacies and some misstate- 
 ments. But granting them all, let us see to what con- 
 clusions they lead us. But first permit me to ask you 
 a few questions. You are not wUling to reckon any 
 token money as money of redemption?" 
 
 "No, sir. Token money is redeemable money and 
 not money of redemption. It has nothing to do with 
 fixing the prices in a nation. I am not going to allow 
 you to claim any of the silver purchased by the United 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 
 
 163 
 
 States under the Bland or Sherman acts as a part of 
 the ultimate money of the land. It has no part in 
 fixing prices." 
 
 "Very well, then. Now, please tell us how much 
 silver money there was in the United States in 1873 
 other than toEen money? In answering I am willing 
 you should make the largest possible estimate. I am 
 willing that you should count aU the silver hidden 
 away in stockings or banks, but not in actual ciroula- 
 
 "WHAT IS SAUCE FOE THE GOOSE IS SAUCE FOB THE QASTDKE." 
 
 tion among the people, owing to the suspension of 
 specie circulation from 1861 to 1879." 
 
 "Up to 1873 the United States had coined over 145 
 miUion dollars of silver and there had been introduced 
 over 100 million dollars of silver coins of other coun- 
 tries." 
 
 "You must take us aU for fools, Mr. Coin. You have 
 not answered my question. All these foreign coins 
 were depreciated because worn and worth on an aver- 
 
161 EABMBR HAYSKBI*^ IN TOWN. 
 
 age only about eighty cents on a dollar. Tkey were 
 worth far less than the United States token money 
 before 1873. By your definition, which you wish us 
 to apply to the present silver coinage of the land, those 
 worn foreign; coins could not be called money of re- 
 demption, even though legal tender. Neithiei could 
 the token money of the United States be recognized as 
 primary money. It was money to be redeemed in 
 standard money the same as the token money of to- 
 day. Striking out aU these forms of token money, I 
 again ask how much standard silver money was there 
 in the United States in 1873?" 
 
 "If you insist upon that construction, I wiU have to 
 say there were practically no silver dollars or other sil- 
 ver money of ' redemption in the land at that time, and 
 only 15,000,000 of subsidiary silver money; But you 
 are unfair in your requirements, Mr. Hayseed." 
 
 "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, 
 Mr. Coin. You insist that token money is not money 
 of redemption or primary money now. It could not 
 have been in 1873. Now, how much gold was there in 
 circulation in 1873 in the United States?" 
 
 "I cannot teU you exactly. There were |25,000,000 
 of gold in circulation at the time in California. If, 
 however, you will allow me to count the sums hidden 
 awa^ in stockings and banks and other sources I would 
 say there was a total stock of gold in the United States 
 itt 1873 of about 135 million dollars. That is the esti- 
 mate of the Treasury Department in the matter." 
 
GOLD AND SILVBK LEGISLATION. 165 
 
 "How much gold or primary money was there .in 
 circulation or on hand in the United States ;at the time 
 of the panic of 1893?" 
 
 "There were 59,7 million dollars of gold in the 
 United States Julj 1, 1893, of which 408 millions were 
 in active circulation." 
 
 "Was this greater actually or in proportion to the 
 population than the redemption mon^ in the country 
 in 1873? Can you tell us, Mr. Coin?" 
 
 "The redemption money in circulation in 1893 was 
 over sixteen times that of 1873, and the per capita of 
 such redemption money increased in the two decades 
 to ten times its earlier proportions." 
 
 "Quite right, Mr. Coin. Now, please repeat in this 
 connection what you have said concerning the effect 
 upon prices of the amount of redemption money in a 
 land." 
 
 "Prices are increased with an increase of redemp- 
 tion money and decreased with a ^decrease in such 
 money." > 
 
 When Coin said this he was unable to look his 
 young friends in the face. He had told them how the 
 redemption money of the nation had been lessened in 
 the United States by the silver legislation of 1873. 
 He had told them the present low prices were due to 
 that lessening of the amount of redemption money. 
 Now he had been forced to admit that the stock of re- 
 demption money on hand or in circulation in the United 
 States had increased several times in twenty jears. 
 His theories, if truei, would caU for an unheard of ad- 
 
166 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 vance in prices. He was in a frightful dilemma. He 
 saw that, if the young men had even ordinary common 
 sense, they would understand how he had dealt in half- 
 truths and out of them made the worst sort 'of lies. 
 He tnew that they would understand the fallacy of 
 all his rubbish about the effect of silver legislation 
 upon prices and begin to look for the actual reason 
 for the existing hard times and the suffering and want 
 in the world, which is the last thing sucL as he cared 
 to remove or alleviate. He repeated his stale remarks 
 about prices and amounts of primary money without 
 ever thinking what he was saying. He was dazed at 
 having the old farmer puncture all his misstatements 
 of facts. But after he had spoken he saw the fright- 
 ful admission that he had made and essayed again to 
 change the subject of conversation. 
 
 He could not exactly see his way out of his dilemma. 
 He recalled the advice of the old Methodist preacher to 
 the novice: "When you are preaching and cannot 
 think of what to say, pound the pulpit and holler." As 
 applied to this silver discussion he had always under- 
 stood the advice to mean: "When, you are cornered 
 beat the air and 'holler' about the crime of 1873." He 
 therefore began by saying: 
 
 "I must call your attention to the crime of 1873, 
 by 'which John Sherman with one stroke of the pen 
 assassinated silver and showed how much more power- 
 ful is the pen than the sword, since he accomplished 
 by it what foreign nations by war would not have been 
 able to compel us to enact into laws." 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 16T 
 
 "Are we to understand, then, Mr. Coin, that silver 
 as money is dead and has been since 1873?" inquired 
 a medical student who was present. 
 
 JOHN SHEEMAN KILLING SILVER. 
 
 "Yes, sir; and that single act of Sherman has been 
 more potent for evil than any other act of man." 
 
 "Then I wish to ask," said the young doctor, "how, 
 if silver has been dead for twenty-two years, you are 
 
168 FARMER HATSKED IN TOWN. 
 
 going to resurrect it agaia as moeeg^. I had an idea 
 that it was pretty hard to revive anything dead. Up 
 at the medical school we sometimes attach a toattery 
 to a corpse and start the dead into motion. Occasionally 
 the motions seem horribly realistic and life-like. But 
 when the electricity -is removed the corpse is just as 
 dead as before ; in fact, it seems to be as dead as Mark 
 Twain's mummy. Did not silver live as well as gold, 
 and did they not act as money thousands of years be- 
 fore anj nation essayed to make laws about their cir- 
 culation. Iron and copper once were thus used as 
 money, but are now as dead as Julius Caesar. No act 
 of the state can revive them. James of England tried 
 in Ireland to restore copper to its former life, but it 
 was dead and his experiment failed. Now if silver 
 was assassinated and is dead we maj all weep over 
 the corpse. But it wiU do no good. Tears will be as 
 powerless as laws to revive the dead." 
 
 "But," interrupted Coin, "silver is not dead as 
 money among commercial nations in any such «ense 
 as iron and copper. It still performs its cid function 
 among all of the Oriental nations, making up over 
 one-half the race of men. It is just as much money 
 there as it ever was. Then it is,used to a large extent 
 in settling international balances between the various 
 nations and especially between Europe and Asia and 
 South and Central America. The United States also 
 employs silver in balancing its international trade to 
 a considerable extent. Silver is also used in Eui>ope 
 and the United States as money, although not as 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LB&ISLATION. 169 
 
 monej ^ tdtimate redemption. In fact in the old func- 
 tion of money as a legal tender to pay debts silver is 
 used in Europe and the United States to an amount 
 of over f 500;000,00G mote -than in 1873. That amount 
 of silver has been added to the circulating medium 
 since that year. Hence while silver was assassinated 
 in one sense of the word in 1873, it is not really dead. 
 It is very much alive, as the bankers and goldbugs 
 will soon find, to their surprise and regret." 
 
 "Then we are to understand," said the student, 
 "tliat when you speak of the assassination of silver you 
 use the word in a Pickwickian sense. The act of 1873 
 did not affect silver in the least in three-fourths of the 
 world, — ^in the Orient and in South and Central Amer- 
 ica. The United States and Europe have since that 
 year added 500 million dollars in silver to their mone- 
 tary systems, and all this silver, active in international 
 trade as it has been for 6,000 years, has had its old 
 influence in fixing prices. It is moiiey, as it always 
 has been." 
 
 "But," said Coin, "this silver of ours in the United 
 States is not redemption money, and hence has no in- 
 fluence in establishing prices." 
 
 "But you have tdld us," said Fanner Hayseed, "that 
 there was no silver of rfedemption in the United States 
 in 1873. We have here as much silver of redemption 
 as we had tlien or have had since 1850. The law of 
 1873 did not lessen the use of silver as redemption 
 money in the nation. Instead, that law, with the acts 
 of 1854, 1878, and 1890, added several hundred millions 
 
170 FARMER HATSBED IN TOWN. 
 
 of dollars to what we plain people are glad to get and 
 still call money. We can pay debts with it the same 
 as with gold, and because we use it as money we call 
 it money and do not understand what you mean by de- 
 monetization. I have to-night, however, learned your 
 meaning. You talk of demonetization of silver in the 
 Pickwickian sense as you make your charges about the 
 assassination of silver in 1873." 
 
 The young doctor here took up the subject by say- 
 Sng: 
 
 "Silver, like a man, cannot be dead and alive at 
 the same time. It is either dead or it is alive. Silver 
 is either money or it is not money. If it has been 
 demonetized it is no longer in use as money. That is 
 the meaning of demonetization, as you will learn by 
 consulting any dictiQng,ry. But we aU know that we 
 use silver as money. Silver is not dead, but is alive 
 and in use, as it has been for 6,000 years. Being in 
 use as money, as it always has been, being used to the' 
 extent of $500,000,000 more than in 1873, sUver is as 
 active as ever in establishing prices the world over. 
 If we wish to ascertain the causes of the low prices 
 prevailing at present we must look for it in some other 
 source than your Pickwickian death of silver. If you 
 look to death for the cause of these modern evils you 
 will have to bring into our midst some bona-fide corpse 
 and not -such a live, kicking being as this silver seems 
 to be." 
 
 Coin saw he could not with the company present 
 use the crime of 1873 as dust flung in the eyes to throw 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 171 
 
 them off the track. He determined to use what or- 
 dinarily never failed to carry people with him. He 
 puUed out Ms school-book and, turning to the table on 
 page 34, called attention to what he has designated as 
 the unvarying ratio between gold and silver under 
 the unlimited (?) demand for both metals since 1687. 
 He said: 
 
 "Please note from this table that from 1687 to 1873 
 the commercial ratio of gold and silver was never lower 
 than 1 to 14.14 and never higher than 1 to 16.25 or 115 
 per cent of the lower ratio. This variation is ac- 
 
 COIir'S CAST BEFOBB HIS HOBSB. 
 
 counted for by the difference in ratios fixed by dif- 
 ferent governments and the cost of exchange." 
 
 "Beg your pardon for interrupting you," said Farmer 
 Hayseed, "but I think you have placed your cart be- 
 fore the horse. The ratios were established by the 
 supply and demand and all that the governments did 
 was to recognize the variation in those two factors 
 regulating prices. The customs of the various gov- 
 ernnients of Europe with reference to silver and gold 
 were the same for the years 1687 to 1816 as they. had 
 been from 1200 to 1687. In Arabia at one time silver 
 
172 FAilMEE HAYSEED IN TOWN, 
 
 was worth more than gold. In the time ©f Plato, in 
 Greece gold was twelve times as valuable as silver, 
 in that of Menander it was only ten, and in that of 
 Julius Caesar it was nine. In 1262, in England, it 
 was 9.6. In the same co'untry it was in 1292, 12.5 and 
 in 1485, 13.75. In Spain, between 1474 and 1516, this 
 ratio was 10 69-612; in 1537, it was 10 371-612; in the 
 reign of Philip II., it was 12 143-1224, and July 17, 1779, 
 it was fixed at 1 to 16. In the year 1641, Louis XIII. 
 of France fixed the ratio at 13J. Later the commercial 
 demand forced a change and in 1724 the ratio was 
 fixed at 14^. Kings for centuries sought to estab- 
 lish the ratio between these two metals. The tide of 
 prices ebbed and flowed and the royal edicts were as 
 powerless to efEect a change as King Canute's chair 
 was to stay the rising waves on the shores of Eng- 
 land. The changing rules of governments was the 
 recognition of changes in value due to varying supply 
 and demand. The whole business can be illustrated 
 by a story. Once a man had a visitor at his house. 
 He boasted of his dog and his control over the same. 
 He said : 'See me make him mind. Come, Fido, come 
 out from under that bed.' The dog did not mind. 
 After repeating Ms demand a half dozen times and Hie 
 dog remaining unmoved, he said, 'Now, stay there.' 
 The dog staid. His master then said:: 'See how well 
 he minded that last time.' Governments, if they com- 
 mand what the dog of supply and demand has already 
 willed, are obeyed. If they caU for anythihg else tfhQr 
 
SOLD AND SILVER LBaiSIlATION, 
 
 17S 
 
 are as little heeded as the first command of the man t© 
 his unruly dogi" 
 
 Here was another poser fdr Coin. He saw the 
 necessity for a further change of subjects. He said : 
 
 "The amount of gold and silver in the world twenty- 
 five years ago barely sufficed to carry on its business. 
 How can you expect one of these metals to do all the 
 work at the present time when the business — domestic 
 
 THB FBEX-SILVEE DOS BEFUSSS TO BISB AT IHB CALL, 16 TO 1, 
 
 and international — has increased so many fold? Can 
 the attempt have but one result, and that to depress 
 prices one-half the world over? The selling price of 
 everything has declined." 
 
 "Is that so?" asked Mr. Hayseeds "Methinks I have 
 heard that remark before. Some one madfe that same 
 statement to a neighbor of mine in Iowa a fe\y weeks 
 ago. He went to Des Moines for the first time in many 
 years. He started in and bought some tobacco and 
 cigars and was charged the same price as in 1873. It 
 
174 FAKMBB HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 was the same with tea and coffee, although duty had 
 been removed in the intervening years. He had the 
 same story to tell after purchasing a drink of beer and 
 a flask of pure whisky. The charge at the hotel, on the 
 cans, street railway, at the barber shop and at the 
 telegraph oflSce was the same as twenty-flve years be- 
 fore; He was taken sick and paid the doctor the old 
 fee. He was mad at being imposed upon for a green 
 countryman and charged double just because he was 
 ignorant of the effect of the law of 1873. He became 
 involved in a fight with the sialoonkeeper over his 
 charges and was arrested and found that he had to 
 pay the lawyer and court expenses the same as in 1873. 
 When he reached home with the meat and other fam- 
 ily supplies purchased at the old prices he thrashed 
 the- man who had led him into all his troubles by tell- 
 ing him that the price of everything had fallen one-half 
 in twenty-five years. He also threatens any one who 
 repeats the worn-out yam in his presence. Better not 
 visit our town unless you keep still when, the old 
 farmer is around." 
 
 "But the farmer should think of wheat and cotton 
 instead of those other articles," replied Coin. He has 
 to raise more of these crops to purchase the same 
 amount of other commodities. 
 
 "Why do you shift your ground so often, Mr. Coin? 
 You yourself tell about high prices when you wish to 
 show how the value of wheat h!asi fallen. You give us 
 the picture in your school-book here reproduced show- 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 
 
 175 
 
 ao 
 
 55 
 <t 
 
 H 
 H 
 
 g 
 
 s 
 
 S 
 
 i I 
 
 H S 
 
 U n 
 
 R ^ 
 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 < 
 
 
 
 i 
 
176 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 ing those high prices. Pricea are all up when you talE 
 wheat, but low when you talk silver. Gome, now, be 
 honest for once, and tell us whether prices as a whole 
 have risen or fallen?" 
 
 "Some things have advanced in selling price and 
 others have decreased," answered Coin. 
 
 "That is true, Mr. Coin. Now I wish to call your at- 
 tention to the division between the articles that have 
 advanced in price and those that have diepreciated. 
 Everything that the Western farmer raises has on the 
 average for five-year periods advanced in value in twen- 
 ty-flve years with the exception of wheat and hay. 
 Everything that he desires to purchase has depreciated 
 in selling price. It is the same for the toilers of the 
 land, the men and women who work for wages Every- 
 thing that they have to sell, their labor, brings a higher 
 price than in 1870 and everything that they buy has' 
 decreased in selling value, some to a small extent while 
 others to a greater." 
 
 "But men are idle more now than they used to be," 
 said Coin. "See our army of the unemployed." 
 
 "We have," replied Hayseed, "a great army of the 
 unemployed at present. This has been the case 
 
 since the panic of 1893. It is a source of great concern 
 to all thoughtful people. But this army is smaller 
 relatively than in 1874, 1857, 1837, *or in many other 
 years. Governor Winthrop in 1629 tells us of the un- 
 employed in England. He draws a picture of that day 
 darker than you have painted of the present, and it 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 177 
 
 has the credit of being tmie to facta We are making 
 great progress in liiis century in dealing with, tiie army 
 of the unemployed. The past twenly-five years has 
 seen a wonderful progress in this respect. In 1870 
 there were 32.43 per cent of our population in gainful 
 occupations. That percentage had risen in 1890 to 
 36.31. Here is indicated a great decline in thearmy of 
 the idle. But the land has not only lessened its army 
 of unemployed; it has learned to assist the idle by better 
 methods. This is especially true of organized labor. 
 By their sick and out-of-work and traveling benefits, or 
 
 Issued by Autliorjt^ai the Cigaf- Makers International Union of America. 
 
 Union-made Cigars. 
 
 llh\$ Snlifif^. 1lnttlieCqirsciMatKdlntM>b<»la«ab«nTiui»lyatlSt-U3S$WblKn 
 { a MCIIKR Of THE CIGM lUKOB lnURiiATioiui. IMION of Amriu. in ofoaniznim devoleil titjisad- 
 ■eirmmfvr 1 wncemcntaflhEMORAUMTUIIALMIIlTUUCIUALmUADUFTHCCiiArT. Tllue(oreale>«wwll4 
 l<\^^||lIjL^^f theMCigafStoallsfnofurstllroughouttliB worid. v 
 
 l^^s^^^T All Inhmgenifllsjjpon this libel wHIbe pujiished acw^rfinjtoUM. 
 
 «TAMe 
 
 THE CIGAEMAKER'S BANNBH OP MUTUAL HELPFULNBSS. 
 
 insurance, they care for all their members. The mag' 
 nitude of this change for the better can be seen from 
 the fact that the union of ciganaakers, with a member- 
 ship of 30,000, cared for all its Mck and idle members 
 in the past two years and never had one of them be- 
 come a public charge. Such a record from such a vast 
 army of toilers was never witnessed before on this 
 earth. The union carries its banner of mutual help- 
 fulness everywhere. It does this by its label, here 
 given. If otiher crafts show a less enviable record in 
 
178 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 ItHese hard times it is Ueoause they are less perfectly; 
 organized and are thus less able to overcome the evils 
 that beset the pathway of the toiler. Organization 
 and not free silver is the Key to success for the wage 
 earner." . 
 
 At this point a young man in the company turned 
 the subject by asking: "Does not the world need a 
 larger supply of money in the form of the precious 
 metals than exists to-day?" 
 
 "Let us see," said Farmer Hayseed. "How shall 
 we measure the world's international use or need of 
 coin as primary money? Can there be any better way 
 of determining it than by the amount shipped be- 
 tween countries in the settlement of balances?" 
 
 "I think not," said Coin. 
 
 "Let us then take the use of gold and silver in set- 
 tling international balances now and thirty years ago, 
 before this modern depression of prices. We will take 
 the use of gold and silver in the settlement of inter- 
 national trade between Great Britain, France, the 
 United States, and British India. This commerce ag- 
 gregates a great share of the trade of the world. In 
 the five years 1860 to 1864 these countries shipped in 
 gold and silver, in settlement of trade balance, |3,143,- 
 656,271, and in the five years 1886 to 1890, $2,717,334,- 
 783." 
 
 "But, Mr. Hayseed, your figures are a most eloquent 
 illustration of my position," cried Coin, brightening up 
 exceedingly. "See how the trade has decreased under 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGHSLATION. 179 
 
 the blighting effects of money contraction. The use of 
 money bears a fixed ratio and is an index of prices and 
 trade." 
 
 "Not quite so fast, Mr. Coin," said the farmer. "In 
 the first five years the commerce of the countries was 
 $18,568,736,213, while in the latter it was $36,204,527,- 
 385. Methods of business were so improved that men 
 were able to double the amount of their transactions 
 with an actual decrease in the use of the precious 
 metals. But that is not all. The product of gold and 
 silver mines had greatly increased. That product was 
 in the earlier years $792,350,000 and in the latter, 
 $1,284,291,000. In international commerce the actual 
 use of gold and silver has been decreasing while com- 
 merce has increased and the amount of gold and silver 
 has increased. Here is an immense relative inflation 
 of currency which, according to your theories, calls foB 
 an unprededented advance of prices. How do you ex- 
 plain the discrepancy, Mr. Coin?" 
 
 "Easy enough. Over one-half the money of the 
 world has ceased to be primary money owing to the 
 crime of 1873 by which silver was assassinated." 
 
 "But, Mr. Coin, are gold and silver in the payment of 
 fnternational balances money in the sense in which we 
 speak of our national currency or are they commodi- 
 ties?" 
 
 "I have explained in my book, but more at length 
 in mj; lectures in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, 
 
180 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 that in internatioiial exchange gold and silver both 
 are simply commodities." 
 
 "Has the use of sUver in the great world of com- 
 merce been lessened by the legislation of 1873?" 
 
 "I cannot say." 
 
 "I will tell you then. In this vast volume of inter- 
 national trade to which 1 have called your attention, 
 in the earlier five years silver was used to pay forty 
 per cent of the balances while in the latter five years 
 it was used in forty-five per cent of those balances. In 
 this trade which calls for the great use of gold and 
 silver as agents of exchange, the use of silver is rela- 
 tively increasing. Silver, then, as primary money of 
 exchange has been helped rather than injured by the 
 legislation of 1873. In the world of commerce silver 
 is money to a greater and not a lesser extent than 
 twenty-five years ago, as you have been asserting so 
 long and so loudly." 
 
 . "But I do not care for this international trade. It 
 is in reality small as compared with our domestic. Our 
 domestic trade is twenty-four times greater than our 
 foreign. We should look aftei* the greater and let the 
 lesser go. We need stimulation of such home trade by 
 an increase in the relative amount of primary money 
 of redemption." 
 
 "But we have seen how that primary money in 
 local affairs has been increased sixteenfold since 1873, 
 since we have that much greater volume of such money 
 than in 1873. Your silver legislation would drive all 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 181 
 
 our gold out of circulation and so absolutely lessen our 
 stock of redemption money and thus carry us, accord- 
 ing to your own theory, to still lower prices and greater 
 want and suffering. Why should we invite such re- 
 sults with our eyes open? You say we have too little 
 money of redemption now. Why should we lessen our 
 stock of all forms and kinds of money, money of circu- 
 lation and money of redemption?" 
 
 "You areJlepending upon theory, Mr. Hayseed. We 
 should rely upon facts. The theorist always casts the 
 shadow of an ass that he is. We must stick to facts." 
 
 "What are -the facts that we are to stick to?" asked 
 the old farmer. 
 
 "The fact that the silver legislation of 1873 was a 
 dastardly crime, that it depressed prices the world over 
 and wrought ruin. We must correct the wrong and 
 restore silver to its former throne as queen of the 
 metals. The revolution of 1873 was brought about in 
 secret and we must correct the wrong openly. Once 
 more on its former throne, its legal parity with gold, it 
 can maintain its commercial equality with that metal 
 on its old ratio of 16 to 1." 
 
 "Methinks, Mr. Coin, you are the theorist whose 
 shadow you say resembles an ass. Here, however, I 
 also see traces of the cloven foot as weU, for none are 
 so blind as those who will not see. You claim that 
 silver has been demonetized; that its use as primary 
 money or money of redemption in the world has de- 
 creased. I have shown you how in the payment of in- 
 
182 
 
 FARMER HATSEBD IN TOWN. 
 
 ternatiohal balances its use has increased five per cent 
 since 1860. You shift the field to the United States 
 and say that low prices are caused by a decrease of our 
 
 TMEL°R<5T 
 
 A SFIBII FICIUBB OF A FBEB-SILYEB MAN. 
 
 national money of redemption. I show you that the 
 Bieir capita amount of such money in 1893 was ten 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 183 
 
 times what it was in 1873. You shift again to the 
 IWdrjld and say thiajt the stock of gold is not enough to 
 transact a world's increasing business. I show you 
 how the use of both gold and sUver is decreasing in 
 settling exchanges, while the stock of those metals is 
 increasing." 
 
 "But debts are increasing," said Coin. "They have 
 increased $8,000,000,000 since 1890 and make up a 
 total of $40,000,000,000 at the present time, as I have 
 shown elsewhere in detail." 
 
 "Here again," said the old farmer, "you allow your 
 theories to blind you to facts. Debts of all kinds are 
 decreasing. The sum total of obligations in the United 
 States cannot greatly exceed, even if it equals, one-half 
 of your grand total." 
 
 "I challenge you, Mr. Hayseed, to name a single 
 item of indebtedness that is decreasing." 
 
 "Your challenge would be simpler if it required me 
 to name one that has not decreased," said the old 
 farmer. "According to the last United States Census 
 in the ten years 1880 to 1890 the per capita debt of the 
 United States Grovemment decreased from |38.33 to 
 $14.29; state debts decreased from $5.93 to $3.66; coun- 
 ty debts from $2.47 to $2.32; municipal debts from 
 $13.64 to $11.57, and the only form of public debts in- 
 creasing was school debts, which rose from thirty-flve 
 to fifty-nine cents per capita. The whole public in- 
 debtedness decreased in ten years from $60.73 to $32.37 
 per capita, while property increased from $870 to 
 
184 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 f 1,039. This increase per capita of ten years will pay 
 off the remaining public debt five times. This increase 
 in "wealth and decrease in public debts can be illus- 
 trated viery well by a diagram, as follows : The middle 
 of three circles represents the per capita public debts 
 in the United States in 1880. The smallest circle 
 shows the relative dimensions of those debts in 1890. 
 The difference in the two circles exhibits the decrease 
 in those debts in the intervening ten years. The larg- 
 est circle shows the relative increase in the per capita 
 wealth of the nation accompanying this decrease of 
 public debts to onoThalf its earlier proportions. The 
 gas is getting out of your balloon representing debts, 
 Mr. Coin, and someway or other the balloon represent- 
 ing the wealth of this nation is rapidly enlarging. This 
 contradicts your statements, which I should judge had 
 been made without any regard for the existing facts 
 about wealth and debts in our midst." (For circles, 
 gee front page of cover.) 
 
 To this Mr. Coin replied: 
 
 "But farm and other private mortgage debts have 
 increased:" 
 
 "It is true that they increased from 1880 to 1887, 
 but since that time they have steadUy decreased, and 
 so instead of having increased since 1890, 8,000 million, 
 as you claimed, the debts of the country must have de- 
 creased at least 2,000 million dollars. Here is a single 
 error in your figures for deb^s of at least 10,000 million 
 dollars. You allow your fancies to picture this vast 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LBaiSLATION. 
 
 185 
 
 sum of debts that does not exist. What is the use of 
 such exaggeration and misstatements? Give us the 
 fstcts and let your theories go to the winds. I could 
 show you the same error in other ways where you 
 count the assets of savings banks as debts and then 
 
 EESTOEING CIECULATION TO SILVEE IN 1854. 
 
 turn round and count them a second time when loaned 
 out to farmers or invested in railroad and other bonds, 
 corporate and municipal." ^ 
 
 "But it stands to reason," cried Coin, "that when 
 you assassinate silver as money of redemption you in- 
 
186 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 crease debts, decrease the value of property, and bring 
 untold suffering. It stands to reason that the misery 
 which we see in the world was all caused by this das- 
 tardly crime of silver assassination in 1873, and I ask", 
 as I have said in my lectures and taught in my schools, 
 that the world shall accept nothing from me that does 
 not bear the analysis of reason. But I wiU insist upon 
 that test of sound reason. I will not accept anything 
 that seems unreasonable, and your statements about 
 debts and values of property are all unreasonable." 
 
 "But these are facts, and we must square our rea- 
 son to the same," said the old farmer. "You picture 
 silver assassinated in 1873. The facts are that m 1853 
 silver, by what you call a crime, was restored to life 
 after a period of suspended animation that began in 
 1834. The act of 1853 restored silver to circulation 
 and the acta of 1873, 1878, and 1890 placed it fully 
 on its feet after its partial asphyxiation in 1834. You 
 should read history to better result and not confound 
 the effects of the law of 1834 with those of 1873." 
 
 "But I am a friend of the common people and you 
 are but a tool of the bankers and money-sharks of Wall 
 Street and Lombard Street. You would sell your coun- 
 try to the octopus of gold which has its head in London, 
 and, with its tentacles in all lands, is sucking their 
 life-blood. I am a believer in silver, the poor man's 
 money, and you are an advocate of gold, the rich man's 
 money." 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 
 
 187 
 
 ""I am in favor," said Mr. Hayseed, "of money for 
 the poor man and would drive the money-changers 
 from the temple of our homes. In the days of Christ 
 there was no uniformity of money. Men came up to 
 Jerusalem from aU lands to pray and offer sacrifices. 
 
 PLAOINO SILVKB ON ITS FEET. 
 
 They brought all sorts of coin with them. Some was 
 good and some was bad, and most of it not current at 
 the hands of the priests. Money-changers secured a 
 seat in the outer courts of the temple. They grew 
 rich by changing the money of all lands into the money 
 
188 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 of Jerusalem. They grew rich, in the same manner as 
 the bankers in the days of the Civil War, — out of men's 
 necessities. Christ drove them out with whips. We 
 have driven such money-changers out of the temple of 
 our national life. We have made gold, silver, and 
 paper money all good. The poorest man can take his 
 day's pay in any money of the realm and always find 
 it good. He knows its value. No money-changers 
 live off. of his money by changing it for other and bet- 
 ter money. All our money is the poor man's money, 
 because it is all good. We have no banker's money. 
 You ask us to change our present volume of poor men's 
 money into banker's money. You ask us to give the 
 bankers a chance to make something out of the fluctu- 
 ation of our currency and thus restore to our temple 
 the money-changers whom the Christ of former prog- 
 ress has driven out. In this you are- trying to sup 
 with the devil of uncertainty, and you and all men 
 must needs have a long spoon." 
 
 "But," replied Coin, "gold men assassinated sil- 
 ver. They betrayed the people's money for English 
 gold in 1873. This is the great crime of history. In 
 aU ages the word gold has stood for avarice, wrong, 
 and greed. The poets tell us how 'judges and senates 
 have been bought for gold.' Gold is the symbol of the 
 oppressor's power and silver the shield, because the 
 money of the common people. You never find the 
 poets charging in their verse the crimes of the world 
 to the credit of silver." 
 
GOLD AND SILVER LEGISLATION. 
 
 189 
 
 "You join your theories to sentiment and poetry, it 
 seems," said the farmer, "but are unwilling to hitch 
 your winged horses of fancy to the simple wagon of 
 fact. Hence you are unwilling to consider the facts 
 that silver was assassinated in 1834 and not in 1873 
 iaJn'd lihat t!he act of 1873 gave new life to the body 
 revived in 1853. You are unwilling to consider the 
 
 THIBTY PIECES OF SILVEE. 
 
 actual facts about debts and the use of money now and 
 ten and twenty years ago. You are willing to look 
 on one picture of fancy but not on the portrait of fact 
 and sound sense. If you must deal in poetry and fancy 
 about the poor and honest man's money; if you must 
 rail about gold as the money of crime and silver as 
 the coin of innocence, permit me to remind you that 
 the Christian world until the present generation has 
 associated silver with what they called the greatest 
 crime,— the betrayal of the Son of Man for thirty 
 
190 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 pieces of that metal: A Judas was found for that 
 sum of white metal to sell his Saviour. Now you are 
 seeking for other pieces of silver to sell the nation 
 into financial anarchy in the interests of the owners 
 of a few mines in our Western mountains. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL— AN INCIDENT OP UNPUBLISHED 
 HISTOKY. ' 
 
 "Give a silver lunatic a horse and he will ride to 
 the devH. There would be no harm in that, provided 
 the devil would send the horse back, but he won't." 
 — Farmer SayseecPs Version of an Old Proverb. 
 
 After the home thrust of the old farmer about the 
 thirty pieces of silver, narrated in the last chapter, 
 Coin announced rather abruptly the necessity of his 
 leaving to attend to some pressing business, and took 
 his departure with but little ceremony. When the 
 door had closed upon his form, one of the young men 
 present mentioned a discovery which he had made the 
 night before. It was a fact that explained some state- 
 ments in the newspapers over which people in Chicago 
 and the Northwest were disputing. Coin and hiS' 
 friends insisted that Lyman Gage and a long list of 
 other bankers and newspaper men had been present at 
 his school and had been allowed to speak, but were, 
 unable to meet the convincing facts of Coin in favor of 
 the free and unlimited coinage of silver. Those gentle- 
 
192 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 men had asserted in the public press that they had 
 never been present in Coin's school. People were be- 
 ginning to take sides in the controversy that arose over 
 the subject, large numbers being ready' to testify that 
 they had seen the gentlemen at the school and had 
 heard them speak. 
 
 The discovery of the young man, which he'disclosed 
 when Coin had left, was that Coin had a number of 
 automata with changeable faces which were in reality 
 
 COIN TOUCHED THE BUTTOIf; THE PHONOGEAPHS DID THE BEST. 
 
 talking machines. They contained finely arranged 
 phonographs, which were operated by electricity. They 
 were set to express a few fixed questions and were 
 moved as Coin touched the button; the electricity and 
 the phonographs did the rest. The young man had a 
 Key to the schoolroom and suggested playing a tricK 
 lUpon Coin to match and expose the one which he had 
 been working upon the public. All present as lovers 
 
THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL!. 193 
 
 of fair play and fun entered into the scheme. A num- 
 ber of them, including Farmer Hayseed, accompanied 
 the young man to Coin's schoolroom. They, found the 
 automata all arranged for the next day. By touching 
 the buttons on the platform they soon learned what 
 Coin had set each figure to say. They then changed 
 the cylinders in the talking machines, substituting 
 for those arranged by Coin others with words such as 
 the old farmer had expressed. They also arranged 
 electric wires, so that a member of the party could 
 operate the figures as well as Coin. The next day all 
 were on hand. The hall was crowded- Farmer Hay- 
 seed was present to enjoy the fun along with the boys. 
 
 Coin began his lecture by saying : 
 
 "In the midst of plenty we are in want. Helpless 
 children and the best womanhood and manhood appeal 
 to us for a release from a bondage that is destructive of 
 life and liberty. We are now the ally of England in the 
 most cruel and unjust persecution against the weak and 
 defenseless people of the world that was ever waged 
 by tyrants since the dawn of history. If it is claimed 
 that we must adopt for our money the metal England 
 selects, and can have no independent choice in the 
 matter, let us make the test and find out if it is true. 
 It is not American to give up without trying. If it is 
 trufe, let us attach England to the United States and 
 blot out her name from among the nations of ttie earth, 
 A war with England would be the most popular ever 
 waged on the face of the earth." (Applause.) 
 
194 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 "Your financial plans, then, involve, among other 
 things, a war with England," said Hayseed. "I am 
 glad that you state your schemes so logically. You 
 have told us how we owe England 5,000 million dollars. 
 You have told us how you proposed to compel all the 
 English creditors to take fifty cents on a dollar. It 
 is well to prepare for and talk about war with Eng- 
 land if you attempt such a vast repudiation of debts. 
 England has before now waged many wars to protect 
 the financial interests of her citizens when not one- 
 thousandth part of this vast sum was involved. She 
 would be forced to war to guard her people's rights in 
 this instance. But do the people of the United States 
 owe the people of any nation other than that of Great 
 Britain?" 
 
 "Yes," said Coin, "we owe Germans and Hollanders 
 about as mnchv as we do Epglishmen." 
 
 "Then if your statements about debts are correct, 
 we owe foreigners 10,000 millions of dollars, a sum so 
 vast that the national debts of the people to whom 
 most of this money is diife seem small when compared 
 therewith. You must prepare to conduct war with 
 aU these people if you expect to carry out your pro- 
 gram of repudiating one-half of this foreign indebted- 
 ness. Is war such a blessing that you commend the 
 scheme of conflict with Great Britain, and by implica- 
 tion, Germany and Holland, to put in practice your 
 wild schemes of finance? Here, indeed, we see the 
 truth of an old proverb slightly modified: 'Give a sil- 
 ver lunatic a horse and he wiU ride to the devil. There 
 
THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL. 
 
 195 
 
 would be no harm in that, provided the devil would 
 send the hotse bact, but he won't' If your lunatic 
 
 associates should by chance mount the na,tion as a 
 horse and you should ride it to the devil, as you have 
 
196 FAEMBK HAtSBED IN TOWN. 
 
 just outlined, Ms Satanic Majesty would never correct 
 the evil wrought, and those evUs would be such and 
 so great that those from which the people seek to fly 
 through your aid would seem like the itch as compared 
 with the smallpox." 
 
 "But," said Coin, "may be the statement about for- 
 eign debts is exaggerated." 
 
 "Of course it is," replied Hayseed. "The best au- 
 thorities who have carefully studied the subject say the 
 total interest which foreigners of all lands have in 
 the United States amounts to from three to five billions 
 of dollars, or less than what you have said we owe Eng- 
 lishmen. You have exaggerated our foreign debts 
 threefold to show the gain by repudiation. You have 
 also doubled our home debt. But 3,000 millions of 
 foreign debt is enough to cause Germany, Holland, and 
 Great Britain to wage the bitterest war the world 
 ever witnessed. I commend your frankness in point- 
 ing out the nature of the conflict which the application 
 of your theory involves." 
 
 Here was an interruption which the smooth little 
 financier did not relish. He concluded to ignore the 
 old farmer and resort to Qther devices to sUence him 
 in the future. He took up the thread of his remarks 
 with but slight change. He said: 
 
 "The money-lenders in the United States, who own 
 substantially all of our money, have a selfish interest 
 in maintaining the gold standard. They believe that 
 if the gold standard can survive for a few years longer. 
 
THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL. 197 
 
 the people will get lised to it, get used to their poverty, 
 and quietly submit. The United States should take 
 counsel from others than these money-lenders and 
 establish the absolute free coinage of silver." 
 
 Here the old farmer arose to ask a further ques- 
 tion, but Coin did not wish to be bothered with his 
 questions. He could not ignore Hayseed without re- 
 sorting to a trick, so he touched a button and his talk- 
 ing~ machine, representing Lyman Gage, president of 
 the First National Bank, arose. The figure asked: 
 
 "To whom is the vast amount of thesfr debts in the 
 United States of which you have spoken due?" 
 
 Coin could not recall having spoken any such ques- 
 tion to his phonograph. He could not understand it, 
 but he had no time to solve the mystery. He merely 
 answered: 
 
 "To the rich, the bankers, of course; who else has 
 money?" 
 
 If Coin had been surprised by the question of the 
 talking machine dressed in the form of Banker Gage, 
 he was almost paralyzed when that machine continued, 
 instead of sitting down as he expected. It said: 
 
 "I shall have to beg leave to differ from you. The 
 debts of which you talk so glibly largely represent the 
 savings of the great body of people. The mortgage 
 debt of the land and most of the state, municipal, and 
 corporate indebtedness of the land represent money 
 owed to savings banks, trust companies, building and 
 loan societies, insurance companies, and kindred insti- 
 tutions for gathering and investing the savings of the 
 
198 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 industrious and prudent toilers of the land. Why, in 
 the State of New ,York the investments of the savings 
 banks represent deposits for every third man, woman, 
 and child in that state. The insurance companies rep- 
 resent other and vaster institutions for conserving and 
 protecting the financial well-being of the masses. The 
 national banks have millions of loans outstanding. 
 Those loans represent deposits not wholly nor even 
 mainly of the rich, but of the great army of industrious 
 and saving people in the land. The bankers in our 
 great cities do not have money to transact their busi- 
 ness. They have not only to caU for the savings of the 
 toilers in the cities, but those in the country. The 
 , farmers, who you say are crushed by debt, are in the 
 older settled states and sections the greatest depositors 
 in the banks near their homes. Why, a few years ago, 
 when the bankers and grain men of Minneapolis, Min- 
 nesota, were unable to secure money .from New York, 
 Boston, and Chicago, to move the great wheat crop 
 of the Red River Valley, owing to the straitened con- 
 dition of Eastern banks, those Minneapolis dealers 
 and bankers obtained the needed resources from the 
 banks in southern Minnesota. The money to move 
 the wheat crop of northern Minnesota and the Da- 
 kotas represented then the savings of the old farmers 
 of southern Minnesota. It is thus in aU parts of the 
 country. The great creditors are the farmers and the 
 busy, saving toilers of the cities. You silver folks ask 
 to mount the national horse and ride to the devil of 
 disaster, as this other gentleman has said, with all 
 
THE CLOSE OP SCHOOL. 199 
 
 these savings, and at one fell stroke, by cheap money, 
 rob the millions to enrich a few." 
 
 The figure of Gage now sat down. Coin was fairly 
 stupefied. He had to say something. He saw from the 
 looks of the crowd that it was no time for dodging. 
 Hence he said: 
 
 "I shalj have to differ with you, Mr. Gage. Our 
 plans would do no such thing. They would aid the 
 poor at the expense of the rich. They would make 
 money plentiful. That would secure good prices and 
 plenty of employment. We^ should have a return to 
 the high prices of the war period in 1860 to 1865, and 
 all remember how prosperous the people then were." 
 
 At this point the boy who had control of the talk- 
 ing machines touched the button, and, to the horror 
 of Coin, the figure of Professor Laughlin arose. This 
 figure began by saying: 
 
 "The prosperity caused by cheap money is one that 
 sooner or later jrobs the many for the benefit of the 
 few. The cheap money of the war period did this and 
 the results of cheap silver would accomplish the same 
 curse to our land. The cheap money of the war found 
 the farmer and mechanics of the land possessed by 
 an amount of wealth that equaled on an average the 
 per capita wealth of the nation. That cheap money 
 robbed them of one-third of their share and gave it to 
 the rich. It laid the foundation of all the great for- 
 tunes that are such a curse to our land to-day. Your 
 scheme of cheap money would repeat, on a larger and 
 more destructive scale, the pauperization of the many 
 
200 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWH. 
 
 for the benefit of a few, as the debasement of money 
 always has and always will do. By an improving 
 money system, the conditions have in the past ten 
 years begun to be reversed and the savings of the 
 masses have been gaining faster relatively than those 
 of the rich, and you silver lunatics want to mount the 
 national horse and ride it to the devil and rob the 
 toilers of half their savings for the benefit of the rich, 
 while the debasement of war money only robbed them 
 of one-third." 
 
 Coin now thought he saw his way out of his 
 dilemma, for he was in a terrible fix. He had never 
 before in his school been obliged to face questions by 
 men knowing anything of finance. As this machine of 
 his talked on and on about new themes never con- 
 ceived by him, it occurred to him that he could turn 
 the point before the public and gain a laugh upon 
 Professor Laughlin as he had done before. He said 
 to himself, This machine cannot answer new questions 
 of mine. I will ask it one. He said: 
 
 "How could the rich gain by the demonetization of 
 silver at the expense of the poor?" 
 
 The figure answered readily, for the old farmer had 
 anticipated this question of Coin: 
 
 "I will give an illustration, out of many, showing 
 how a debasement of money would accrue to the bene- 
 fit of the rich few and to the detriment of the many 
 saving and industrious toilers. I will take the case of 
 
THE CLOSE OP SCHOOL. 201 
 
 our railroads. Tbese roads represent a property ili- 
 cluding street railwayp of 16,000 million dollars. These 
 roads, you say, owe a bonded debt of 10,000 million 
 dollars. The rich few at present control the stocli of 
 these roads, worth, according to your figures, 6,000 
 million dollars. The bonded debt is mainly held by 
 the savings institutions, and the masses of the people 
 outside of the rich few. If you double the prices of 
 eyerything save debts by the enactment of your pro- 
 , posed silver legislation you increase the interest of 
 the rich few on these foads from 6,000 to 22,000 million 
 dollars, and the property of the bondholders in savings 
 institutions of the people would actually be worth, in 
 purchasing power, only one-half its former value. You 
 have increased the interests of the rich few in the 
 railroads to nearly four "times its earlier proportions, 
 and that at the expense of the many. This was what 
 was done in war time. It will be repeated on a large 
 scale again if your schemes are put in operation. Such 
 a wholesale robbery of the middle and industrious 
 classes was never dreamed of in the annals of human 
 history. Silver has been the friend of man, but under 
 such circumstances it would become a gigantic ogre 
 feeding upon the defenseless and ignorant. Even you, 
 Mr. Coin, would soon tire of passing up these helpless 
 ones, to be devoured with all their substance by such 
 a Moloch of infamy." 
 
 When the figure of Professor Laughliu was seated 
 a workingman arose. He said: 
 
202 PARMER HAYSHIBD IN TOWN. 
 
 "Will you kindly permit one who has been in the 
 great army of the unemployed half the time since the 
 panic of 1893 to say a few words?" 
 
 Here was a great relief to Mr, Coin. He knew 
 the workingman. He had seen him at every one of 
 his lectures and had noticed him listening attentively 
 and taking notes. He said: 
 
 "Certainly, come right up front here where the 
 others can see and hear you." 
 
 The workingman declined the invitation and speak- 
 ing from his chair, said: 
 
 "I have, since being out of work, been greatly con- 
 cerned by this subject of want of employment; I 
 have spent my idle time in talking with others and 
 reading upon the subject. I had heard many advocates 
 of the free coinage of silver at 16 to 1 explain the 
 matter, and was predisposed to accept their theories. 
 I came here to this school. Mr. Coin for a time made 
 everything so plain ihat I could not resist his conclu- 
 sions. I knew there was a cause for all this trouble 
 and once remove that cause all^ would be right." 
 
 Coin here interrupted by saying: 
 
 "I showed you that the demonetization of jsilver 
 was the cause of all this trouble, and hence its re- 
 monetization at the ratio of 16 to 1 would be the 
 remedy," 
 
 "■Oiat is so. You made everything so plain that 
 I could not resist your conclusions. Some remarks 
 made here to-day have, however, set me thinking. -I 
 want to Know who are the real debtors of our nation 
 
THE CLOSE 01" SCHOOL. 203 
 
 and who the creditors; who would, according to Mr. 
 Coin's theories and statements, gain or lose most by the 
 remonetization of silver? I desire to ask a few ques- 
 tions. Will you kindly tell us, Mr. Coin, how the re- 
 monetization of silver at 16 to 1 would affect the debt- 
 ors?" 
 
 "The debtors of the nation would be greatly bene- 
 fited. In fact the change would be in their interest. 
 ■ It would sooner or later result in reducing the debts 
 to one-half their present proportions." 
 
 "What would thus be their gain must be at the 
 expense of some other class of people, the creditors. 
 Is it not so, Mr. Coin?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. The gain of the nation's debtors must 
 come out of the creditors." 
 
 The workingman continued: 
 
 "Professor Laughlin^ here, says that the debts of 
 the nation are mainly owed by the richer to those com- 
 paratively poorer than themselves. I want to test 
 the matter, sir. I am not familiar with the world. I 
 know but little of banks; nothing of the business of 
 merchants. I am a simple mechanic, as the majority 
 of these before me are. I have |750 in the savings 
 bank, the balance left after being out of work for a 
 year, I want to know how many here present have 
 now or at any time in the past had deposits in the 
 savings bank or other banks. So many as have will 
 pleaee raise the right hand." 
 
 The hands of almost every person in the room 
 came up. All that were prudent and saving had at 
 some time or other patronized these institutions. 
 
204 FARMEE HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 The workingman continued his questions by say- 
 ing: 
 
 "All those in the room who now owe the banKs 
 of this city anything on a business note indorsed or 
 not indorsed by the signature of any other person be- 
 side themselves, will please hold up their hands." 
 
 Not over fifty or sixty persons held up their hands 
 out of the 1,500 who were present. 
 
 The young man then said: 
 
 "Let any day laborer in this audience who has ever 
 Borrowed money from the banks raise his hand." 
 
 / Kot a hand was raised, although over 300 workmen 
 had said they Tiad deposits in the banks. 
 
 "Are there any mechanics, clerks or railroad train- 
 men who owe the banks on an individual note?" 
 
 "No hands came up. 
 
 "A^re there any merchants who owe the banks 
 money?" 
 
 Many hands were held up. 
 
 "Are there any other business men who owe the 
 Banks?" 
 
 Many more hands were raised. 
 - "Are there any poor men who owe the banks?" 
 
 No hands were raised. 
 
 "Are there any rich men or men well to do finan- 
 cially who owe the banks?" 
 
 Fully fifty hands were raised, among them quite 
 a number of bankers who had been attracted to the 
 school by the public excitement created by Coin's 
 
THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL. 
 
 205 
 
 brilliancy. The crowd was becoming excited in a 
 way that it had never been since the school was 
 opened. 
 
 The young mechanic was Iveginning to change 
 his mind. Turning to Coin, he fiercely asked: 
 
 "Tell me, and tell these other workingmen, how 
 
 THE BICH MAN BOBKOWING FBOSI THE TOILING BANK DBFOSIIOB. 
 
 we are to be benefited by losing one-half our savings 
 in the banks to ease up the burdens of, the rich fel- 
 lows who have borrowed our money from the banks?" 
 
 "The people here are not a fair illustration of the 
 body of our nation," said Coin. 
 
 'Tossibly you are right," said the workingman. 
 "I shaU go home and ask my neighbors these ques- 
 
206 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 tions: Do you have money In tlie bank? Do you bor- 
 row money from those institutions on notes of hand? 
 I request all those before me to ask their neighbors 
 these questions. In this way we can tell in this city 
 whether Coin's theories put in practice would rob the 
 rich to help the poor or rob the poor to help the rich. 
 The banks are a fair illustration of aU monied institu- 
 tions, and as free silver will affect their depositors 
 and borrowers so it will affect all men." 
 
 Here Coin interrupted by saying: 
 
 "Not all our debts represent the savings of the 
 toilers as do those of savings banks, banks, trust com- 
 panies, insurance companies, and the like. Our people 
 owe foreign capitalists large sums of money. We 
 ^ould not be poltroons and make our laws what peo- 
 ple across the water demajid. I want to see a little 
 national spirit. Our people would all be benefited by 
 paying back to, Europe only one-half of what we owe, 
 as would be done under free silver coinage." 
 
 Here an old soldier who had served three years 
 under Grant arose. He said: 
 
 "May be, young fellow, you don't understand what 
 war means as well as some of us who were down in 
 Dixie thirty years ago. You advise us to engage in 
 war with England and other European nations to save 
 paying our honest -debts. You would arrange our 
 banks so that the rich borrower would rob the poor 
 depositors of one-half. We- come together to learn 
 how to relieve industry and aid the unemployed in 
 
208 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 finding work, you wonld let loose upon industry the 
 bloodthirsty dogs of war, repudiation, and ruin. The- 
 only employment you oiBfer to the idle is the work 
 in war of shooting down the toilers of other lands,, or 
 at home in assisting to rob other workmen to aid the 
 - rich. I want none of it in mine." 
 
 "When the gray-haired veteran sat down a distinct 
 movement of approval was manifest throughout the 
 
 COIN LBTTINQ LOOSE THB DOaS OF WAE, 
 EEPTJDIATION AND EUIN. 
 
 room. Everything seemed to Coin to be changing. Up 
 to that day he had appeared to carry everybody with 
 him. His sham speeches by Ms talking figures, and all 
 had assisted him in creating a profound impression 
 In his favor. Now he seemed to himself liKe a man 
 being swallowed up in the quicksands. He must make 
 a bold break or he was lost. He must stop this inter- 
 
THE CLOSE OP SCHOOL. 209 
 
 niption. He must begin to speak of a subject on which, 
 he could not be safely contradicted. He said: 
 
 "The country is ruined by unjust laws and we want 
 free coinage of silver to correct them and overthrow 
 them. Why, in this, one of the wealthiest cities of 
 the world, wh.ose banks, according to the reports of 
 their officers, have millions of deposits, those deposits 
 are only assessed |43,925. The securities of these 
 banks, the notes, bonds, mortgages, and other col- 
 laterals are assessed at only $10,000. This is the way 
 the rich bankers escape taxation. The farmers of the 
 same county are assessed at |84,392 for their farm 
 tools, implements, and machinery, or more than all 
 the property of the rich banks of the great city of 
 Chicago. The rich men of that city are assessed only 
 $17,150 for their diamonds, although there are mil- 
 lions of money invested in these baubles of luxury. 
 These rich men are forcing the poor men to pay their 
 taxes further by bribing officials to be derelict in their 
 duty as assessora" 
 
 Here a voice from the audience asked: 
 
 "Is this crime of the public assessor any reason 
 why we should rob th.ose toilers of one-half their 
 present possessions and make the rich a present of the 
 same, as we would do by adopting free coinage? 
 Should we not seek by the enactment of just laws and 
 the election of honest officials to correct these evils 
 instead of creating greater ones?" 
 
 Here was a stunner for Coin. He had in his school 
 and in his reception at the hotel, of which he tells 
 
210 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 US in his booK, ostentatiously paraded Ms diamonds 
 and strutted about in faultless apparel. He was a 
 financier. He had called into his meetings a number 
 of bankers and business men to sustain his position.^' 
 He did not have time to answer before a man, plainly 
 showing that he was a mason by trade, arose and 
 asked: 
 
 "How much is that diamond worth that you wear 
 in your shirt front, Mr. Coin? I have been told by some 
 of your admirers that it cost $10,000. I have been 
 told that you boast of being 'a smooth little finan- 
 cier' and that this diamond is 6nly one of many kin- 
 dred baubles of luxuiy that you have. Now please an- 
 swer us one question. How much taxes do you pay 
 on your diamonds, and how much on your possessions 
 as a financier?" 
 
 This was a further turn in school matters that 
 Coin did not like. He was pleased to abuse the rich, 
 at least all the other rich besides himself. He wanted 
 to talk of other people's greed. It always took with 
 the crowd. It was cheaper than argument. It avoid- 
 ed the necessity of facts upon the subject under dis- 
 cussion. But to be catechised himself was horrible. 
 It was insulting. He must show his personal dis- 
 pleasure. He threw back his head in proud disdain 
 and said: 
 
 "I am here to discuss principles and deal in broad 
 general propositions. I decline to make my own pri- 
 vate matters the basis of a public discussion. We are 
 
THE CLOSE 01" SCHOOL. 
 
 211 
 
 here to-day to discuss how we are to cross the present 
 abyss of business stagnation, from widespread suffer- 
 ing, want of employment, to a general prosperity and 
 resumption of business, and I shall insist hereafter 
 upon my right in this school to continue the discussion 
 along my own line and not that suggested by those 
 
 'how much taxes, me. coin, do you pay on your diamonds?" 
 
 interrupting me. As I have said, we are here to dis- 
 cuss the question of the best methods of crossing the 
 present gulf of depressed prices and want of employ- 
 ment and reaching the shores of renewed prosperity. 
 Our troubles were caused, as I have shown, by the de- 
 monetization of silver. We can pass to renewed pros- 
 
212 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 perity by the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 
 
 to 1." 
 
 Here a young man arose and asked the question : 
 *1s not that a pretty poor bridge to risk everything 
 
 COIN'S BKOKEN BKIDQB TO PKOSPKRITY. 
 
 to, Mr. Coin? It wiU hardly carry the toiler and the 
 business man alike to better times. Your bridge, to 
 begin with, is a narrow plank, and it is broken withal. 
 Once sound, it was broken when overproduction caused 
 
THE CLOSK OF SCHOOL. 213 
 
 the ratio between gold and silver to fall greatly. Ite 
 increased use of silver under some reasonable regula- 
 tion may assist in carrying us across to renewed pros- 
 perity. The establishment of some international agree- 
 ment concerning the coinage of silver as money may be 
 of great service in this condition of affairs, but to try 
 and cross the broken, narrow plank of free coinage at 
 16 to 1 is too risky for me." 
 
 To this Mr, Coin replied: 
 
 "The United States alone can at once by law estab- 
 lish the parity of the two metals at the old ratio of 16 
 to 1. Any nation that is big enough to take all the 
 silver of the world and give back merchandise and 
 products in payment for it will at once establish the , 
 parity between it and gold at 16 to 1." 
 
 Here a thoughtful man in^the audience asked: 
 
 "Was the United States able by its law of 1792 to 
 maintain the parity of gold and silver at 15 to 1? Was 
 it able from 1834 to 1873 to maintain that parity at the 
 ratio of 16 to 1?" 
 
 To this Mr. Coin merely answered, "No." 
 
 "Then if th.e law of the United States was power- 
 less rfor eighty years to fix the ratio of exchange for 
 these two metals, how do. you expect it can succeed 
 any better now?" 
 
 Coin hesitated for an answer, and the young man 
 who had control of the talking machines touched the 
 button and the figure of Mr. Medill, the editor of the 
 "Chicago Tribune,'? arose. It asked; 
 
214 PAKMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 "Suppose tliat, after all, the independent action of 
 tlie United States should show itself powerless to maii^- 
 tain the parity of the two metals at the ratio of 16 to 1, -^ 
 asi the nation was unable to fix the true ratio of the 
 metals between 1792 and 1873?" 
 
 "Why, I would then put less gold into the dollar," 
 replied Coin. "I would bring the weight of gold down 
 until the two were on a parity." 
 
 "In other words," said the figure, "you are ready to 
 , repudiate not only one^half of the debts of the land, 
 but all you have told us about the ability of the Gov- 
 ernment to maintain the ratio of 16 to 1. You admit 
 that law is powerless to fix the ratio of gold and silver 
 and would begin the work of clipping the gold coins to 
 bring the dollar down ta«the level of fifty cents worth 
 of silver. You seem to me thus to abandon all pre- 
 tense of advocating bimetallism and stand simply for 
 an effort to repudiate one-half of our debts by the 
 greatest scheme oftpoin clipping ever undertaken on 
 this earth. Now let me ask: Do you believe in bi- 
 metallism, and if so, what sort of bimetallism? Do 
 you advocate an equal use of gold and silver as 
 money?" 
 
 "No. In the science of money there should be no 
 such thing 'as having a unit of value made from two 
 kinds of property. As well have a unit of account 
 with two different figures to represent it." (Extract 
 from Mr. Harvey's .comments on Judge Vincent's de- 
 cision.) "There should be one unit of value, and that 
 
THE CLOSE OP SCHOOL. 
 
 215 
 
 should be of silver, as in the law of 1792, Judge Vincent 
 to the contrary notwithstanding." 
 
 "Your changing position upon the money question 
 reminds me," said the figure, "of an old story. A man 
 was sued by his neighbor for breaking a kettle which 
 he had borrowed. In Court he set up the plea as f ol- 
 
 COIN CLIPPING IHE GOLD COIN. 
 
 lows: 'Your kettle was sound when I returned it. It 
 was broken when I borrowed it, and I never had your 
 kettle.' You begin your plea for free coinage by say- 
 ing the kettle of bimetallism was always sound. Gov- 
 ernments have since 1687 by law maintained the ratio 
 
216 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 of 16 to 1. Then you set up your second proposition. 
 John Sherman by the act of 1873 broke that kettle. 
 You wind up by saying that there never was a bi- 
 metallic kettle and none can.be made. The only money 
 Kettle that ia sound is one made of pure silveE. Like 
 the man sued for the broken kettle, you seem ready to 
 affirm or deny anything, no matter how contradictory. 
 
 coin's beokkn bimetallic kettle. 
 Not only do you use this broken kettle argument 
 with the subject of bimetallism, but with hundreds of 
 Other subjects. You tell us that we should have silvet 
 monometallism, like South and Central America, to 
 be prosperous as a people. You tell us how gold 
 flebts increase and property decreases and wind up by 
 itellifig us how we are becoming like our neighbors of 
 
THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL. 217 
 
 South America, with strikes, reTolutions, etc. The ket- 
 tle argument is a wonderful thing in your hands and 
 you use it thoroughly. But now, honest Injun, Mr. 
 Coin, tell us how our present practical bimetallism, 
 which has existed since 1854, keeping millions of gold 
 and silver in equal use as money £^t the same time, tell 
 us how this poor man's, money, this bimetallism, is a 
 curse to the world and how the silver monometallism 
 which you advocate can ever prove a blessing to the 
 United States while it is a curse to Mexico and similar 
 nations?" 
 
 Coin was too much disturbed to answer at once. 
 He saw that he had made many unlucky admissions 
 that were taken advantage of by some of his auditors. 
 He determined to wait until he could fully know the 
 effect, of what he said. But while Coin was waiting 
 the young man in charge of the talking machines 
 touched a button and a figure representing Eli Perkins 
 arose and said: 
 
 "When I went around the world last year I saw 
 Chinamen, Japanese, Mexicans, and Africans taking 
 our American silver dollars at par. They called them 
 worth 100 cents in gold. They paid tea freights from 
 China with them. They took them everywhere as gold. 
 But Mexican and other silver money was worth at the 
 same time only forty-seven cents on a dollar; Do you 
 think any one on earth has lost a cent handling Ameri- 
 can silver doUars?" 
 
 "N-n-no," stammered Coin. 
 
218 
 
 FABMEU HAYSEED IN XOWN. 
 
 "Now, Coin, look me in the eye," continued Perkins, 
 "and answer this qnestion: If the United States had 
 the fi:ee coiaage you want, what would he ttie result?" 
 
 Ooin was silent again. 
 
 '^Wouldn't the Mexicans, Chinese and the rest of 
 
 Humpty Dnmpty sat on a wall; 
 Humpty Dumpty got a great fall, 
 And all the noise and all the congressmen 
 Can't put Hnmpty Dnmpty 16 to 1 again. 
 
 the world bring their forty-seven cents in silver to 
 our mint to get one dollar as good as gold and wouldn't 
 we be bankrupt in a year? Would it not be utterly 
 impossible by act of congress to restore silver to its old 
 ratio?" 
 
THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL. 219 
 
 "I wasn't thinking of that," said Coin, trembling 
 at the thought of such a disaster. "I was thinking of 
 the benefit to the mine owners such a law would pro- 
 duce. I wanted to learn if my theory about the effect 
 upon them was correct. Their wealth would be doubled, 
 would 'it not?" 
 
 "Yes, but at the expense of others. It would be an- 
 other among the many cases of robbing the poor to put 
 into the pockets of the rich." 
 
 "Things are bad now; they can't be any worse," 
 said Coin. "Let us try the experiment" 
 
 "You and the whole set of silver cranks," continued 
 Perkins, "remind me in your speculations ofl the grand- 
 father of the most noted governor among the state 
 oflScials advocating free coinage. He .lived down in 
 New York, and was a farmer. He wanted to settle 
 in his own mind the effect of greasing boots upon the 
 life of the boot. He bought a new pair of boots. He 
 greased one regularly. The other he religiously pro- 
 tected from grease. The one boot was comfortable to 
 his foot, the other was stiff and soon made him lame. 
 It covered his foot with bunions and corns. That foot 
 was constantly wet because the boot was ungreased. 
 He took cold and had rheumatism in his leg. He kept 
 on in his experiment. He must learn which boot lasted 
 the longer. He learned, but his leg was lame for life. 
 So you fellows are willing for the nation to be ruined 
 to test your silver hobby. You want Uncle Sam to 
 wear a silver boot to test your theory. You would have 
 
220 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 him financially lamed to learn just how much the na- 
 tion can stand of fooling with the money question." 
 
 Here the figure of a gray-bearded man representing 
 the wisdom of the land arose and said: 
 
 "You, Mr. Coin, have told us how we would ride if 
 you were allowed to mount our national steed.' You 
 
 TJNOLK SAM LAMED FINANCSIALLT 
 BY HIS SILVER BOOT. 
 
 would plunge us into war with the most powerful na- 
 tions of Europe, including Great Britain. You advocate 
 such a war and say 'it would be the most popular ever 
 waged on the face of the earth.' You would repeat in 
 many ways the evil effects that have ever come with the 
 
THE CLOSE OE SCHOOL. 
 
 221 
 
 debasement of the people's money. You would ride the 
 steed of prosperity to the devil of bankruptcy and the 
 
 o 
 u 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 a 
 a 
 
 M 
 » 
 
 M 
 
 P4 
 
 
 I-) 
 
 § 
 
 horse would be lost in the hell of ruin, war, and the 
 pauperization of the many. The people thank you fop 
 
222 
 
 FARMER HAYSEED IN TOWN. 
 
 making the issue so clear, but knowing well that the 
 devU of ruin never sends back the hor»e which bears 
 the lunatic to his door, they will not trust you or your 
 party to mount and ride." 
 
 Here the young man touched a button and the heads 
 flew off from the dozen or more talking machines of 
 Coin. Ail were then informed by Farmer Hayseed 
 
 ABBAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 how Coin had played them for suckers with his phono- 
 graphs and smooth words. This was the end of the 
 famous school of finance of the smooth little financier 
 of Chicago. The eyes of most of those present were 
 opened and thus, sooner or later, will the history of the 
 agitation of some silver mine owners to force the Gov- 
 ernment to buy their wares at double their actual value 
 represent the truth of one of Lincoln's trite remarks: ' 
 
THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL. 223 
 
 "You can fool all men sometimes. You can fool 
 some men aU the time, but you cannot fool all men all 
 the time." 
 
 As tihe crowd broEe up it cheered Fanner Hayseed 
 and thanKed him for exposing the shams and fallacies 
 of the "smooth little financier." They had seen how a 
 plain farmer armed with the truth of facts was able 
 to destroy the dragon of free sUver monometallistic 
 pretense and sham. Those facts will guide the Ameri- 
 can people aright through hard times i;o renewed pros- 
 perity, as well as destroy the enemies of industry and 
 wealth, who, by lying in wait, would long delay the 
 time for reaching the goal. 
 
All those who are in sympathy 
 with the aims of this book, and who 
 desire to circulate it, are invited to 
 address the author, L. G. Powers, 
 St. Paul, Minn. 
 
The hog is the grgat Bjodern alchemist, and if you, 
 my son, begin to tremble lest the world's crop of gold 
 may be gathered into the Vheat pit for. bears and bulls 
 to dance upon and you be left in rags, 'go to raising corn 
 and set your hogs to killing snakes and turning grain 
 into gold. — l^Fkrmer Hd.yseed to his'son. Chapter 71. ]