W^ m3 
 
 8? 
 
 7>4 Sforn^ CeJ& 
 
 h- 
 
HB 3743 
 .S88 
 Coipy 1 
 
 THE 
 
 STORM CENTER 
 
 OR 
 
 WHY THESE PANICS? 
 
 MND HONA/ TO 
 
 RE./nEbY THEM. 
 
 All there is in life is the good that is gotten out of it. 
 Hoarded wealth is of no use to the man who is dead. 
 
 ^V 
 
 v>V 
 
 t 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE EUKEKA PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 408 Geut^pee Ave., Saginaw, Mich. 
 
 K 
 
Copyrighted 1897 by the Eureka Puhlishing Co. 
 
T[)e Authors^ Preface. 
 
 It is our intention in the following pages to show you, if pos- 
 sible, that " The Storm Centre " of our present hard times is 
 the question of finance, which has made it possible for the cap- 
 italist to form and control the raili^oad combines, the land 
 syndicates, the manufacturing- combines, and, in fact, rings, 
 trusts and combines of all kinds. The principle one, however, 
 is the "National Bankers' Association," which we shall en- 
 deavor in the following pages to show up iia all its hideous 
 defox-mity. In doing this we shall give you that much abused 
 Hazzard circular, ask you to read it carefully and then follow 
 the association through and see if it has not followed the cir- 
 cular to the letter. Wo shall also show you the circulars of the 
 association from its secretary to the banks, in 1876 and 1896, and 
 we ask you to note them carefully and see if they, too, are not 
 in direct accord with the Hazzard circular. Then we will show 
 you the panic circular of 1893, and we ask you by all means to 
 read this one. Then look around you and see the ruin this 
 accursed system has wrought When you have got through 
 with the " National Bankers' Association " use your own good 
 judgment and see if the banks have not obeyed that English 
 Hazzard circular to the detriment of you, my brother laborer, 
 and in the interest of that power which has combined to make 
 slaves of the many and masters of the few. We will give you, 
 also, two sections of the law creating National Banks; one to 
 show that their bills are nothing but endorsed notes, and that 
 you are the involuntary endorser, and are obliged to protest 
 yoicr own note. The ottier to show you that a National Bank 
 
bill IS not a legal tender among the people, but only between 
 the government and you as a creditor, and between you and 
 the government, but is not a legal tender between individuals. 
 
 We give Hon. S. S. Marshall's expose on July 31st, 1868, on the 
 floors of congi-ess. Read it by all means. It will tell you how 
 we come by so many millionaires. This was your money, given 
 to this company by your agents, the government officials, to 
 rob you by fraud and make more millionaires. 
 
 We give you also a glimpse at English histoi-y to show that we 
 are doing the bidding of the " mother country " to our own det- 
 riment, to build a moni.ed oligarchy. We show you also the 
 drift of our property into the hands of the few, and hence the 
 disappearance of the great middle class, leaving only the very 
 rich and the very poor. 
 
 We try to give some reasons why the laboring people should 
 begin to be a little selfish, as they say the silver mine owners 
 are. 
 
 We also compare the old slave power of the South and the 
 money power of today, and show that they both worked for the 
 same end— oligarchy. 
 
 We endeavor, also, to give you the saving to the people by 
 substituting greenbacks for national bank bills. We give, a!so, 
 a dialogue on money from the pen of E. M. Burchard. Good, 
 sound argument. 
 
 Also, we give the French financial system at the time of the 
 Franco Prussian war and ask that you compare It with the 
 English and ours, and see if ours could not be bettered. John 
 Doe and Richard Roe's financial problem solved worth your 
 study. England's royal commission decides whether gold 
 caused the decline in prices. A fact or a farce, which? 
 
 We next take up the land schemes of the capitalists and rail- 
 roads, and show from absolute proof sX^e losses to the toilers by 
 reason ol the class legislation in favor of monopoly; show also 
 
tIliU the g-overnmcni 7?i«.s'^ control the railroads or the railroiidB 
 will control the government. We submit our plan for correct- 
 ing the evils whleh hurt us now and preventing them in the 
 future. Read the work carefullv and Jet us see if we cannot 
 avoid another such a panic by controlling the storm centre. 
 
The Plan Mapped Out. 
 
 The following circular was issued by English cap- 
 italists in 18o2, and circulated " confidentiall}^ " 
 among American bankers. After you have read it 
 carefully you need be at no loss to solve the mystery 
 of the finance legislation which has followed, or in 
 whose interest congress has been working all these 
 years. This infamous and much-abused document 
 is known as the " Hazzard Circular^ It has been 
 denied so often by the Bankers' Association, through 
 their subsidized|press, that we presume many people 
 do not believe there ever was such a document. The 
 following pages, however, will show the truth of 
 this circular having been here, and that it became 
 the chief stone of the corner of the Bankers Associ- 
 ation. Here is the infernal document : 
 
 THE HAZZARD CIIlCULAll. 
 
 "Slavery is likely to be abolishediby the war power 
 and chattel slavery destroyed. This I and my Europe- 
 an friends are in favor of, for slavery is but the owning 
 of labor, and carries with it the care of the laborer, 
 while the European plan, led on by England, is capital 
 control of labor, by controlling wages. This can be done 
 by controlling the money. The great debt that capital- 
 ists'will see to it js made out of the war, must be used jis 
 a measure to control the volume of money." To accom- 
 
16 
 
 plish this the bonds must be used as a banking basis. 
 We are now waiting to get the Secretary to make this 
 recommendation to Congress. It will not do to allow the 
 "greenback" as it is called, to circulate as money any 
 length of time, for we cannot control them, but we can 
 control the bonds and through them the bank issues.*' 
 
 'Tis said this circular was not here. The follow- 
 ing will answer that charge. Read it ! 
 
 State of Indiana, | 
 County of Posey, P^' 
 
 James G. Nesbitt, being duly sworn, deposes and 
 says : I am seventy-three years ot age, and live in Posey 
 County, Indiana, where I have resided for sixty-five 
 years. In 1861, I and Sheridan Anderson, who is now 
 dead, of the same County, enlisted in the service of the 
 United States army, sixtieth regiment and Company C, 
 of the Indiana Infantry. In July, 1863, our command 
 joined the forces of General Dumont, of Lebanon, Ky. 
 About the 25th of the same month Mr. Anderson and 
 myself were detailed as guards and placed on police 
 duty on Main street. In passing near the General's 
 headcxuarters we were hailed and ordered to "shadow" 
 a party of three persons — one woman and two men — who 
 were then passing on the opposite side of the street, find 
 out their business and report. We learned that one man 
 and the woman were Kentuckians and the other man 
 was an Englishman. We had considerable conversation 
 with the Englishman, who gave his name as Charles 
 Hazzard. He said he had recently come from England 
 to confer with the business men of this country on a 
 financial scheme. We told him that he was lucky in 
 striking a very large body of very busy men, and as 
 representatives of headquarters we desired tangible in- 
 formation of his business, that we might report it to 
 the authorities. In response to this he took one of a 
 small package of envelopes and gave it to ^r. Anderson, 
 
17 
 
 saying:, its contents would explain the business and allay 
 any suspicion that might have arisen regarding him. 
 This occurred in the postoffice, and we then reported 
 the matter to General Dumont at headquarters, giving 
 him the circular in the presence of several officers who 
 happened to be present at the time. An exact copy of 
 that document was kept by us and the one here given 
 is a correct reading of the same. 
 
 James G. Nesbitt. 
 
 Subscribed and sworn to before me this 29th day of 
 May, 1894. John B. Smith, 
 
 [seal] ■ Notary Public. 
 
 Based on this is the Association. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 The Bankers' Association Analyzed. 
 
 Centralized power is the never failing enemy of 
 civil liberty. There now exists in the United States 
 an association wider in its scope, stronger in its 
 resources and more thoroughly hedged in its re- 
 spectability than was ever before organized in 
 human society. It is known as the National Bank 
 Association. We will endeavor to analyze its power 
 and make known its purposes. This one association 
 is com}X)sed of 3,319 corporations and 1,500 private 
 bankers, with their presidents and cashiers, their 
 stockholders and henchmen scattered throughout the 
 land. Tbe corporations have a fixed capital — one 
 billion of dollars — and control a subsidiary' fund of 
 three thousand millions of money, making with 
 their deposits and the funds of the private bankers 
 identified with it a central colossus of monied power 
 wielding the influence of four thousand millions of 
 concentrated capital, centralized under one supreme 
 central head having the most boundless and uncon- 
 trolled monopoly that ever united to master the 
 destinies of a free and independent people. Its 
 object is two- fold: 
 
20 
 
 First To prolong the existence of tbe National 
 Banks into an endless monopoly of banking privi- 
 leges. 
 
 Second. To control the money and the currency 
 of the nation by defeating all legislation tending to 
 lessen the power or diminish the monopoly of the Na- 
 tional Banks. 
 
 To understand its purposes it is necessary to un- 
 derstand the history of its growth, the extent of its 
 profits and the power it can exercise for good or 
 evil. When the old slave power had rebelled because 
 they could not control the young giant of freedom, 
 and our government was battling with the South; 
 when our very existence was trembling on the verge 
 of exhausted coin ; when banking resources gaye 
 out ; when public confidence had weakened into 
 suspicion, and when cruel and desolating war was 
 demanding millions daily to sustain our brave boys 
 in the field, there seemed but one resource left ; it 
 was an appeal to the capitalists of the nation for 
 financial aid. Capital, always selfish, knew the sit- 
 uation and comprehended its power. While the 
 patriotic sons of patriotic fathers and loving mothers 
 were rushing to the front to protect the old fl ig, 
 where was capital? Hid behind the selfishness of 
 human greed to dicker and bargain tor usury as the 
 price of yielding to our necessities. It was in this 
 hour of national combat that the national banking 
 system had its birth. The government was forced 
 to become the fawning-borrower-slave to the lender, 
 capital. Then it was that money dictated a system 
 
21 
 
 of monopolies, privileges and profits such as no shy- 
 lock had ever before dreamed of. When it had 
 fashioned its law, consummated its conditions and 
 panoplied its usury into Congressional monopolies, 
 lender like, it yet held back, creating suspicions, 
 magnifying the power of gold and depreciating na- 
 tional credit until it forced coin to more than double 
 its value. Then United States bonds having been 
 fixed as the basis and gold as the standard of value, 
 capital commenced to purchase bonds. The Bank 
 Bill passed March 23, 1863. Now to get at just 
 what the bankers paid for their bonds we must es- 
 tablish the price of gold at the periods when the 
 bonds were sold by the government and purchased 
 by the bankers. Ttie price of gold from April 1, 
 1863. to January 1, 1864, varied from $1.30 to 
 $1.60, averaging $1.45. 
 
 During this time 66 banks were organ- 
 ized with a capital stock of $7,188,- 
 393, making a profit to the Bankers 
 of $2,322,388 00 
 
 From Jan. 1, '64, to Jan. 1, '65, 508 
 Banks were organized with a capital 
 of $86,782,802. The average price 
 of gold was $2 10, making a profit 
 to the Bankers of 47,729,542 90 
 
 From Jan. 1, '65, to Jan. 1, 'Q6, 1,005 
 Banks organized ; capital, $306,- 
 374,404. Price of gold, $1.64^, 
 making a profit to the Bankers of .107,484,228 60 
 
22 
 
 From JaD. 1, 1866, to Jan. 1, 1867, 
 Banks organized, 131; capital, $22,- 
 315,161. Price of gold, $1.42, mak- 
 ing a profit of 6,694,548 90 
 
 From Jan. 1, '67, to eTan. 1, '70, the 
 increase of capital was $10,316,886. 
 Currency was worth 70 per cent. — 
 The Banks made a profit of $3,995,068 80 
 
 Making a total profit of $167,325,777 20 
 
 Showing the absolute profit made on the investment 
 to have been more than four limes the capital of the 
 Bank of the United States, when it controlled the 
 Senate, Congress and the money of the Union ; and 
 $17,000,000 more than the entire capital of the 
 Bank of England, which controls the finances of the 
 British Empire. Not content with this enormous 
 bounty, the United • States were forced to obligate 
 the people to exempt all of the bonds from taxation, 
 and to pay interest in gold on the face of the bonds, 
 namely, on — 
 
 U. S Bonds to secure circulation $392,563,300 
 
 U. S. Bonds to secure deposits 17.753,650 
 
 U. S. Bonds for reserve 24,517,059 
 
 Total $434,834,009 
 
 This represents the bonds held by the Banks in 
 1871, and the amount does not materially vary. 
 Assuming the interest to have been 6 per cent in 
 
23 
 
 gold, and the average premium on gold from 1864 
 'to 1874 to have been 50 per cent, the interest would 
 equal 9 per cent in currency, or an annual sum of 
 $39,135,060 81, as a yearly bounty, which, taking 
 the 14 years the Baniis have been in operation (at 
 the date this was computed) foots up the sum of 
 $547,890,851,34, which added to the profit on the 
 bonds, $167,325,777 20, makes an aggregate of 
 Profits of %7 15, 216,628.5 Jf. 
 
 These figures, enormous as they are, are but the 
 simple enumerators of the most gigantic swindle 
 that was ever imposed upon a civilized people. — 
 There is nothing in the history of the world to com- 
 pare with it in enormity, and every dollar of it Kas 
 been stolen from the taxed and patient peoj^Ie, to be 
 given to the untaxed monopolists. But, thus far, 
 I have only reached the corner stone of the temple 
 of the bankers' privileges. The entire investment in 
 the purchase of the $410,316,950 of United States 
 bonds for banking purposes was only $197,508,239. 
 This represents the sum in money invested by all the 
 National Banks, at this time. They thus started 
 with a 20 per cent investment. The next step in 
 their monopoly was lor the United States to issue to 
 these Banks 90 per cent of the face value of their 
 bonds in National B.mk notes, representing the credit 
 of the United States, amounting to the sum of $350,- 
 000,000, to lend, for this currency was money, which 
 the Bankers received from the Government to use 
 for banking purposes. This shows what the bank- 
 
24 
 
 ers got for their investment — $197,508,339 
 Receipts U. S. Bonds, $434,834,009 
 National Bank Currency, 350,000,000 
 Making the sum on which ihev re- 
 ceived interest, " $784,834,009 
 
 The interest received has been as follows : 
 
 On U. S. Bonds,. . . .$39,135,060 81 
 
 On Nat. Bk. Cur'ncy, 33,250.000 00 
 
 Total, $72,385,069 81 
 
 This is not all. The G-overnment not only lent the 
 Banks its credit, so that th<y at ODce drew to their 
 vaults deposits which have averaged six hundred 
 millions, but they gave the Banks the chartered 
 right to loan these deposits, so that the aggregate of 
 their loans have averaged the sum of $783,250,000, 
 which at 9^ per cent per annum, that being the 
 percentage the Comptroller of the Currency reports 
 the Banks to have realized on their loans, makes the 
 annual sum of their interest on their deposits $38,- 
 992,500. Hence the National Bank interest account 
 on an investment of $197,508,239 stands as follows: 
 
 On U. S. Bonds $39,135,060 81 
 
 Nat. Bank Bills . . 33,250,000.00 
 Deposits 38,922,500.00 
 
 Total $111,377,560.81 
 
 or more than 50 per cent annual profit. Nor does 
 this give the full measure of the most infamous 
 privileges these cormorants are enjoying. They 
 were made agents of the Government to sell Bonds, 
 
25 
 
 given the right to sell, exchange, and do all its die- 
 counts, the most favored Bank charter ever allowed ; 
 and, beyond this, there is still another feature of 
 their profits which should not be lost sight of, name- 
 ly, the premium on their bonds, which at this time, 
 at the lowest figures reported in the money markets, 
 amounts to the additional sum of $21,184,254, 
 which, deducted from the actual investment, shows 
 that the investment of capital is only the sum of 
 $176,323,885, on which their interest is $11 1,377,- 
 560.81, or about 65 per cent. These j'Carly bounties 
 paid to the Barons of the Purse, saying nothing of 
 compound interest, in these years of Bank depreda- 
 tions, figure up to the sum of $1,559,285,941.34. 
 
 Having shown you how the National Banks orig- 
 inated, the money they have actually realized as 
 profits on the money they actually invested, and 
 that they now hold the United States bonds valued 
 at $456,018,263 for the original investment of 
 $197,508,239, I will proceed to show the objects 
 and purposes of the huge combination which is now 
 organized as the National Bank Association. 
 
 The number of incorporated National Banks was, 
 in October, 1876, 2,089, (there are now 3,319). The 
 amount of their capital stock, surplus funds, undi- 
 vided profits, circulation, deposits, and other items, 
 swelled their resources to the enormous sum of 
 $4,823,469,723.44— the largest combination of cap- 
 ital ever embraced in any oligarchy known to the 
 world. These 2,319 corporations, in the full pano- 
 
26 
 
 ply of soulless power, combined into a single levia- 
 than monopoly to override all restraint ; to compass 
 all control ; to rule Congress ; to dictate to the 
 Nation its laws, to the people their rights, and to 
 the United States their money and finances. Born 
 amid the storm of civil war, out of the smoke of 
 battle, cradled into immense wealth by monopolized 
 subsidies, its object is to make the Government its 
 servant, and the people its slaves. We have given 
 you its object, now let us see how it is composed, 
 and where it reaches. 
 
 The stock of the National Banks is represented 
 by 5,054,828 shares of $100 each, and about 1,500,- 
 000 shares at less than $100 each. These shares are 
 owned by "208,000 shareholders. Massachusetts 
 holds 988,700 shares, the rest of the New England 
 States 1,030,126 shares ; New York, 1,482,746 ; the 
 other Middle States, 1,568^623 shares ; the Southern 
 States, 429,323 shares, or less than half that held 
 by Massachusetts, and the Western States 937,333, 
 or less than one New England state ; the Pacific 
 States and Territories, 69 shares. The number of 
 shareholders in the Eastern States are 86,975, of 
 whom 46,564 reside in Massachusetts ; in the Middle 
 States there are 68,126, of whom 26,339 reside in 
 New York, 28,612 in Pennsylvania ; in the Southern 
 States there are 11,004 ; in the Western States, 17,- 
 170 ; in the Pacific States and Territories there are 
 721 ; Canadians hold 6,519 ; Great Britain, 6,728, 
 and in other portions of Europe, Asia and the 
 Islands 23,000. Thus it seems that more than four- 
 
27 
 
 lifths of the moneyed power is held in the Atlantic 
 States. They have combined and control it. It is a 
 power which, to use the words of Thomas H. Ben- 
 ton, when speaking of the old United States Bank, 
 which had a capital of only $35,000,000, or less than 
 the people are now forced to pay annually as a 
 bounty to the National Banks, " Is too great to be 
 tolerated in a government of free and equal laws." 
 It is a power massed and concentrated by a central 
 conclave in New York, to make the rich richer and 
 the poor poorer, to multiply nabobs and paupers, 
 and to deepen and widen the gulf which separates 
 Dives from Lazarus. It has been combined by Cap- 
 ital to make Capital master. Its leaders have made 
 two public declarations — First, ^'That the Association 
 is dedicated to reducing all emiyloyes to the lowest meas- 
 ure of comiyensation.'' 
 
 Second, That its machinery is now in operation so 
 that in any emergency the financial corporations of the 
 East can act together at a single day's notice^ and with 
 such power that no act of Congress can overcome or re- 
 sist their decision. 
 
 Its standard of wages is that which constitutes 
 European pauperism. Its edict of power is that the 
 American laborer must be contented with low wages; 
 and its purpose is to open an unsparing war against 
 all interests which resist it. From its policy in the 
 past, its policy in the future is easily deducted. At 
 the birth of the Greenback the originatofs of the 
 Bank Association started their nefarious work. It 
 was necessary to their purpose that they discredit it. 
 
28 
 
 and they were powerful enough to submit it to gold 
 speculators by making the Government hang the 
 chain of repudiation around its neck by printing on 
 every bill its refusal to receive it for duties on im- 
 ports, and the clause taking away its legal tender 
 quality in payment of interest on the public debt. 
 Unless this was done it would be equal to gold, and 
 if equal to gold, the bonds could not be reduced to 
 42 cents on the dollar, as they were. Again, if 
 equal to gold, as they were in value but tor this re- 
 pudiation, gold speculators could not speculate upon 
 the misfortunes of the people by continually magni- 
 fying the price of gold and as continually decrying 
 the price of greenbacks. The second step was to 
 change the contract by which our bonds, made pay- 
 able in lawful money, were made payable in coin. 
 This they forced Congress to do. It was felony, but 
 they were guilty of it. The third step was to de- 
 monetize silver by an infamous fraud. They did 
 this because we had silver in abundance, knowing 
 that gold was scarce, and we had but little of it. 
 with our bonds payable in gold they knew they were 
 masters of the people. The fourth step was to fix a 
 time when specie payment should be resumed as a 
 forced law, and when at the will of the money power 
 no debt could be paid except in gold. These were 
 the initiatory and preparatory measures to organize 
 and consummate the aristocratic and oligarchic pow- 
 er of the' National Bank monopoly. It was essential 
 to make them masters of the finances of the Nation 
 and of the people. First, To discredit the Green- 
 
29 
 
 back in order to dissatisfy the people with it by 
 making it inferior to gold. The foundation was laid 
 in two ways — by direct action first, by stamping its 
 inferiority on the back of every bill, as a positive 
 repudiation of its power to pay duties or interest on 
 the public debt, and thus create a constant demand 
 for gold, so as to keep the commercial world adver- 
 tised of its inferiority and of its inability to perform 
 the highest functions of money. Second, By mak- 
 ing a superior through which it should be compelled 
 to redeem itself, thus constituting gold as the sover- 
 eign and superior, and the greenback as the inferior 
 subject — keeping this inferiority as the weapon with 
 which the gold speculator could daily assail the un- 
 certainty in value of the greenback and hourly agi- 
 tate public credit for its redemption. These were 
 the direct means by which the money power forced 
 the Government to recognize and proclaim the fluc- 
 tuating and uncertain value of our money. 
 
 The indirect attack which this great means sup- 
 ported was the Wall street cry of " Rag Baby," 
 " Paper Balloons," "Inflation," which hard money 
 knaves hourly resorted to, invoking the terrible 
 losses which peoples and nations had been forced to 
 submit to in depreciated paper money, citing to sus- 
 tain their diabolical purpose the worthless millions 
 of French assign ats, Continental currency and 
 Southern Confederacy bills, as if they were omnipo- 
 tent to defeat our national resources, our honor as a 
 people and our credit as a government. 
 
 To make this constant outcry a matter of constant 
 
30 
 
 alarm they undertook to intensify the danger under 
 the specious but false and infamous declaration that 
 American credit was in danger and that this danger 
 could only be met and resisted by declaring that our 
 bonds which had been paid for in greenbacks or law- 
 ful money shouJd he paid in coin ; and in this Con- 
 gressional declaration secure another legislative re- 
 pudiation of the greenback and a further national 
 recognition of its inferiority. Having secured these 
 fortifications to establish that gold was the sovereign 
 and the government its subject, they yet saw that 
 they would not possess the full power that they cov- 
 eted so long as silver, which we produced in greater 
 abundance than any other nation, could be used as a 
 means of paying debts and a measure of value. 
 Therefore, to take from the people their last and 
 most potent means of sustaining credit and regulat- 
 ing exchanges, they perpetrated the contemptible and 
 overwhelming outrage of demonetizing silver. This 
 done the whole credit, property, prosperity and 
 power of the nation was in the hands of the men who 
 could control the gold provided they could take one 
 step and induce Congress to pass a law for the 
 forced resumption of specie payment. This they 
 succeeded in doing so that on the first day of Janu- 
 ary, 1879, there should be no recognized money but 
 gold. The greenback repudiated, silver demone- 
 tized, gold made king and the bankers controlling 
 the gold, the government would be at their mercy, 
 property subject to their value, credit to their dicta- 
 tion and the people their slaA^es. These foundations 
 
31 
 
 for autocratic control having thus been secured to 
 concentrate and wield the power so obtained, Jthe 
 next step was to organize the Bankers' Association 
 and they have organized it ; organized it for the pur- 
 pose ol perpetuating an infamous monopoly; a mo- 
 nopoly to tax the mass of the people for the support 
 of a bond-holding aristocracy of bankers exempt 
 from taxation ; a monopoly to take from circulation 
 the sovereign money from the sovereign people ; a 
 monopoly to dictate the currency, control the 
 finances and issue the money of the nation. It has 
 organized, knowing it can control the gold, and also 
 knowing that it has to root out, discredit and kill 
 the greenback, or the greenback will root out, dis- 
 credit and overthrow tlie National Banks and their 
 monster offspring, this national devil fish, this thiev- 
 ing, lying banditti, fashioned into a leviathan money 
 vampire. The eggs out of which it was hatched were 
 warmed into animated life by the contraction of 
 money to make ready to sacrifice the nation to the 
 monster forced specie payment. It has already laid 
 waste every enterprise. Three millions of laborers, 
 without labor and without bread, are now waiting to 
 know whether by its eontinuance they are to be 
 without hope. Like a devil fish, it has crushed, and 
 killed, and blighted all it has touched. It is now 
 organized as a vampire to suck out the blood, and 
 life, and liberty of the people. The issue is unmis- 
 takable. Either the Bank Association has got to 
 give up its sovereignty of money and yield to the 
 sovereignty of government issue in quantities ade- 
 
32 
 
 quale to the demands of trade and commerce, or the 
 government of the United States has got to give up 
 its sovereignty and become the subject, borrower- 
 slave, to the Bank Association. There is no room 
 for equivocation ; there is no dodging the issue or 
 the battle which is to decide t)ie issue. It is the 
 Bank Association and slaver}-, or the Grovernment 
 issue and liberty. Which side, then, will you take? 
 This vampire as I have already shown has sucked 
 from the life blood of the Nation $1,559,285,941.34 
 as profits on an investment of $197,508,239, besides 
 holding $456,918,203 as capital, on which it draws 
 by yearly and impertiable interest as a tax upon the 
 people for the banking army of aristocratic monop- 
 olists, the princely sum of $111,377,560.81, or 
 nearly as much for yearly profit as the entire capital 
 of the Bank of England. This robbery must cease, 
 or liberty will cease. 
 
 The Bank Association, with all its monopolies and 
 privileges must end, or the voting people are cow- 
 ards and slaves. It must be put down legally but 
 it must be put down. Unless the American laborer 
 is willing to submit to become the brutalized pauper, 
 such as monopolized money has made the European 
 laborer, he will assert his power at the ballot box. 
 If the Banking Association must say to the laborer 
 its mission is to reduce all labor to the lowest meas- 
 ure of compensation, as it has said, then the laborer 
 may say to the Bank Association that it will unite 
 all the forces of labor, all the power of industry, all 
 humanized and active life to annihilate it, as a mon- 
 
33 
 
 ster, to crush it as an usurper, to kill it as a power. 
 So, too, when the Bank Association declares to tbe 
 American people that it is so organized that, on a 
 day's notice, it can marshal forces that no act of 
 Congress can overcome, and that its omnipotent 
 power is such that its decision cannot be resisted — 
 then, again, the American people can, and will, and 
 do declare, as they have once before declared, that 
 " The abuses and usurpations, pursuing the same 
 object, evince a design to reduce them under an abso- 
 lute despotism " That it has meanly and fraudulent- 
 ly combined to depreciate National money; that it 
 has feloniously changed the letter and spirit of our 
 laws to increase our burdens ; that it has wickedly 
 and unjustly demonetized silver that it might the 
 more easily oppress the people ; that it has attempt- 
 ed to enforce the payment of all obligations in gold 
 to enable it to rob the people of their substance and 
 the Government of its credit ; that it has attempted 
 to reduce labor to slavery, and comfort to beggary, 
 to establish the aristocracy of wealth, to rule over a 
 subjugated people ; and, finally, that it has so com- 
 bined into arrogant and insolent power as to have 
 challenged the power of Congress, and to have 
 defied the will of the people ; and that for the sup- 
 port of this declaration with a firm reliance on the 
 protection of Pi vine Providence, we mutually pledge 
 to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred 
 honor, to vote down, and forever put down, this 
 moftster monopoly, the National Bank Association. 
 
34 
 
 Once again the American people are called upon 
 not only to declare but to assert their rights. Ours 
 is a Government born of patriotism, devoted to just 
 equalities, founded in liberty, and the sovereign ar- 
 biter of its own rights. The mission of our Govern- 
 ment is to secure equality, protect labor, and elevate 
 the people. The mission of the Bank Association is 
 to dominate as an aristocratic oligarchy. The sov- 
 ereignty of the Government is incompatible with the 
 whole scope, aim, object, and centralized power of 
 the Bank Association. It is the duty of the Gov- 
 ernment and the people to kill it. It is an over- 
 grown vampire. 
 
 France, when her people revolted into revolution- 
 ary excesses to put down abuses, had no aristocracy 
 so malevolent, no monopoly so huge, no tyranny so 
 blighting, no pensions so exacting as those which 
 today are sheltered in and protected by the Bank 
 Association. The pensions of the Bourbon nobility, 
 which eight hundred years had sanctioned under the 
 divine right of kings, were not one-half in amount 
 the people are forced to pay to the National Bank 
 nobility. The enormity of the wrong, and the wicked 
 infamy of longer imposing itss monstrous exactions 
 upon the people is now understood. The non-taxed 
 nobility of France numbered but 150,000 ; the non- 
 taxed Bondholding Barons of the Bank Association 
 number 250,000. In France the nobility lived in 
 idle debauchery while the people starved. One has 
 bi;t to read the account of Edward Young, or the 
 Departmental Official Stsbteajgnts of tlie condition of 
 
35 
 
 the laboring class, under this aristocratic rule, to see 
 precisely what is meant by the representations of the 
 Bank Association when they declare that the wages 
 of employes are to be reduced to the lowest measure 
 of compensation. It means screwing down prices of 
 labor to a starvation dependence on capital. It 
 means aristocratic ease for the few, and debasing 
 poverty for the many. The personal property of 
 the French nobility did not reach one billion of dol- 
 lars. The personal property of the Bank and Bond 
 nobility, here, is more than two billions of dollars, 
 combined into a confederated oligarchy, to force sub- 
 mission to its dictates. The French nobility tram- 
 pled upon every human right ; they outraged every 
 social virtue ; they crushed whole races of men by 
 taxes and covees and tallies into abject poverty and 
 misery until they finally aroused the united wrath of 
 a united people. Then the burning chateau glared 
 on the horizon, and the blood of the blue-blooded 
 aristocracy ran in streams, which swelled into tor- 
 rents by civil war, to tell mankind that man would 
 no more submit to the grinding tyranny of aristo- 
 cratic privilege. The despotism of the Bank Asso- 
 ciation nobility is no better than that which gov- 
 erned the French nobility. The people of the Unit- 
 ed States have not been educated to submit to deg- 
 radation, and they will not ; they have been edu- 
 cated to resist oppression, and they will resist it. 
 
 In France the moss of ages covered the battle- 
 ments of fortified power, and centuries of accumu- 
 lated privileges gave prestige to privilege, but at 
 
36 
 
 the first stroke of popular revenge the whole edifice 
 fell. The cry "The Bastile has fallen" was a warn- 
 ing to the French nobilit}^ It fell upon their ears 
 as the telegraphic announcement " Silver is remon- 
 etized and rehabilitated" will fall upon the ears of 
 the Bank Association. It was the prophecy of the 
 real. The French nobility resisted. It controlled 
 the army, the money, and all jthat power held sac- 
 red, with the prestige of eight hundred years to 
 shield it from attack, and it wjis as defiant, as self- 
 satisfied and as egotistical in its outrages as the 
 Bank Association is today. The people numbered 
 twent3'-five millions, but they were down-trodden, 
 poor, and in the main uneducated. Yet, light had 
 penetrated their cottages ; leaders had arisen, pat- 
 riots had proclaimed truths. Liberty had sung its 
 Marseillaise ; the rights of man had been proclaimed. 
 The Declaration of American Independence — man's 
 new Gospel of Truths — had been read at every fire- 
 side, and all at once in the might of their power the 
 people shook the dust of the past from their gar- 
 ments, broke the chains which had so long bound 
 them, and swept the nobility, with all its privileges 
 and monopolies, its outrages, its taxes and its serf- 
 dom of labor from the land as a curse it would no 
 longer endure. 
 
 If the French, oppressed by ignorance, kept in 
 bondage by feudalism, subjugated by caste, and 
 iron-bound by monopolies, could shake off their 
 noble masters, the people of the United States — 70,- 
 000,000 — united, will not be frightened by the Bank 
 
37 
 
 Association, even tliough its machinery is so organ- 
 ized ^Hliat at a single day's notice it can combine such 
 power that no act of Congress can overcome or resist 
 its decisions." Tlie people of the United States have 
 been brought up in common schools, nursed to des- 
 pise tyrants, reared in the gospel of declared rights, 
 with telegraphic community of thought, in which 
 equality of rights is religion, and their omnipotence 
 a faith. There is no such thing as fear of any ob- 
 structionist ; for whoever put themselves in the way 
 of equalized rights will be removed — whoever de- 
 mands exemption from taxation will be put down. 
 Whoever attempts from this time forward to monop- 
 olize the circulation of money, or interfere with the 
 absolute sovereignty of absolute money, as decreed 
 by the people, will be hurled from their places of 
 power, however strong may be their combination. 
 The whole temple of National Bank monopolies, 
 with its bounties, its untaxed bonds, its quadruple- 
 bounded interest, and moneyed dictation must come 
 down. Not a relict of its hideous proportions must 
 be left, and its Presidents, its Secretaries, and if its 
 3,546 Bank President Nobles, with their political 
 attendants, stand in the way, they will be voted 
 out of the way, with peaceable docility if they 
 do not resist; with forcible laws if they attempt 
 to hold on. Such is the National Bankers' Asso- 
 ciation. It must yield its power to the people, 
 or the people will be forced to yield their power to 
 it. This leech on the life-blood of the Nation can 
 go now, with all its spoils in peace. If it stay to 
 
38 
 
 def}^ the people, to rob the people, to enslave the 
 people, it is neither entitled to the benevolence of 
 clemency nor the shield of protecting law, for it has 
 combined to conquer, associated to subdue. Soul- 
 less, heartless, and grasping, money is its instru- 
 ment, power its aim, and sovereign control its pur- 
 pose . A great orator has declared that ' ' the 
 storms of Liberty are to be preferred to the serenity 
 of Slavery," and our own immortal apostle of human 
 rights, when denouncing tyrannies, which were but 
 trifling oppressions when compared with the mon- 
 strous wrongs of the Banking Association, rising to 
 the grandeur of martyrdom, declared, and his dec- 
 laration has become the trumpet-call to revolution : 
 " Grive me liberty or give me death ! " In this spirit 
 it is our solemn duty to suppress every order of 
 privileges, every kind of monopolies, and all aristoc- 
 racy of bounties. But the first and paramount duty 
 of the people is to finish, and forever, the overgrown 
 and dangerous power of the National Banks. 
 
03 
 
 C/2 
 
 as 
 
 03 
 
 02 
 
 CO 
 
 (»3 
 
 a; CO (>:> t- 00 t- ic 
 
 n^ 
 
 00 i-H 00 CO GO t- 
 
 CD 
 
 
 l> C0_ CO_ --|^ -*^ t- 
 
 00 
 
 
 
 CC 
 
 00" liO" rH cT i> lO' ctT 
 
 »> 
 
 
 CO 10 to »0 r-( lO 
 
 C7S 
 
 'eg 
 
 T-H 10 LO rl i> T-H 
 
 c<> 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 QOTjH CD 6~eoJ>co 
 
 00 
 
 0> 05 r-H 10 CD »0 
 
 OS 
 
 ۩ CO tH r-i t-H 
 
 
 
 --t CO -^ t^ t- t- 
 
 
 
 *i 
 
 1-1 CD (r7 '^ i> 
 
 Ttl 
 
 "o 
 
 GO CD CO CD "* 
 
 
 £ 
 
 rH CO*" -:f Cvf CO" -* ?> 
 
 o-y 
 
 
 LO OS Ci CO <M 10 T-H 
 
 00 
 
 ^ 
 
 Ci LO (M CO^<N CD^ 
 
 r~< 
 
 rz: 
 
 
 
 0" cT T-T T-T cd" od~ c>f 
 
 C5 
 
 + 
 
 r-l 10 Ol t- CO 1— I --H 
 
 i> 
 
 6e rH i-H ^ 
 
 
 ^j 
 
 00 t~- GO t-- CO -^ 00 
 
 Tt( 
 
 c 
 
 GO r-H CD lO 00 
 
 w 
 
 ^H 
 
 rH rtl t^ CO 10 O C^^^ 
 
 c^^. 
 
 =M 
 
 t-" go" CD*" i>^ ^' T-^ (M' 
 
 u^ 
 
 
 
 CO 10 lO C-"* CO CD -^ 
 
 4^ 
 
 ^THO^CD^rtH^CD^lO^ 
 
 a:>rH 
 
 
 
 ^co^ 
 
 < 
 
 tH lO"" T)^" 00 t>-" Cl 0" 
 
 .H CO rH CO tH Ttl Tfl 
 
 a; o'} 
 
 ^ -H 
 
 (D 
 
 "fltfi 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 1— 1 
 
 i-H OJ OO ?> CD 10 
 
 -'-' 
 
 £Ph 
 
 rH tH" 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 
 bfj 
 
 (B rt 
 
 
 
 >,o 
 
 
 .^ 
 
 
 iH CD ^ r^ i> ?> 
 
 ho 
 
 en 
 
 
 
 C: rH CO (M '^ ?> 
 
 :2^ 
 
 CO CD CD '^ 
 
 xi '-' 
 
 
 
 tj 
 
 rH CD '^ C^'> CO ^ CO 
 
 o>~ 
 
 P. 
 
 LO Ci CJi CO C<1 10 rH 
 
 «J GO 
 
 C5 0_LO IOCO__C)_CO_^ 
 
 ■O 7—( 
 
 "S 
 
 10"^ cf rH rn' Cd" go' of 
 
 5of 
 
 ^ 
 
 r-l lO C: t- CO r-l rH 
 
 M^ 
 
 €e TH rHr-^ 
 
 
 CO -^ CD CO CO CO 
 
 ^•0 
 
 c:- 10 CO 05 t- o.> 
 
 g=t 
 
 CD CO CD t- 10 CO 
 
 
 
 t- CO -H LO CD 
 
 ot- 
 
 00 Ci r- 1 Oi r-H O-l 
 
 Hi2 
 
 2 
 
 00 CD 0"> 10 C7 CO^ 
 
 '0 
 
 
 
 Th' -^ Ci CO CO C<f <>f 
 
 Go-> 
 
 ^ 00 OGO rH 
 
 .o2 
 
 €e r^ r^ 0> CO CO 
 
 . 
 
 0000000 
 
 =^ 
 
 2 
 
 10 10 VO 10 L'J 
 
 OiO 
 
 'c 
 
 -^ 10 r^ rH rri 00 
 
 - 10 
 
 
 ~u - 
 
 OQ 
 
 c<r ?> of 0" -f ct c<r 
 
 CJi 
 
 
 GO 00 OS TjH rH CO H^ 
 
 oco 
 
 ■1-2 
 
 O' 3<l t^ ■* -c^i 
 
 rf'l 
 
 <! 
 
 0" 0" rn' Ci ^ ^ -^ 
 
 rH 10 
 
 CD 00 t- C<>(M (M 
 
 oS 
 
 ee r-i CO c<i rH Tti Tfi 
 
 
 nbl 
 
 oHi 
 
 ^ 
 
 OS GO rH '>*• (M Ci CD 
 
 00 
 
 CO LO cp "Tt* CO CO 
 
 
 
 
 ^ r-( Cqt ■^ T-^ 1-i r-i 
 
 '-' 
 
 
 (M CO -^ CO t^ 00 oTo'^h' 
 OCDCOOSOCOOSSr^ 
 COOOOOOOCOGOGO^S^gj 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 03 
 
 
 Q3 
 
 
 SH 
 
 
 t^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 -a 
 
 
 00 
 
 
 ,__, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 on 
 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 -»-= 
 
 
 s 
 
 
 -Q 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 -H 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 CO 
 
 
 ro 
 
 
 
 .0 
 
 +3 
 
 (M 
 
 r^ 
 
 1— 1 
 
 += 
 
 
 
 r<1 
 
 
 'O 
 
 m^ 
 
 
 
 •*H 
 
 fl 
 
 
 
 ni 
 
 ,__l 
 
 > 
 
 OS 
 
 2 
 
 a; 
 
 c^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 CD 
 
 ^ 
 
 3 
 
 
 rr! 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 a 
 
 CJ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 -a 
 
 g-3 
 
 ^ 
 
 oT 
 
 0) 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 d 
 
 <v 
 
 CO 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 This daDgeroiis combination should be destroyed 
 for the lollowing reasons, if for no other : Its 
 paper emissions aie not money at all, but are onl}'^ a 
 promise to pay money ; they are not a legal tender, 
 hence are valueless except by courtesy, the same as 
 any other endorsed note. 
 
 I here insert two sections of the National Bank 
 act to show \ ou the fraud being practiced. 
 
 Section 522G, Revised Statutes — Whenever any 
 National Banking Association fails to redeem in the 
 lawful money of the United Slates any of its circu- 
 lating notes upon demand of payment duly made 
 during the usual hours of business at the office of 
 such association, or at its designated place of re- 
 demption, the holder may cause the same to be pro- 
 tested, in one package, by a notary public, unless 
 the president or cashier of the association whose 
 notes are presented for payment, or the president or 
 casbier at the place at which they are redeemable 
 offers to waive demand and notice of the protest, 
 and, in pursuance of such offer, makes, signs and 
 delivers to the party making such demand an admis- 
 sion in writing, stating the time of the demand, the 
 amount of the demand and the fact of the non-pay- 
 
41 
 
 meut thereof. The notary public, on making such 
 protest, or upon receiving such admission, shall 
 forthwith forward such admission or notice of pro- 
 test to the Comptroller of the Currency, retaining a 
 copy thereof If, however, satisfactory proof is 
 produced to the notary public that the payment of 
 the notes demanded is restrained by order of auy 
 court of competent jurisdiction, he shall not protest 
 the same. When the holder of any notes causes 
 more than one note or package to be protested on 
 the same day, he shall not receive pa}' for more than 
 one protest. 
 
 Section 5182 — Ibid — After any association receiv- 
 ing circulating notes under this title has caused its 
 promise to pay such notes on demand to be signed 
 l)y the President or Vice President and cashier 
 Ibcreof, in such manner as to make them obligatory 
 promissory notes, payable on demand at its place of 
 business, such lissociation may issue and circulate 
 the same as money. And the same shall be received 
 at par in all parts of the United States in payment 
 of taxes, excises, public lands, and all other dues to 
 the United States, except duties on imports; and 
 also for all salaries and other debts and demands 
 owing by the United States to individuals, corpora- 
 tions and associations within the United States ex- 
 cept interest on the public debt and in redemption 
 of the national currency. 
 
 These two sections clearly show tirst, that these 
 notes are nothing more than an endorsed promise to 
 ^)ay^ and fufthev that jjou arc the Inyoliintary en? 
 
42 
 
 dorser, and if the bank fails to redeem its note when 
 you present it you have to protest the note on which 
 you are endorser. And second, that these notes are 
 not legal tender among the people. 
 
 A National Bank swindle exposed on the floors of 
 Congress July 21, 1868, by Hon. S. S. Marshall, of 
 Illinois. He said: 
 
 A. B. & Co. raised in currency $300,000. Went 
 to the Register of the Treasury and exchanged their 
 currency for 6 per cent gold interest bonds $300,000; 
 took the bonds to the Comptroller of the Currency in 
 the same building, organized a National Bank, de- 
 posited their bonds and received for their bank 
 $270,000. They had let the Government have $30,- 
 000 in currency more than they had received back 
 for banking purposes and had $30,000 drawing 6 per 
 cent interest, or $18,000 a year in gold on a loan of 
 $30,000 in currency. 
 
 But this is not all of this swindle. They had their 
 bank made a public depository. They soon found 
 there was never less than $1,000,000 of Grovernment 
 money in their vaults. They wanted interest and 
 hence they took this money and bought $1,000,000 
 more of Government sixes, getting $60,000 more of 
 interest, making in all $78,000 gold interest on an 
 actual investment of only $30,000. Nor did they 
 stop here. They deposited the $1,000,000 bonds 
 and started two more banks of $500,000 each and 
 received in bank bills $900,000 more. Now let us 
 see how this looks on aa investment of $300,000 ia 
 
43 
 
 currency. They draw $78,000 interest in gold per 
 annum and have in bank bills $1,170,000 to do bus- 
 iness with. Labor pays the taxes, labor pays the 
 interest and labor goes in rags at the dictation of the 
 octopus and still shuts its eyes and says my old 
 party won't do it again. But they will, for that is 
 what this association was created for. 
 
 This private circular was issued to the National 
 Bankers' Association in 1876: 
 
 A PRIVATE CIRCULAR. 
 
 Dear Sir, — When the greenbacks are cancelled, then 
 there will have to be not less than four hundred million 
 dollars more national bank bills. This will necessitate 
 from three to four thousand more national banks than 
 are already chartered (there are now twenty-one hun- 
 dred]. When we get five to six thousand banks with not 
 less than 10 persons to each, on an average, it will give 
 us an organization spread over the country that can con- 
 trol the government. 
 
 See ! We have 3,546 National Banks and 1,50 
 State Banks working with them, which makes 5,046 
 in all, and you see the result, they do control the go- 
 vernment and are moving heaven and earth to can- 
 cel the "People's Money," the Greenbacks. 
 
 The following circular was afterwards issued by 
 New York bankers, to the National Banks, in 1878: 
 
 THE banks' circular. 
 
 Dear Sir, — It is advisable to do all in your power to 
 sustain such prominent daily and weekly newspapers, 
 especially the agricultural and religious press, as will 
 
44 
 
 oppose the issue of greenback paper money. Let the 
 governmant issue the coin and the banks issue the paper 
 money of the country, for then we can better protect 
 each other. To repeal the law creating national bank 
 notes, or to restore to circulation the government issue 
 of money will be to provide the people with money, and 
 will therefore seriously affect your individual profit as 
 bankers and lenders. See your congressman at once, 
 and engage him to support our interests, that we ma}' 
 control legislation. Jas. Buell, Sec'y- 
 
 But here is another which seems to think that the 
 agricultural and religious press should teach the 
 people that the banks are the only ones who are 
 capable of issuing paper money (save the mark.) 
 I have told you the National Bank bill is not money 
 in any sense of the word. But the only reason why 
 Secretary Buell should recommend the agricultural 
 and religious press, that I can see, is that he thinks 
 these people are easier duped than city dudes. That 
 would be the natural inference to be drawn from this 
 circular. Will our agricultural and religious friends 
 make a note of the Association's "dirty fling" at 
 them through its secretary and then govern them- 
 selves accordingly. But the next thing this Huge 
 Fraud, this leech on our national prosperity wants, 
 is the retirement of the Grreenback (it has always 
 been a thorn in their side), the single Gold standard, 
 and National Bank bills, based on government bonds, 
 on which they draw interest in gold, pay no taxes, 
 and have ninety per cent of the value of their bonds 
 in bills, kept in good repair for them, at your ex- 
 
45 
 
 pense, to loan to you at any interest they may see 
 fit to charge. 
 
 For the purpose of carrying out this plan the fol- 
 lowing circular is sent out, issued March 12, 1893, 
 by the American Bankers' Association, to all Na- 
 tional Banks : 
 
 THE PANIC BULLETIN. 
 
 Dear Sir — The interests of national bankers require 
 immediate financial legislation by congress. Silver, sil- 
 ver certificates and treasury notes must be retired and 
 national bank notes upon a gold basis made the only 
 money. This will require the authorization of from five 
 hundred million to one billion dollars of new bonds as a 
 basis of circulation. You will at once retire one-third of 
 your circulation and call in one half of your loans. Be 
 careful to make a money stringency felt among your 
 patrons, especially among influential business men. Ad- 
 vocate an extra session of congress for the repeal of the 
 purchasing clause of the Sherman law, and act with the 
 other banks of your city in securing a large petition to 
 congress for its unconditional repeal, per accompanying 
 form. Use personal influence with congressmen, and 
 particularly let your wishes be known to your senators. 
 The future life of national banks as fixed and safe in- 
 vestments depends upon immediate action, as there is an 
 increasing sentiment in favor of government legal tender 
 notes and silver coinage. 
 
 Does not this complete the chain of evidence that 
 the Hazzard circular was here in 1862? Is it not 
 proven by these circulars and by the action of the 
 Bank Association that a conspiracy has been formed 
 to rob this nation of its republican form of govern- 
 ment and build on its ruins a monarchy based on 
 cash ? Will you, dear sir, longer submit to this rob- 
 
46 
 
 bery, or will you demaDd with us fvll legal tender 
 Greenbacks to fill the place of Bank bills ; the res- 
 toration of the silver dollar to its time-honored place 
 in our money system, and that all money^ whether 
 metal or paper, shall be coined by the Grovernment, 
 and every dollar a full legal tender for all debts, 
 dues and demands of every name, nature and kind. 
 Let the National Bankers' Association die, and the 
 Government establish postal savings banks in their 
 stead, so arranged that the people may have a safe, 
 sound and flexible currency, in quantity adequate to 
 the demands of trade. 
 
 But before we leave this branch of the subject we 
 must give you one more statement. It is from Hon. 
 James B Beck, Senator from Kentucky. He gives 
 a succinct history of all the bonds that were sold 
 each year, the prices that were paid and the interest 
 that was given shows that by procuring greenbacks 
 with gold (or shoddy contracts) they made on each 
 > ear's purchase of principal which cost them noth- 
 ing (by reason of the gold price of the greenbacks) 
 from the year stated to 1869, as follows, viz.: 
 
 1862 $28,138,989 
 
 1863.. 94,555,713 
 
 1864 306,551,582 
 
 1865 110,159.367 
 
 1866 53,757,183 
 
 1867 167,915,741 
 
 1868 253,159.765 
 
 On acct. of 5% Bonds 98,297,864 
 
 Total $1,012,536,004 
 
47 
 
 This statement was carefully and truthfully pre- 
 pared (so sa3S Mr. Beck) and needs no comment. 
 This will compare with the one we have inserted 
 before — the}^ agree. 
 
 How much longer do you intend to submit to this 
 Bankers Association rule ? You make the money 
 by your labor, and they " financier " it out of you by 
 the gold basis system. 
 
 And after all this robbery, fraud and " financier- 
 ing " (this is only a polite word for stealing) by this 
 enemy of freedom, they are now moving heaven 
 and earth to destroy the $316,681,016 in Greenbacks 
 on which we pay no interest and which cannot be 
 retired under the present law. (See Sec. 3582 Re- 
 vised Statutes : * ' The authority given to the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury to make any reduction of the 
 currency, by retiring and cancelling United States 
 Notes is suspended ") for the sole purpose of an 
 issue of Bonds to the amount of the Greenbacks, on 
 which they can draw interest, and issue their Notes 
 to the amount of 90% of the face of the Bonds and 
 force you to become their endorser. The great 
 question now for you to solve is will you do it, or 
 will you demand of the Government that they kill 
 this "Devil Fish" that has got its 'feelers on every 
 industry in the land, and restore the e^itire circulation 
 to the people, to whom it belongs. 
 
 We give you here a statement of the saving to 
 the producers by the use of full legal tender p;iper 
 money to be Issued by the Qovernment in place of 
 
48 
 
 National Bank bills. This was written when there 
 was the amount of Greenbacks stated, said to be in 
 circulation : 
 
 "The 351,000,000 of Greenbacks, represent a debt of 
 the United States which bears no interest, and at ^% 
 per cent interest will save to the people $15,795,000 per 
 year ; or, in thirty years, with the principal, we will 
 save $824,850,000, or about one half of our national debt, 
 while on the $318,000,000 of Bank bills which cost us 53^ 
 per cent we lose per year $17,490,000, or in thirty years 
 $842,700,000. Now suppose that all of our Greenbacks 
 were Bank bills, and we have to pay $824,850,000 now 
 saved, with the $842,700,000 we now pay on the Bank 
 bills, don't you see we would be paying in thirty years 
 the enormous amount of $1,067,500,000 to the capitalists, 
 or just the $824,850,000 more than we now pay ? Again 
 the interest saved to the people by the use of the Green- 
 backs, amounting to $824,850,000, added to the sum of 
 $842,700,000, which would be saved if we change the 
 National Bank bills to Greenbacks, makes just the dif- 
 ference of $1,667,500,000, earned by the people and paid 
 to the Banks, or if we put all the Bank bills into Green- 
 backs the same amount will be earned by the people and 
 kept by those who earned it. 
 
 "If we put the present volume of currency all into 
 Greenbacks, we will save, enough in thirty years to just 
 about pay the National debt. But if we put the Green- 
 backs into National Bank bills we will just about double 
 the National debt in the same time. Which system of 
 currency is best to adopt ? It will be just the difference 
 in cash between $1,667,500,000, paid to the people, and 
 the same amount paid by the people to the Banks. This 
 would be a real difference of $3,335,100,000 in 30 years. 
 
 "Now, workingmen, make Bank bills your currency 
 and you will have to earn $3,335,100,000 and give it to 
 the Banks, or abolish Banlcs and naake GreeubacHs youy 
 
^1) 
 
 currency entirely and this amount will be left in the 
 hands of the people who earned it." 
 
 We will close this chapter with — 
 No. 4. 
 The American Banker's Association, 
 2 Wall St. and 90-94 Broadway, 
 
 New York, March 23, 1896. 
 
 [President, Eugene H. Pullen, vice-president Nation- 
 al Bank of the Republic, New York; first vice-president, 
 Robert J. Lowr}', Lowry Banking Company, Atlanta, 
 Ga. ; chairman executive council, Joseph C. Hendrix, 
 president National Union Bank, New York; treasurer, 
 William H. Porter, vice-president Chase National Bank, 
 New York; secretary, James R. Branch, 2 Wall street. 
 New York.] 
 
 To the Bankers of the United States : 
 
 At the meeting of the Executive Council of the Amer- 
 ican Banker's Association, held in this city on March 11, 
 '189G, the following declaration was made by unanimous 
 vote ; 
 
 TuE Existing Standard op Value. 
 
 "The executive council of the American Bankers' 
 Association declare unequivocally in favor of the main- 
 tenance of the existing gold standard of value and rec- 
 ommend to all bankers and to the customers of all banks 
 the exercise of all their influence as citizens in their va- 
 rious States to Select delegates to the political conven- 
 tions of both the great parties who will declare unequiv- 
 ocally in favor of the maintenance of the existing gold 
 standard of value." 
 
 Your influence is earnestly requested to give practical 
 effect to this action. 
 
 Eugene H. Pullen, Preside nc. 
 James R. Branch, Secretary . 
 Joseph C. Hendrix, 
 Chairman Executive Council. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 A Glance at English History, 
 
 The landed aristocracy of England has been 
 formed and her debt came into existence by the 
 same means of contraction and expansion of money 
 credit as has been and is now pushing its way to 
 consummation in our own country. When Eng- 
 land commenced her debt (with less than one-half of 
 htr present population) she had 150,000 land owners 
 .''ud 5,000,000 or one-third propert}^ holders Today 
 w th a population of about 40,000,000 she has less 
 Warn 30,000 land holders and less than 70,000 that 
 are comparatively independent. She has over 6,000,- 
 000 paupers, 20,000,000 living in dependence and 
 dooredation, wiih 10,000,000 living on salaries pre- 
 carious and changeable. There is only one land 
 lio'der in over 1,200 of the population. There is 
 on'y one independent fortune in 600 of the popula- 
 tion. It has been the business of her government to 
 miike the poor minister to the folly, idleness and 
 luxury of the rich. By lunding her national debt 
 she has funded her people into slaves. She has 
 
51 
 
 built up the fortunes of the rich and consigned her 
 mil i ions to monstrous poverty, existing a,s a perma- 
 nent curse to brood over the liberties of the land. 
 
 Our history of contraction and expansion of 
 money, establishment of National Banks, the inaugu- 
 ration of an interest-bearing debt and the fallacy of 
 specie payment is clearly showing that English his- 
 tory is fast repeating itself, and that we are as closely 
 following its beaten track as difference in conditions 
 will allow. English history of currency contraction 
 and expansion leads us to see that the money power 
 of our own country has learned its lesson from the 
 moneyocracy of the so-called mother^ country. In 
 1797 the paper currency of England increased from 
 $45,000,000 to $225,000,000, and we are told by one 
 of its eminent men that it resulted in a flood ot pros- 
 perity such has had never before descended upon a 
 nation. While this ample currency referred to ex- 
 isted in England, in the eight years previous to re- 
 sumption of specie payments in 1821 she paid off 
 $640,000,000 of the public debt, or $80,000,000 per 
 year. She paid in the 10 years immediately follow- 
 ing resumption only $24,000,000 a year. In the 
 next 10 years she increased her debt more than $30,- 
 000,000. And now everyone expects her debt of 
 $4,000,000,000 or more to be co-existent with the 
 government itself. 
 
 The celebrated William Corbett boldly asserted 
 that with the destruction of the ample currency 
 above stated, England would, by a collapse of her 
 well paid industries^ and consequently her tax- pay- 
 
52 
 
 ing power, be forced to stop payment on her debt, 
 and thai i^ropliccy became history. The consumma- 
 tion of this English history in her downtrodden and 
 suffering millions is but the preface to the efforts of 
 the same power in this country. It can be obviated 
 here as it might have been there. The continuance 
 of her ample currency receivable for all dues, taxes 
 and revenues and by consent of the government con- 
 tinued a legal tender for all debts, both public and 
 private, it would have remained the same so long as 
 the government maintained the confidence and alleg- 
 iance of the people. But that would not answer the 
 usurping tyranny of the money power — a power that 
 would ruthlessly absorb the substance of the toiling 
 millions, leaving them to the condition of suffering, 
 starvation and ruin. Today we are attempting to 
 repeat the same history, and if carried on to consum- 
 mation will as certainly bring the industrial millions 
 of our own country to the same condition. 
 
 The United States also made their most rapid 
 strides in wealth during our rebellion, and about five 
 years after on an abundance of paper currency ; but 
 the ''Hazzard circular" was here from England in the 
 hands of the Bankers' Association and we, too, con- 
 tracted the currency with a view to an early resump- 
 tion of specie payments with the following results : 
 In 1850 there was of the property in the United 
 States in the hands of the people, 67^ per cent ; in 
 1860, 43^ per cent ; in 1870, 36f per cent ; in 1880, 
 27^ per cent ; while in 1890 we find that 18,000 men 
 own more than four-fifths of the assessed valuation 
 
53 
 
 of the United States, leaving less than 20 per cent in 
 the hands of the people. When the Roman empire 
 went down 1,800 men owned all of the then known 
 world. When Egypt went down only 2 per cent of 
 her property was in the hands of the people. When 
 the Persian empire went down only 1 per cent of her 
 property was in the. hands of the people ; the rest 
 had been transferred to the worshippers of the golden 
 calf by the "financiering" process. The people, 
 voters of this country, have in their hands the 
 power to change such relations into the normal, 
 rightful channels that lead to the general prosperity 
 of the people and the well being and prosperity of 
 the country. 
 
 Now having reviewed the Bankers' Association 
 and set forth its purposes, let us see some of the 
 results which they have accomi3lished. They have 
 reduced the circulation from $50.00 per capita in 
 1865 to $11.88 per capita in 1879 ; they increased 
 the number of failures from 530 in 1865, with a loss 
 of $8,579,000 to 10.478 in 1878, with losses to the 
 amount of $234,383,132 — making, in all, failures to 
 the number of 72,943 reported up to 1879, with 
 losses to the amount of $18,292,915,605, while in 
 1893 there were 16.650 failures, losses $1,754,596,- 
 000. They filled the country with tramps, the poor- 
 houses with paupers, the insane asylums with ma- 
 niacs ; our streets and highways witLi thieves, rob- 
 bers, pickpockets and murderers ; and our whole 
 once- prosperous and happy land with misery, desti- 
 tution and woe, to satisfy the avarice and greed of 
 
54 
 
 about 8,000 beings calling themselves men, but who 
 are in fact only cowardly, cringing sharks, despised 
 of Grod and hated by men — a class who onl}^ deserve / 
 to die and be dragged into the desert to be devoured/ 
 by wild beasts or vultures, and their offspring should 
 be wiped off from the face of the earth. Let there 
 be no more trace found of thena or of their progeny. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Gold-bug press tells us that all who want free 
 coinage of silver are the silver mine owners. Let us 
 see. The silver mines produced 406,210,000 fine 
 Qunces of silver from 1878 to 1888, inclusive, ac- 
 cording to report of director of the mint from the 
 whole United States : 
 
 Commercial value was $436,260,000 
 
 Coinage value 525,145,000 
 
 Difference between commercial and 
 
 coinage value was 88,885,000 
 
 Or an average (each year) of 8,080,544 
 
 Assuming that amount to have been the annual dif- 
 ference from the 3'ear 1878, we must add the sum 
 of $40,402,220 for the five years prior to 1878, mak- 
 ing a total of $129,287,220, for the whole United 
 States for the 17 years ending 1889. Here is the 
 selfishness of the silver mine owners. 
 
 Let us now take a look at the non-mining states. 
 The yield of cotton for the year 1889 was 7,000,000 
 bales, or 3,500,000,000 pounds. Had silver re- 
 mained as it was before 1873, cotton would have 
 brought as good a price in 1889 as it did in 1873, or 
 16.4 cents per pound. Accounts would stand 3,- 
 
56 
 
 500,000,000X16.4=:$574,000,000. Now it stands: 
 3,500,000,000X.099=$345,500,000, which shows a, 
 loss in one year to the cotton planters of $227,5000,-1 
 000 in debt and tax-paying power, or the snug little/ 
 sum of $90,000,000 more in one year, than the entire 
 loss to the silver mine owners in the whole 17 years 
 Is there not some reason for the cotton planters to 
 be a little selfish ? j 
 
 On wheat the loss to the producers by reason of j 
 the contraction of the currency caused by demon- 
 etization of silver amounts to $100,000,000 per year, 
 or $1,700,000,000 in the 17 years. Should not the 
 farmers be a little selfish ? Here is shown a total 
 loss to the farmers and cotton planters of more than 
 $3,000,000,000. as against the paltry pittonee com- 
 pared with it, of $8,000,000 per year suffered by the 
 silver mine owners. 
 
 Next comes a loss that is irreparable. The loss 
 of potential wealth through involuntary idleness of 
 the Great Army of Wealth Producers. The Bureau 
 of Labor of the State of Massachusetts for 1887 
 shows 816,740 laborers in the State. Of these 241,- 
 589, or 30 per cent, were idle p.nrt of the time each 
 year from one to six months, the average being four 
 months each. Now, 240,000 idle for one third of 
 the time equals 80.000 idle all the time, or one tenth 
 of the laboring people. Labor is better organized, 
 better classified, and more effectually ordered in 
 Massachusetts than elsewhere. No other State will 
 exhibit a smaller proportion. 
 
57 
 
 One-third of the population are people who work 
 for wages. Hence, out of our population of 67,- 
 000,000 people we have 22,500,000 laboring people. 
 Truly one-fourth of this will constitute a vast army 
 of the unemployed. Ten per cent idle 2,250,000, at 
 an average wage of 1873, which was $2.00 per day, 
 entails on the wage earners of this nation the sum 
 of $4,500,000 per day lost ; the sum of $27,000,000 
 per week ; the sum of $117,000,000 per month ; or 
 the sum of $1,404,000,000 per year. A saving of 
 this sum for one year and three months would wipe 
 out our entire National debt. The same amount of 
 loss to labor each year for 17 years reaches the 
 enormous sum of $23,868,000,000, which far outstrips 
 all other losses put together, and is borne alone by 
 the Great Army of the Unemployed. The nation 
 loses the increase in National Wealth of what they 
 would produce. Nor is this all, for the laborers who 
 are employed receive but little more than one-half for 
 their services what they did in 1873. Are not you, 
 the Workingmen, more interested in the free coinage 
 of silver, the destruction of National bank bills, and 
 a government issue of full legal tender money, 
 in quantities adequate to the demands of trade and 
 commerce, than any one else? alsathe establishment 
 of Postal Savings Banks owned and run by the gov- 
 ernment, for, and in the interest of the people? Is 
 it not about time that laboring people grew a little 
 selfish in their own interest ? Verily, yes it is. 
 
 Here are a few reasons why you should be inter- 
 ested. You cannot expect to have anything of your 
 
58 . 
 
 own under such a system of finance as is demanded 
 by the "Gold Bugs" in the old parties. But why 
 not, say you. Let me tell you why. The total 
 debts of the nations of the world is $28,621,910,685. 
 The State debts of the United States is $868,676,738. 
 The municipal debt of the United States $1,006,584.- 
 146. The municipal debt of Europe is estimated at 
 $40,000,000,000. The personal debts are estimated 
 at $2,500,000,000 for the people, which makes a total 
 of $73,321,651,394, which, on the single standard, 
 are all payable in gold. Where is the gold coming 
 from ? The total output of gold in the world for 
 the last 500 years has been only $7,240,000,000. 
 One-half of this has been used up in the arts, leaving 
 $3,620,000,000 in money, of which one-fourth is 
 gone by loss and abrasion, leaving only $2,715,000,- 
 000 to pay the debt with. How are you going to 
 pay the debt with gold ? The total output of silver 
 for the last 500 years has been $7,425,000,000. 
 One-half used in the arts leaves $3,712,500,000 
 for money. One-fourth lost or worn out $928,125,- 
 ,000, leaves only $2,784,375,000 to pay debts with, 
 or of both gold and silver we have only $5,499,- 
 875,000, or about five and one-half billions. - 
 
 Now, tell me how you can pay 73 billion dollars 
 in gold when you only have 2^ billions to pay it 
 with. Let me tell you what you can do. You can 
 pay the creditor 1^ billion dollars in interest each 
 year if that will do you any good. And you can pay 
 $1,000,000,000 on the principal and have not one 
 cent left, and you will still owe $72,000,000,000. 
 
59 
 
 Now, how will you pay that ? JPlease study it over 
 and let us know. We would like to learn how to 
 to pay 73, with interest at Ij^, with 2i^. Cannot 
 see how it can be done. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 We now proceed to show you that the old slave 
 power in the South was only intent on building up 
 in this country an aristocracy based on involuntary 
 servitude. As early as «June, 1854, a large meeting 
 was held in Leavenworth to give "expression," as 
 it was heralded, and here is the " expression " : 
 
 '' Eesolved, That we shall give no protection to aboli- 
 tionists in Kansas Territory. 
 
 '■'■Resolved, That in Kansas abolitionists need not set 
 their feet. It is decreed by the people, who live adja- 
 cent, that their institutions are to be established there. 
 
 "They, abolitionists, must be met if need be, with 
 the rifle. We must meet them at the very threshold 
 and scourge them back to their caverns of darkness. 
 They have made the issue, and it is for us to meet and 
 repel them even at the Doint of the bayonet." — G. W. p. 
 459. 
 
 More than this, the old slave power, then, through 
 its representative men, its leaders, struck at the 
 ballot box in the hands of laboring men, as does the 
 money power, now' through its representative men, 
 its leaders, strike at the ballot box in the hands of 
 laboring men. 
 
 Here is what the slave power said : " If any of 
 the 20,000 abolitionists, spoken of by Holly, should 
 
61 
 
 be so lucky as to set foot in the Territory (Kansas) 
 previous to the adoption of its Constitution, no bal- 
 lot box at any precinct within its borders would be 
 allowed to be polluted by the introduction of a nig- 
 ger vote."— a. W. p. 460. 
 
 This was a proclamation by the slave power 
 against the " nigger " — the black laborer. The old 
 slave power hurled its anathema against the black 
 labor. The money power puts forth its excathedra 
 against labor, without regard to color or previous 
 condition of servitude. 
 
 We have not the space or time to further trace 
 the infamy of the slave power, but we wish it to be 
 borne in mind that slavery was a crime against 
 labor. It was capital owning labor, and through its 
 corrupt political pov^^er it reached the highest place 
 of absolute dictator. Less than three hundred 
 thousand slave holders, lass than two per cent of the 
 people, came at last to own the President, to own 
 the Senate, to own Congress, and to so control the 
 Judiciary as to wring from it a decision that said a 
 negro had no rights that a white man is bound to 
 respect. And even went further, bought up the 
 head- centers of the church, and extorted from them 
 the infamous saying taat slavery was a divine 
 institution. 
 
 The old Whig party died and the Republican 
 parly was formed under the Oaks at Jackson, Mich- 
 
62 
 
 The great struggle of 1856 gave the country into 
 the hands of the slave power, and sh3 straightway 
 said, I am a queen and shall see no sorrow. She 
 gathered around her all the insignia of royalty and 
 all the hauteur of tyranny. The groan of the slave 
 only made her laugh. The plea of virtue in the 
 bondwoman only fanned her lust. 
 
 And liberty went down, down, down, till the god- 
 dess wept for freedom lost. The slave oligarchy, in 
 a cry that startled the world — like the last leap of 
 mad ambition, o'erdid itseM — said, capital shall own 
 labor. 
 
 The eventful year 185S came. The two mighty 
 champions, one of labor, Mr. Lincoln ; the other, 
 Mr. Douglass, the apologist of slavery, made a can- 
 vass the like of which was not before known in our 
 history. The great hearted man, Mr. Lincoln, said 
 the House must cease to be divided, or it would fail. 
 Mr. Douglass excused the division. Out of this 
 discussion slavery came more haughty than ever, 
 and fully bent on rule or ruin. And with a defiance 
 hurled at humanity and a taunt at God, said, in the 
 pride of her heart : 
 
 " I will call my slave-roll under the shadow of 
 Bunker Hill."— Tombs. 
 
 Then on-e mighty cry, like the voice of many 
 waters, rang out labor shall be free. The struggle 
 of 1860 came and gave the Government in the hands 
 of freedom. The slave power rebelled. It said the 
 Declaration of Independence was a lie ; that our 
 
63 
 
 fathers were mistaken when tlicy declared it. There 
 was no measuring the haughtiness, the impudence 
 and the criminality of this tyrant of labor. 
 
 The slave power inaugurated war, published a 
 great State paper in which they declared that a 
 white man's republic could only be founded on the 
 perpetual enslavement of the black man. 
 
 It baptized the land in blood, watered the hearth- 
 stones with tears, outraged humanity, defied God 
 and was crushed to death amid the boom of the can- 
 nan and the wails of the dying. 
 
 Take the money power of to-day and you find it 
 the twin in the iniquity wrought out by its wicked 
 prototype — the slave power. It, too, owns the Pre- 
 sident, owns the Senate, owns the Congress, claims 
 the judiciary, controls the press, and has bought up 
 the head-centers of the church, who are declaring 
 that capital shall have the right to decree bread and 
 water as the diet of labor. 
 
 And hear the meek and k)wly Henry Ward Beech- 
 er, from his carmine-satia-covered-sofa, languishly 
 exclaim : 
 
 "Is not a dollar a day enough to buy bread? Wa- 
 ter costs nothing ; and a man who cannot live on 
 bread is not fit to live. A family may live, laugh, 
 love and be happy that eats bread in the morning 
 with good water, and water and good bread at noon, 
 and water and bread at liight." 
 
(34 
 
 Again: "If these m mi persist, and attempt to force 
 their greenback mone}^ upon capitalists by the ballot, 
 then we will take the ballot from them, if we have 
 to use the baj^onet to do it !" — Kev. Cook in Boston. 
 
 The President elect used language about as infa- 
 mous, in regard to the greenback, utterly denying 
 that it was money. He bowed and kissed the toe of 
 the money power, and bid for its support wit'i a de- 
 votion that no other man has been able to equal. 
 
 " I want it remembered in the outset, that the 
 greenback currency was and is so known in the 
 courts, and so known everywhere, a forced loan, a 
 loan forced by the government upon its eredit.)rs to 
 meet the great emergencies of the war." — J. A. Gar- 
 field's speech in Congress, 1878. 
 
 Thus he bid lor the presidency and got it. He 
 denied the law of his country and the decisions of 
 the court of last resort. 
 
 " United States notes shall be lawful money and 
 legal tender for all debts ext3ept the interest on the 
 public debt and duties oia imports." — R. S. U. S., 
 Sec. 3, 588. 
 
 " This Court has recently held that all Legal Ten- 
 der Acts are constitutional. So by that decision we 
 have two kinds of money in this country, United 
 States Notes and Coin."— 12 W. S. C. R. ' 
 
 BEFORE IT COMMENCED. 
 
 1878 — Up to 20 years ago the great mass of the 
 American peoj)le was composed of small property 
 
65 
 
 owners — men who owned farms, gardens, work shops, 
 shops, stores, etc., of their own, who were their own 
 masters, working for themselves. — Post and Tribune. 
 
 AFTER EIGHTEEN YEARS OF POWER. 
 
 1878 — We now have a large population of perma- 
 nent workingmen — that is, a large class who expect 
 to remain workingmen and non-property owners all 
 their lives — a class which looks to working for wages 
 as a permanent occupation for itself and children. — 
 Post and Tribune. 
 
 In the New York Times April, 1877, appeared the 
 following infamous doctrine : 
 
 (Is this Republicanism?) 4$- * * * 
 
 "There seems to be but one remedy. To reach 
 it, both farmers and capitalists need to be educated 
 to it, but it seems to be inevitable. It is a change of 
 ownership of the soil, and the creation of a class of 
 land-owners on the one hand, and of tenant farm- 
 ers on the other, something similar, in both cases, 
 to what has long existed and now exists in the older 
 countries of Europe." (Ireland, for instance.) "Ever}'- 
 thing seems ripe for a change. Half the farms in 
 the country are ready to be sold, if buyers would 
 only appear ; and hundreds that can now be bought 
 for less than their value twenty or thirty years ago 
 need only some judicious outlay to make them as 
 productive as ever. Few farmers can hope to pro- 
 vide their sons with farms of their own, and there is 
 no place for these you us: men in the overcrowded 
 
66 . 
 
 cities." (Put 'em in jails or make coolies out of 
 'em.) 
 
 Hear that cold-blooded threat, ye tillers of the 
 soil! And ye strong-armed mechanics, hear this, 
 coming from that Democratic! Rothschild organ, 
 the New York World : 
 
 "The American laborer must make up his mind 
 henceforth not to be so much better off than the 
 European laborer. Men must be content to work for 
 less wages. In this way the workingman will be 
 nearer to that station in life to which it has pleased 
 God to call him." (Let's see ; was not negro slavery 
 DIVINELY instituted?) 
 
 It would seem as though we had shown you 
 enough now of the workings of this cursed conspir- 
 acy to convince any sane man, or woman, that the 
 sole aim and object is to reduce this boasted " land 
 of the free and home of the brave'' to a condition of 
 servitude. Their paid writers and the subsidized 
 press of the country are all loud in their proclama- 
 tions against silver, and they ail cry out with one 
 accord that the government has no power to make 
 (coin) paper money . But they claim it has perfect 
 authority to charter National Banks to do so. Please 
 tell us how the Grovernment can delegate a power to 
 another, an authority it does not possess itself. 
 
 Hear what the immortal Daniel Webster says on 
 the subject. He says in the annals of the 25th Con- 
 gress, second session, page 317. Now, sir, by this 
 PQQstitutionj Congress i§ authori;zed to coir! moaeYj 
 
07 
 
 to regulate the value 1 hereof, and of foreign coin, 
 and all the States are prohibited frono coining money 
 or from making anj'thing but gold and silver coin a 
 legal tender in payment of debts. Suppose the con- 
 stitution had stopped here, it would still have estab 
 lished the all important point of a uniform money 
 system ; by this provision Congress is to furnish 
 coin, or regulate its value for all the States ; there 
 is to be but one money standard for the whole coun- 
 try, and the standard value to be established by 
 Congress is to be currency, not of bullion merely ; 
 and if nothing else had been done would it not have 
 been a reasonable and necessary inference from this 
 power that Congress had authority to regulate, and 
 must regulate, an}'^ and all paper money that may bo 
 put in circulation. It is evident that the Constitu- 
 tion intended something more than to provide a me- 
 dium for the payment of debts due the Government; 
 the object was a uniform currency for the whole peo 
 pie in all the transactions of life, and it was mani- 
 festly the intent of the constitution that the power 
 to maintain such a currency should be given to 
 Congress, but it would make the system in- 
 congruous and incomplete ; it would be denying 
 to Congress the means necesary to accomplish 
 ends which were manifestly intended ; it would 
 render the whole provision in a great measure nuga- 
 tory, if when Congress had established a coin for 
 currency, and circulation it should have no power to 
 maintain it as an actual circulation, nor to regulate 
 or control paper emissions designed to occupy its 
 
68 
 
 place and perform the same functions that it would 
 on the coinage power alone, and on a fair, just and 
 reasonable inference from it ; therefore I should be 
 of the opinion that Congress was authorized and was 
 bound to protect the community against all evils 
 which might threaten from a deluge of currency of 
 another kind, filling up in point of fact all the chan- 
 nels ot circulation, and this opinion is not new ; it 
 has often been expressed before, and was cogently 
 urged by Mr. Dallas, the Secretary of the Treasury, 
 in his report in 1816. He says whenever the emer- 
 gency occurs that demands a change of system, it 
 seems necessary to follow that the authorit}^, which 
 was alone competent to establish the national coin, 
 is alone competent to create a national substitute. 
 
 This we think is pretty good authority, but for 
 fear some may think it insufficient, we will cite one 
 or two more, viz., Parker vs. Davis, 12 Wallace, 529. 
 Met. Bank vs. Van Djke, 27th N. Y. Rep 400 It 
 is claimed by bullionist papers that Congress cannot 
 issue legal tender notes in time of peace. The 
 courts have decided this matter most emphatically. 
 The Supreme Court of the United States — seven 
 judges being present — m December, 1860, (a time of 
 peace) in the case of Hepburn vs. Griswold (8 Wal- 
 lace, page 636), held that Congress had the '' un- 
 doubted constitutional power to furnish to the coun- 
 try the currency to be used by it in the transaction 
 of business, whether this was by means of coin, or of 
 the notes of the United States." 
 
HI) 
 
 This point being (jecidfcl, the question then came 
 up whether or not these "notes of the United States" 
 could be declared a legal tender, thus making them 
 as good as gold. Upon this question, this court of 
 seven judges decided that Congress could make them 
 legal tender for all contracts made after the passage 
 of the act, but not for contracts made before. 
 
 Afterwards, when the bench was made full — nine 
 judges— the Supreme Court decided that the legal 
 tender U. S. Notes (greenbacks) could not only pay 
 all debts created after the passage of the law, but 
 all debts created before its passage (12 Wallace, 
 page 553.) 
 
 It is seen, then, that — 
 
 1st, Congress can make the currency of the coun- 
 try by issuing XL S. Notes. 
 
 2d, Congress can declare such notes to be legal 
 tender, the same as gold, thus making them just as 
 good as gold for money. The Constitution having 
 been formed for a time of peace, has the same autho- 
 rity during peace as in war. There are not two con- 
 stitutions — one for peace and another for war. 
 
 Query — If the fiat of the government can take a 
 man from his home and family, and put him in the 
 front of the battle to be shot down, can it not deter- 
 mine what shall be a standard of value of the flour 
 and meat he eats. If not, why not ? 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 A Dialogue. 
 
 Perhaps no way of imparting information excels that 
 put in the form of question and answer. The question 
 states exactly what knoweldge is sought, and the answer 
 furnishes the information in the most direct manner. 
 
 The questions herein asked are those which naturally 
 occur to an inquisitive mind, and the answers are de- 
 signed to be accurate, but it is not contended that they 
 are complete in every case. The same question may 
 often be answered in many different ways, and it would 
 require all the answers to form a perfect reply. The 
 object of the writer is to bring out the simplest and 
 most important truth. Those who do not like the 
 answers given may, perhaps, profitably exercise their 
 wits in framing better ones: 
 
 Question. What is the chief aim of man? 
 
 Answer. To get money. 
 
 Q. Why does he wish to get money? 
 
 A, Because with money he can get all other things? 
 
 Q. Is money of itself useful to man? 
 
 A. He cannot eat, drink or wear it, or use it for 
 shelter. Unless he can get rid of it in the act of buying 
 something, it is the most useless thing in the world. 
 
 Q. What is money ? 
 
Yl 
 
 A. It is the stull: that we use in buying and selling. 
 
 Q. Is money a part of our wealth? 
 
 A. Only to a very limited extent. Money is the tool 
 with which we exchange wealth. It is wealth only to 
 the extent of the cost of its production from the cheap- 
 est available material. 
 
 Q. What is wealth? 
 
 A. Any product of human toil that can be used to 
 satisfy human want. 
 
 Q. Has money any other use except that found in 
 trade ? 
 
 A. None worth mentioning. 
 
 Q. Can trading be done without money? 
 
 A. No. It is practically impossible. 
 
 Q. What becomes of trade when money is scarce? 
 
 A. It Is crippled in proportion to the scarcity of 
 money. 
 Q. What results from the embarrassment of trade? 
 
 A. The stoppage of production, which means loss of 
 work and wages for laboring people, as well as loss of 
 profit to traders. In short, it is universal loss. 
 
 Q. What is trade? 
 
 A. Trade Is the exchange of products by means of 
 money, each party getting rid of what he does not want 
 and getting what he does want, and using money merely 
 to accomplish that end. 
 
 Q. Whence comes money? 
 
 A. It is made by the government. 
 
 Q. Can any one else make it? 
 
 A. It is a high crime in any person to make money, 
 
 Q. Of what is money made? 
 
72 
 
 A Mainly of gold, silver and paper. 
 
 Q. • Which is the best kind of money? 
 
 A. The use of money is that of a tool, the best tool is 
 the one that is best to work with; therefore the kind of 
 money that effects exchanges most handily is the best 
 kind. 
 
 Q. Is an expensive kind of money any better than a 
 cheap kind? 
 
 A. It does not do the work of money any better. 
 
 Q. What else is wanted of it? 
 
 A. Nothing. The money use is a permanent and ex- 
 clusive one. 
 
 Q. Is anything gained by the using of expensive ma- 
 terial in money? 
 
 k. Nothing. It is poor economy to use an expensive 
 tool where a cheap one will. answer the purpose. 
 
 P. If a nation uses a million dollars' worth of metal 
 money when paper money would do the same work, 
 what is lost? 
 
 A. Supposing the paper money to cost $1000, the 
 amount lost every year is equal to t^e interest on $999,- 
 000. 
 
 Q. How is this loss made? 
 
 A. It is considered lost in accordance with the prin- 
 ciple that when we do not get a thing that we may just 
 as well have, we lose it, just as a man who misses a 
 day's work is said to lose a day's wages. If we had used 
 the paper and had let out the metal at interest we should 
 have gotten the interest, not having gotten it, we lose it. 
 
 Q. If money be such a useful tool, is it not import- 
 ant to have a full supply ? 
 
 A. Yes. Nothing is of p-etitei; importance, 
 
73 
 
 Q. Is it possible to have enough money? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. How is our present supply obtained*^ 
 
 A. Our standard money is now gold, and it is ob- 
 tained in this way: Any man who can find the precious 
 metal does so, and taking it to the mint has it coined 
 into money. 
 
 Q. Are we able to find enough of this standard 
 money? 
 
 A. No. It has become scarce. We can not find 
 half enough for the money use. 
 
 Q. How is the deficiency supplied? 
 
 A. We use some silver. The silver is not so scarce, 
 sixteen times as much of it being required to do the same 
 work. 
 
 Q. How is silver obtained? 
 
 A. In the same manner as gold; anybody may find it 
 who can. 
 
 Q. How does it get to be money? 
 
 A. The law now prevents our taking it to the mint 
 for coinage, but the government buys a certain quantity 
 of it each month and either coins it or issues paper cer- 
 tificates in place of it, which are used as money, while 
 the silver is locked up in vaults where it remains just as 
 idle and useless as when it was locked up in the rocks of 
 the western mountains. 
 
 Q. Why is not silver coined and used for money just 
 the same as gold? 
 
 A. It always was until 1873, when by a slight change 
 in the law the coinage was stopped without the know- 
 ledge or consent of the people. 
 
 Q. Was it right to make this change in this way? 
 
74 
 
 A. Clearly it was not. 
 
 Q. What was ihe object of making the change? 
 
 A. Two prevent the use of silver as money. 
 
 Q. What was accomplished by the change? 
 
 A. One source of the supply of money was cut off, 
 and thus the quantity was made less. 
 
 Q. Did not this deprive the people of a most useful 
 and necessary tool ? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. Who could wish to do that? 
 
 A. The selfish interests of any who had large sums 
 of money owing to them would incline them to do this, 
 because when money becomes scarcer its value increases 
 in the same proportion, for the reason that it will buy 
 more goods than before . 
 
 Q. Who are the sufferers by this change? 
 
 A. The people at large suffer the evils incident to a 
 short money supply, but all who have debts to pay suf- 
 fer particularly because it makes their debts larger and 
 the interest heavier. 
 
 Q. How does paper money get into use? 
 
 A. It is made and issued by the Government. 
 
 Q. What determines the amount that is issued? 
 
 A. The will of the people as expressed in law. 
 
 Q. What is the direct effect of an increase of money? 
 
 A. The effect upon the country at large is to produce 
 increased activity in trade and production ; that is, to 
 Increase the wealth of the country. The effect upon 
 debts is to make them relatively smaller and easier to 
 pay ; the effect upon prices of goods and values general- 
 ly is to raise them. Those periods that are popularly 
 
75 
 
 known as good times, when laborers are generally em- 
 ployed, and industrious men are getting richer, always 
 occur when money is either abundant or increasing in 
 amount ; and, on the contrary, what are called hard 
 times, when many people are out of work, and industri- 
 ous people find it hard to pay their debts and make a 
 living, always occur when money is either scarce or 
 diminishing in quantity. 
 
 Q. What is the direct effect of a decrease of the vol- 
 ume of money, or a contraction of the currency, as it is 
 called ? 
 
 A. To check the production of wealth ; to throw 
 men out of employment ; to increase the amount of all 
 debts ; to decrease the general prosperity, while it 
 increases the gains of the creditor class — those to whom 
 debts must be paid in money. 
 
 Q. How has the quantity of money been generally 
 regulated in the past? 
 
 A. Largely by chance and accident. 
 
 Q. Is this a good way? 
 
 A. Manifestly it is not. The supply of any want 
 should be a subject of intelligent consideration. 
 
 Q. What has been the general rule for the regulation 
 of the issue of paper money? 
 
 A. To issue only what could be redeemed in gold. 
 
 Q. What are the objections to this plan? 
 
 A. They are many. (1) If the quantity of gold be 
 too small for use as money, it may be and generally is 
 too small to serve as a basis "for paper money, and then 
 it is impossible to have enough money. (2) This plan is 
 only a make-believe way of increasing the amount of 
 money, and does not accomplish the object sought. It 
 does not increase the volume of real money at all ; the 
 paper money is only a kind of confidence money, and 
 
t6 
 
 when confidence is lost it becomes depreciated. It does 
 not stand the supreme test ; it is like a railroad bridge 
 made just strong enough for ordinary trains. 
 
 Q. What is real money ? 
 
 A. Real money is irredeemable money — that is always 
 just the same — that does not expect redemption, prom- 
 ise redemption, or require redemption. Redemption is 
 only applicable to such things as are naturally deficient 
 or bad. 
 
 Q. Can real money, irredeemable money, be made out 
 of paper? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. Will it serve all the purposes of real money, and 
 that perfectly? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. Has the experiment ever been tried upon a large 
 scale ? 
 
 A. Yes, The Bank of Venice maintained an irre- 
 deemable currency, which was at a premium over gold 
 and silver for 700 years. 
 
 Q. What are the advantages of an irredeemable paper 
 currency? 
 
 A. [1] A great saving of expense. [2] The supply 
 may be perfectly regulated. [3] When worn it can be 
 cheaply replaced. [4] It will not leave the country and 
 thus be lost to use when most needed. 
 
 Q. How can its value be maintained? 
 
 A. Its yalue, that is, the purchasing power of each 
 dollar, cannot change if only the quantity in circulation 
 be increased just as fast as is required by the increase of 
 population and business. 
 
 Q. How could such an important matter be best reg- 
 ulated ? 
 
A. Probably by constitutional amendment requiring 
 the secretary of the treasury to prevent any fall in the 
 general range of prices by means of the issue of new 
 money. 
 
 Q. Why should it not be left to the action of con- 
 gress ? 
 
 A. Because the conflicting interests of different clas- 
 ses would cause perpetual conflict over monetary legisla- 
 tion, than which nothing can be worse. 
 
 Q. Is a contraction of the currency ever desirable or 
 necessary ? 
 
 A. Probably never. If the currency has been legally 
 issued, even to excess, and trade and production have 
 conformed to it, a change works vast injustice to the 
 producing and the debtor classes, without corresponding 
 advantage to the whole body of the people. 
 
 Qi How can the new money be got into use? 
 
 A. There are two ways that are good. It can be paid 
 out for the construction of such public works as are 
 needed, or it can be loaned directly to the people on good 
 security. 
 
 Q. Is it safe for the government to lend money ? 
 
 A. Just as safe as for individuals to do the same. 
 
 Q. How shall it be determined what is the proper 
 quantity of money? 
 
 A. So important a matter should be made the subject 
 of particular study and careful experiment. Perhaps no 
 man living is qualified to express a definite opinion upon 
 the subject. There should certainly be money enough 
 to employ every laborer, because labor increases wealth 
 and supports the laborer. There is only loss in idleness. 
 Money being the thing with which we buy and sell, it 
 should be so abundant that every valuable thing should 
 have a price and find a purchaser. If great numbers of 
 
78 
 
 farms, for instance, which are among the most valuable 
 and useful species of property, are offered for sale without 
 buyers, it would be very strong evidence of a scarcity of 
 money. 
 
 Q. Can an irredeemable paper currency be kept at 
 a par with gold ? 
 
 A. It would be perfectly easy to do so. 
 
 Q. How could it be done ? 
 
 A. By having little of it. Its value can be raised to 
 any extent by simply contracting the quantity in circu- 
 lation. 
 
 Q. Is it an}^ advantage to the people at large to have 
 their currency at par with gold? 
 
 A. None whatever. 
 
 Q. Is there any stability to the price of gold? 
 
 A. No more than to anything else. Its value depends 
 entireh' upon the law of supply and demand. If the 
 quantity should be increased, its value would fall, while 
 a diminishing supply will inevitably raise the value. 
 Should our government demonetize it, as was done with 
 silver, its value would be lessened ; should it be univer- 
 sally demonetized, probably three-fourths of its present 
 value would disappear. 
 
 Q. How can we trade with foreign countries if our 
 currency is not on a gold basis? 
 
 A. Foreign trade consists in the exchange of the 
 products of two nations, aod is not affected by the fact 
 of currency differences. No nation exports its currency 
 until it is in the last stages of poverty. 
 
 Q. What is the difference between trading and trade? 
 
 A. Trading is the exchange of money for goods, or 
 goods for money, but trade implies the competition of 
 the double transaction — the exchange of ;0ur surplus 
 
79 
 
 products for those of another. Domestic trade requires 
 the use of money twice. Foreign trade is accomplished 
 by a system of exchanges, by the balancing of accounts, 
 and almost entirely without the use of money. 
 
 Q. Is it desirable to have different kinds of money in 
 circulation in the same country? 
 
 A. No. The best kind alone should be used, and 
 that is always; a single kind. 
 
 Q. What kind would probably prove lo be the best 
 for the United States? 
 
 A. United States treasury notes, but differing in form 
 from those in present use. 
 
 Q. How should they differ? 
 
 A. They should be irredeemable notes. 
 
 Q. What does this mean? 
 
 A. It means that the government should not promise 
 to give something else for them on presentation. 
 
 Q. Why not? 
 
 A. Because it is ridiculous to propose to redeem a 
 circulating medium which is intended for permanent 
 use, and which, from the nature of the case, cannot be 
 presented for redemption. 
 
 Q. What would be the advantage of this feature? 
 
 A. It would make the new money to be for all money 
 uses exactly the same kind of money that gold now is, 
 excepting that it would be cheaply produced, and an 
 abundance might be had. 
 
 Q. But will such a currency circulate? 
 
 A. Yes. All human experience goes to show that a 
 non-redeemable currency will circulate just as well as 
 any. Our irredeemable paper currency at the close of 
 the war circulated perfectly and performed every office 
 
80 
 
 of money, and would have continued to do so down to 
 the end of time if it had been let alone. 
 
 Q. "Why is this so? 
 
 A. Because people want a currency for circulation, 
 not for redemption. 
 
 Q. Will not such a currency grow cheaper and 
 cheaper, and finally become worthless? 
 
 A. No. Such a currency cannot change itself. Those 
 who use it cannot change it. Only the government can 
 change it, just as it can change any other institution of 
 the country. Any government good for other purposes 
 is fit to make the money. 
 
 Q. But is it not necessary that dollars, which are to 
 exchange for all sorts of valuable things, should have 
 value in themselves? 
 
 A. Dollars do not exchange for valuable things. They 
 merely help us to exchange one valuable thing for 
 another. No one would give any valuable thing for 
 mere dollars if he were obliged to keep the dollars. We 
 take dollars only because we can get rid of them. 
 
 Q. What is necessary to the improvement of our 
 currency? 
 
 A. Only that intelligent voters take the trouble to 
 examine the matter carefully and refuse to believe what 
 Interested parties tell them. 
 
 Q. Who has an interest in deceiving the voter In re- 
 gard to money? 
 
 A. That class of persons known the world over as 
 the creditor class— a. class possessed of large wealth- 
 composed of 8uch as do not work for a living, but who 
 live upon the producing class by lending them wealth. 
 
 Q. What would happen if this class should^ have 
 their loans all paid? 
 
81 
 
 A. They would lose thtir income and be forced to 
 work for their living. 
 
 Q. How do they seek to avoid this fate? 
 
 A. By keeping the rate of interest so high that the 
 surplus earnings of the workers are absorbed by the pay- 
 ment of interest, leaving the principal of the debt 
 untouched. 
 
 Q. How do they get such large interest? 
 
 A. By controlling the money supply and keeping it 
 small. This is the secret of the tremendous efforts to 
 keep gold the only real money. If all debts must ulti- 
 mately be paid in gold, there is not the slightest prob- 
 ability that they will ever be paid, and the creditor class 
 will go on drawing interest upon them forever. 
 
 Q. How can the producinsr class protect themselves 
 and their children? 
 
 A. By abolishing the gold standard, under which the 
 dollars in which debts and interest must be paid are 
 constantly growing dearer. 2d. By constitutional 
 amendment providing for the issue of real money in 
 sufficient quantity to prevent any fall in the price of 
 commodities. 
 
 Q. What would result from this? 
 
 A. Creditors would get their just dues, and debtors 
 would pay no more than was due. The production of 
 wealth would be stimulated by the presence of an ample 
 supply of money, and a larger proportion of this wealth 
 would stay with the producing classes, thus evening up 
 society, making smaller fortunes and fewer paupers. 
 
 Q, What is the difference between industrial freedom 
 and slavery? 
 
 A. The industrial people are free when the products 
 of their toil will sell for enough monej^ to support them 
 comfortably, pay the interest upon their debts and leave 
 
82 
 
 a little to apply upon the principal ; they are practically 
 slaves when this small margin disappears, for in such 
 case another enjoys all the profit of their industry, 
 which is the essence of slavery. 
 
 Q. Are the three kinds of money mentioned all that 
 are used? 
 
 A. They are the only kinds coined or printed and 
 made legal tender by law, but ihere is another kind that 
 does the real work ot money in effecting exchanges, and 
 which, therefore, must be considered as money. 
 
 Q. What kind is that? 
 
 A. It is called bank credit money, 
 
 Q. By whom is it made and issued? 
 
 A. By the bankers of the country. 
 
 Q. By whom is it used? 
 
 A. By all who borrow from the banks. 
 
 Q. How much of this money is used? 
 
 A. Probably three fourths of the total sum of busi- 
 ness transactions are accomplished with this kind of 
 money. 
 
 Q. How is this money made? 
 
 A. Its use is made possible by the universal custom 
 of depositing all mone}' in the bank, and using checks 
 insteiid of lawfut money. Private checks thus do the 
 work of mO;,ey. In cities they do almost all the work of 
 money, the bulk of which remains in the vaults of the 
 banks. The banks, having the money of their cus- 
 lomcrs in their keeping, loan it out at interest, and the 
 money loaned, mostly remaining in the banks or coming 
 imme'liately back again, is loaned over and over again; 
 tlie bankers, meanwhile, getting the interest not only 
 up^n the actual money in their keeping, but on the total 
 amount of their loans which may be five times as great. 
 
83 
 
 It is as if a farmer could sell his crop of wheat without 
 makine delivery, and sold just as often as he found a 
 purchaser. 
 
 Q. Are bankers, as a rule, in favor of an increase of 
 the circulating medium? 
 
 A. No. They are violently opposed to it. 
 
 Q. Why is this? 
 
 A. Because, no matter how litle money there is for 
 the use of other people, it is all, put into their hands to 
 keep, and there Is practically no limit to the making of 
 their own peculiar kind of monej^ which they issue at 
 will and lend at a good'rate of interest. The smaller the 
 amount of real money in circulation, the more com- 
 pletely do the banks control the b .isiness of the country. 
 
 Q. But how can banks lend more money than there is 
 to be loaned ? 
 
 A. They do it in this way : Suppose two men are 
 trading, each with $1,000 in money. They both decide 
 to deposit their money in the bank and use checks. Now 
 the bank has $2,000. The two men are constantly mak- 
 ing and depositing checks. A little money is used, but 
 probably $1,800 remains in the bank all the time. This 
 sum the bank lends to two or three other men, who do 
 not take it out, but have it put to their credit. It will 
 easily be seen that so long as the money is generally kepi 
 on deposit and checks used instead of money, the banks 
 can go on lending almost indefinitely. 
 
 Q. What are the objections to the use of this kind of 
 money ? 
 
 A. It puts the business of the country upon a basis of 
 mere credit, which is liable to perish in a day. 
 
 Q. What do the bankers of the country desire? 
 A. That the government shall not increase the 
 Yolumc of real money. 
 
84 
 
 Q. Why do they wish this? 
 
 A. So that the public may be compelled to use their 
 credit money, which costs them n'.'thing and yi»-lds 
 enormous profits. 
 
 Q What does the producing class require for its own 
 protection in money matters? 
 
 A. It is important, first, that the supply of real 
 money be made ample, and second, that it should go di- 
 rectly to the people who are to use it in productive in- 
 dustry and at a low rate of interest. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 The French Financial System. 
 
 Having now shown you that the "Gold Basis" is a 
 fraud, and can only be accomplished by the almost 
 total destruction of all business prosperity, and 
 hence slavery for the laboring classes, we feel that 
 we have shown that the storm center of all our 
 present depression of the business of the country, 
 and in fact of the world, is the scarcity of money 
 caused by making or trying to make two dollars and 
 a half in gold pay seventy-three dollars of debt. 
 We will now give you an article by Agricola on the 
 French system of finance, which carried them through 
 the " Franco-Prussian " war so successfully. Here 
 it is : 
 
 THE ADMIRABLE SYSTEM THAT HAS MADE FRANCE 
 PiiOSPEROUS . 
 
 The distinguishing characteristics of the financial pol- 
 icy of the French government is found in the fact that 
 it assumes the duty of preventing alternate periods of 
 inflation and their inevitable consequent contraction, 
 and that to accomplish this end, w^lienever war or other 
 exigency has caused an issue of irredeemable paper, it 
 
86 I 
 
 has invested such issue with the character of legal tendej' 
 — made it available for all purposes for which money 
 could be used in France, whether the transactions were 
 between citizens, or between citizens and the govern- 
 ment, or vice-versa, and has taken measures to prevent 
 the withdrawal of the paper until a continuous balance 
 of trade had brought into the country metal money 
 enough to suppl}^ the channels temporarily filled by the 
 paper money with which the exigency had been met. 
 
 Colbert taught the French people — and Napoleon em- 
 phasized the lesson of Colbert — that it is lalor that sup- 
 ports government and society, and that to arrest the em- 
 ployment of productive industry is to impoverish the 
 public treasury and produce discontent and probable 
 disorder among the people. 
 
 I hesitate not to say that had this lesson been borne in 
 mind — had our paper money been, as the house of rep- 
 resentatives, when providing for the issue of greenbacks, 
 insisted that it should be, received by the government 
 in payment for all dues, and had there been no attempt 
 to retire any part of the paper which had been invested 
 with the character of a legal tender until a metal substi- 
 tute had been purchased by the export of our surplus 
 commodities, we should never have been without the 
 free use of gold and silver at a rate of premium no great- 
 er than that which has prevailed in France, where it 
 never exceeded two and one-half per cent, and that but 
 for a brief period, and that the question of specie pay- 
 ments would be one of as little consequence to the peo- 
 ple as it now is to the French people, who use gold, sil- 
 ver and irredeemable bank notes interchangeably. In- 
 deed, it is a fact that while the government will not per- 
 mit the bank to close the operation by which the notes 
 were made legal tender, the bank will not, without a 
 compensatory premium, receive any considerable 
 amount of gold and silver in exchange for its notes, be- 
 cause it holds the excess of bullion, and there is a tax of 
 $1.50 on $1,000 of its circulation, 
 
87 
 
 We pay our banks I'our, i'uur a.iiJ a half, five and six per 
 cent for issuing paper notes which the government fur- 
 nishes them. France, even in the greatest of exigencies, 
 nr^aintains her power over the money of the country by 
 demanding a slight tax on circulation whenever she au- 
 thorizes a bank to issue notes, irredeemable as our bank- 
 notes are, and pays the bank but one per cent on the 
 amount of such notes loaned it when first issued. 
 
 The United States, following the dictate of England, 
 adopts another and opposite policy. She restricts the 
 volume of legal tender money to the narrowest possible 
 limits available as a basis for bank circulation, and com- 
 pels the enterprising and producing classes to pay trib- 
 ute to capitalists, foreign or native, for credit upon 
 which to conduct their undertakings. Prance seeks to 
 give the whole people money. We, following the policy 
 of England, seek to compel them to use credit or cur- 
 rency obtained through the banks at such rates of in- 
 terest as the banks may exact. 
 
 THE GERMAN SYSTEM. 
 
 Germany, prior to the Franco-Prussian war, was as 
 free from commercial and financial crises as France had 
 been. Her circulation consisted of money which was 
 silver, and of bank paper. The great volume of paper 
 met with in circulation was notes of small denomina- 
 tions, many of them for less than one dollar of American 
 money. But after the war she discarded both silver and 
 small bank notes, and ordained a gold currency, estab- 
 lished the Imperial bank, and prohibited the issue of 
 any bank notes for less than the equivalent of five 
 pounds or twenty-five dollars, and the mere attempt, in- 
 effectual as yet to carry out this scheme, has reduced 
 both government and people t.j a condition contrasting 
 painfully with that which prevailed for years before 
 their mad experiment was undertaken. 
 
 I will now exhibit some of the facts from which these 
 conclusions have been deduced. After the French revo- 
 
lution of 1848, on the night of March 15, the republic j 
 by decree, made the notes of the Bank of France a legal 
 tender, limiting the increase to $35,000,000, and reduQ- 
 ing the denomination of the notes to one hundred franoS 
 or twenty dollars . One of the great difficulties in the 
 official report of the transaction and its effects, was to 
 print these 100-franc notes fast enough for public con- 
 sumption, though in ten days the amount issued in this 
 form had reached eighty million francs, and in an able 
 article in the London Times, on February 16, 1849, a 
 writer for that paper, which, one year before, had dep- 
 recated the decree as visionary, and one that would in- 
 evitably lead to the destruction of the commerce and 
 industries of France, said : " M. D'Argost resolved to 
 make every effort to keep alive what may be termed the 
 circulation of the life blood of the community. Money 
 was to be found 1o meet not only the demands on the 
 bank, but the necessities both public and private of 
 every rank in society. It was essential to enable the 
 manufacturers to work, lest their workmen, driven to 
 desperation, should fling themselves among the most 
 violent enemies of public order. It was essential to pro- 
 vide money for the food of Paris, for the pay of the 
 troops, and for the daily support of the Ateliers Nation- 
 aux. A failure in any one point would have led to a 
 fresh convulsion. 
 
 As illustrative of the truth that it is labor and not 
 coin that maintains society and government, I cite 
 another brief article from the Times : 
 
 " No sooner was the bank relieved from the necessity 
 of paying coin than it made every effort to increase its 
 metalic rest. About forty millions of silver were pur- 
 chased abroad at a high price. More than one hundred 
 millions were made over In dollars to the treasury and 
 executive department in Paris ; in all, taking into ac- 
 count the branch banks, one hundred and six millions of 
 five franc pieces have been thrown by the bank into the 
 
89 
 
 country since March, and currency was thus supplied to 
 all the channels of the social system." 
 
 Had the government refused, as ours did, to receive 
 the notes which it had made legal tender among the 
 people, gold and silver would have gone to such a prem- 
 ium that the bank, instead of buying specie, would have 
 sold it, as our banks did, whereby some of them were en- 
 abled to declare dividends of one hundred per cent ; but 
 as paper, silver and gold were at par with each other, 
 the bank could buy bills of exchange on foreign coun- 
 tries from French merchants, and thus procure specie 
 with which it could soon resume cash payments. But 
 the following experience of France, to which you are 
 more particularly cited, is even more striking than the 
 foregoing : 
 
 RESULTS OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 
 
 The war between France and Germany was declared 
 July 19, 1870, and was terminated by the treaty of May 
 10, 1871. In April, 1870, the circulation of the Bank of 
 France was $288,750,000, and it held of specie and bul- 
 lion $261,550,000. In August the government required 
 it to suspend specie payments, and by the same decree 
 made its notes a legal tender. The first statement pub- 
 lished after peace had been restored showed a circula- 
 tion of $442,000,000, with $110,000 of specie. 
 
 In consideration of the suspension of specie payments, 
 and ihe use of its notes as legal tender, the bank loaned 
 the government $300,000,000 at one per cent interest, and 
 agreed lo pay the tax above referred to on its entire cir- 
 culation. When in August, 1870, the French armies had 
 been defeated and consternation had seized upon the 
 people of Paris, the Bank of France and the other credit 
 institutions of that city entered into co-operation and 
 determined, as a matter absolutely necessary to the 
 maintenance of society, to advance to the people within 
 a fortnight 180,000,000 francs— $80,000,000— and it is a 
 matter of history that not a sirigle failttre of any moment 
 
90 
 
 took place in France pending the use and liquidation of 
 these loans. If you ask to whom these immense ad- 
 vances were made, I answer in the language of the late 
 Thomas Balch, Esq., whose long residence in Paris made 
 him familiar with the financial magnates of Europe ; 
 ''To merchants, manufacturers, shop keepers, artisans 
 and mechanics — to any citizen, whose books showed that 
 his business, during a sufficiently long period, had been 
 fairly prosperous, and whose industry and integrity was 
 established, and of course much importance was at- 
 tached to this latter fact." Many of the advances to 
 artisans and mechanics were made without indorsement 
 or collateral at all, or no other security, indeed, than a 
 fair business and an honest name. 
 
 To enable the manufacturing interests to weather the 
 storm, at a moment when all sales were interrupted, a 
 decree of the National Assembly directed that ware- 
 houses be opened for the reception of all kinds of goods, 
 and provided that the registered invoice of these goods, 
 so deposited, should be made negotiable by endorsement. 
 The Bank of France discounted these receipts. In 
 Havre, alone, eighteen millions were thus advanced on 
 colonial produce, and in Paris fourteen millions on mer- 
 chandise. In all, sixty millions were thus made avail- 
 able for the purpose of trade. Thus the Bank of France 
 had placed itself, as it were, in direct contact with every 
 interest of the community, from the minister of the 
 treasury down to the trades in a distant port. Like a 
 huge hydraulic machine it employed its coUossal powers 
 to pump a fresh stream into the exhausted arteries of 
 trade, to sustain credit and preserve the circulation from 
 utter collapse and stagnation. The effects of this extra- 
 ordinary operation were of commensurate public import- 
 ance. In the midst of the most frightful and accumu- 
 lated military and political calamities in the gradual 
 environment of the French capital by the German hosts, 
 the trade and labor of France were preserved and even 
 
91 
 
 stimulated ; and it was altogether owing to this patriotic 
 and most sagacious audacity that, in a period of special 
 and terrible trial, no noteworthy commercial or indus- 
 trial failure occurred, and that France was afterward 
 enabled to provide for the payment, without serious 
 difficulty, of an indemnity intended permanently to 
 crush her, and which excited by its magnitude the as- 
 tonishment of the world. 
 
 The decree of legal tender (cours force) fixed the max- 
 imum of the issue of the bank at $480,000,000. It was, 
 however, increased by the law of December 29, 1871, to 
 $560,000,000, and finally, by the law of July 15, 1872, to 
 $640,000,000. 
 
 What effect had the issue of this vast amountof paper 
 money on gold ? Did it, in accordance with the theory 
 of Secretary Sherman and the British economists our 
 tariff-tinkers and bullionists so delight to honor, expel 
 the precious metals from France? Or did it show that 
 their wisdom is folly, and that their so-called science, 
 which John Stuart Mill truly said was " a science based 
 on assumption," is no science at all, but a mere mesh- 
 work of human reason based on false and delusive as- 
 sumption? Fortunately the facts of history speak on 
 this point with no uncertain sound. In November, 1871, 
 when a large payment on account of the war fine, which 
 as you know amounted to $1,100,000,000, in addition to 
 the surrender of the magnificent provinces of Alsace and 
 Loraine and their wealthy and industrial people to Ger- 
 many, was due, the premium on gold rose to its highest 
 point, two and one-half per cent, at which, to the French 
 people, exorbitant rate it remained for but a few days, 
 and when the irredeemable circulation had subsequently 
 been increased from $460,000,000 to $490,000,000 the 
 premium fell to one per cent, and in October, 1873, whrn 
 the volume of notes had actually reached $614,000,000, 
 the premium was merely nominal, and was onl}'' de- 
 manded on large sums. Legal tender, gold, silver and 
 
92 
 
 paper money were then circulating in common and at 
 par with each other. 
 
 As I have said, the war fine amounted to $1,100,000,- 
 000. The total cost of the war to France has been oflQ- 
 cially estimated at $2,000,000,000, and the direct loss to 
 agriculture at $800,000,000, yet the last payment on ac- 
 count of the war fine was made on September 5, 1873, or 
 in two years and four months after the conclusion of the 
 treaty of peace. 
 
 Does history present any such striking illustration as 
 this of the harmony of the interests of a state and its 
 people? The advance of the banks to the manufactur- 
 ers in August, 1870, enabled them to maintain their in- 
 dustries, and, by paying limng icages, to place the whole 
 people in a position to not only respond to the demands 
 of the government for taxes, but to meet its call for two 
 loans, one for $350,000,000, and the other tor $827,- 
 000,000, the tenders in response to the latter call 
 amounting to the enormous sum of $8,000,000,000, or four 
 times the amount of the national debt of the United 
 States at that time. 
 
 THE TKANSFER OF BULLION. 
 
 But omitting many facts that would be pregnant and 
 Instructive, I must, with a view to brevity, hasten to a 
 conclusion. The German empire entered upon what 
 proved a fatal experiment when, under the mistaken 
 notion that she was to receive the bullion then held by 
 France, and that which she might earn in the time stip- 
 ulated for the payment of the fine, she determined to 
 establish a gold currency, demonetize silver, and to ex- 
 clude small notes from circulation. 
 
 The hisrhest estimate I find anywhere of the loss of the 
 precious metals by France in the payment of the war 
 fine is $240,000,000, but that this estimate is excessive 
 is shown bv French and other official figurts. The 
 French government shipped $100,000,000 of specie and 
 bullion directly to the German government. Yet the 
 
93 
 
 tables of the two countries, and they are confirmed by 
 the British tables of exports and imports of specie, show 
 that France lost, through her intercourse with Germany 
 from January I, 1871, to December 31, 1874, but $140,- 
 000,000 in gold and silver. This is the statement of Mr. 
 Leon Say, made during the time he was finance minis- 
 ter, which he continued to be until McMahon changed 
 his cabinet. 
 
 Great Britain took, temporarily, some of the French 
 rentes, as she has during our troubles taken our five, 
 four and a half and four per cent bonds, to be held as 
 certificates of deposits, on call. 
 
 Between January 1, 1870, and December 31, 1874, the 
 dates before mentioned, France sent $110,000,000 more of 
 gold and silver to German}^ than she drew from her. 
 Assuming (which there is no good reason for doing) that 
 all this went to French account, it appears that Germany 
 received but $250,000,000 of cash from France in pay- 
 ment thereof. The truth is that France being, for the 
 reasons heretofore stated, the creditor of all commercial 
 nations, paid Germany in bills drawn against foreign 
 debtors by the French people, or, in other words, Ger- 
 many was paid in foreign merchandise, the imports of 
 which, in excess of exports from January 1, 1870, to 
 December 31, 1874, having been, according to the Ba- 
 varian Vaterland, $1,132,000,000. Many of the earliest 
 of these bills were drawn against German merchants and 
 bankers, and to transler money which had been in cir- 
 culation in Germany to the imperial treasury was to 
 withdraw it from commercial use. Thus the industrial 
 and financial sagacity of the French government enabled 
 France to revenge herself upon Germany by the methods 
 with which she settled the unconscionable war fine im- 
 posed upon her. 
 
 AN INTERESTING STUDY. 
 
 The legal and actual condition of the Bank of France 
 at this time furnishes an instructive study for those of 
 
94 
 
 our statesmen who are endeavoring to bring about an 
 absolute gold basis, by so contracting our paper currency 
 as to reduce the price of wages and commodities which 
 are already below hard pan prices, or prices which ruled 
 in the days of 1859-60, when our bank paper was sup- 
 posed to be convertible into specie on demand. The 
 Bank of France was burdened with an excess of gold, in 
 addition to which, it is said, she holds $100,000,000 in 
 silver, which, like gold, is legal tender ; yet the law 
 would not permit her to resume specie payment until 
 January 1, 1878. She did, for nearly two years, pay gold 
 or silver in sums of one thousand francs or less, and, to 
 escape tax on circulatiou, would have resumed a year 
 before she did if the government would have permitted 
 it. 
 
 As this statement may seem incredible to those not 
 familiar with the facts, it may be well to state that the 
 latest returns of specie held, and they were but three 
 weeks old, coming down to August 30, show that the 
 Bank of England held $125,140,000, the Bank of Ger- 
 many $123,845,000, and the Bank of France $442,483,000. 
 Thus it appears that, allowing $100,000,000 of the bul- 
 lion in the Bank of France to consist of silver, and, as- 
 suming what is very far from the fact, that none of the 
 bullion in the banks of England and Germany is silver, 
 it is shown that the Bank of France has, by irredeemable 
 paper, by which the industries of France were kept 
 alive and active, accumulated nearly $100,000,000 of 
 gold more than the united stocks of the banks of both 
 England and Germany. In view of these facts may not 
 the stricken people of the United States wisely order a 
 halt in the work of destruction of the circulating med- 
 ium, and, following the example of France and the de- 
 mands of the people's party, demand the remonetization 
 of silver, with free coinage" at the ratio of 16 to 1, and an 
 increase in the existing volume of paper money, full 
 ' tender, in quantity equal to the demands of trade? 
 
95 
 
 This measure will enable them to go to work at honest 
 wages, and to earn the gold and silver with which we 
 can, in time, wipe out this accursed leech on our indus- 
 tries—this interest-bearing debt. 
 
 THE CONTRAST. 
 
 On May 10, 1871, the treaty terminated the Franco- 
 Prussian war, and France submitted to a pay a war fine, 
 as stated above, of $1,100,000,000. The last payment 
 was made to Germany September 5, 1872, or in two years 
 and four months. 
 
 On October 31, 1865, our bonded debt was $1,163,769,- 
 612, while our currency was $1,996,678,770, or more than 
 fifty dollars per capita. Everybody was busy and every- 
 body well fed, well clothed and happy. In 1873 our 
 bonded debt had increased to $1,836,000,000, and our 
 circulation had decreased to $712,833,258, or from fifty 
 dollars per capita down to seventeen dollars and forty- 
 seven cents. Business failures, this year, reached the 
 number of 5,183, with losses to the amount of $227,499,- 
 000 ; while during the whole of France's trouble with 
 Germany, and her payment on the same, there was not 
 one single failure of any note. 
 
 Why this diflference? Are her people better than ours, 
 or is it because the French government looks after the 
 welfare of her whole people instead of the privileged few? 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 A Comparison. 
 
 The financial action of Franca just related, and 
 the fact that she paid Glermany the last dollar of the 
 $1,100,000,000 war fine in a little more than two 
 years, leads us to look over our accounts and see 
 where we stand, and why? The report of our St^c- 
 retary of the Treasury of Oct. 31st, 1865, shows that, 
 our bonded debt at that time was $1,163,769,612, 
 only a little more than the fine submitted to bv 
 France on May 10th, 1871, which she paid as above 
 set forth. But we find that at the time she paid her 
 last payment our debt had increased since 1865 to 
 the sum of $1,775,107,462. How came this differ- 
 ence ? France kept up her circulation, kept all her 
 people employed, and by that means produced the 
 wealth with which she paid off her debt. 
 
 We CONTRACTED OUR CURRENCY (at the dictation 
 of the Bankers' A^.sociation), destroj^ed our indus- 
 tries, filled our land with tramps and beggars, while 
 millionaires grew up on every hand, a shoddy aris- 
 tocracy, made so by law, not by industry, honesty, 
 or moral worth. (We heard one of them say, only 
 
97 
 
 a day or two since, I laughed and laughed just as 
 hard as I could "laff.") No shoddy there. 
 
 The capitalists (gold bugs) all cry, you want an 
 honest dollar, don't you? Our answer is, we never 
 saw a dollar in money yet that was not an honest 
 dollar. The next question is, What are you going to 
 redeem it in? We say money has no need for a re- 
 deemer; it is only promises to pay money (National 
 bank bills, for instance), that needs redemption. 
 
 What we want is a dollar based on the brain and 
 brawn, on all the wealth and prowess, the farms and 
 homes, the land, the mines, the factories, and in fact 
 on every dollar's worth of wealth in this broad land, 
 and we want every dollar of it, whether of gold, sil- 
 ver or paper, to be a redemption dollar, and we know 
 that such a dollar will be better than one of the 
 banker's promise to pay gold ; we know that such a 
 dollar will cost us no interest, nor will it need half 
 of the money of the United States lying idle in the 
 treasury while the bonds with which it was put 
 there are sapping the life blood out of labor to pay 
 gold interest to the Rothschilds or an}^ of the rest of 
 the "gang" who killed Christ, and have been outcasts 
 ever since. 
 
 But, says Shy lock, it makes no difference to you 
 whether you get one dollar a day and pay a certain 
 price for your living, or two dollars per day and pay 
 twice the price for living. Let us see if this is so. 
 
 John Doe, a "gold bug," owed |1000, payable $50 
 per year, interest ten per cent, 
 
98 
 
 Richard Roe, a lunatic on money, owed the same 
 amount on the same terms. Their other surround- 
 ings were just alike. In a dispute they made a bet 
 on the above proposition, that it made no difference. 
 The bet was $10.00. 
 
 Result — first year: 
 
 John Doe. Cr. Dr. 
 
 By 300 days' work at $1 $300 
 
 To paid interest $100 
 
 " " living 100 
 
 " " clotliing, boots, shoes, 75 
 
 " " fuel, etc 25 
 
 $300 
 
 Could make no payment on his place. 
 
 Richard Roe. Cr. Dr. 
 
 By 300 days' work at $2 $600 
 
 To paid interest $100 
 
 " " living 200 
 
 " '' clothing, boots, shoes, 150 
 
 '• " fuel, etc 50 
 
 " " on mortgage 50 
 
 $600 $550 
 
 " balance . . . , 50 
 
 $600 $600 
 
 Twenty one years pass and we find that Richard 
 
 put bis surplus at interest every year and kept it all 
 
99 
 
 out all the time. John only just kept up his interest 
 and paid nothing on his principal, and the mortgage 
 still stood at $1000. 
 
 Richard's account stood at the end of 21 years. 
 
 By balance $4165 32 
 
 *' interest 415 63 
 
 " 300 days' worit at $2 600 00 
 
 To interest $ 5 00 
 
 *' principal 50 00 
 
 " clothing, etc 400 00 
 
 " balance 4726 85 
 
 $5181 85 
 
 The last year expires and both die. 
 
 account stands: 
 
 By balance $4726 85 
 
 'Mnterest 472 68 
 
 " work 600 00 
 
 To living, etc , 
 
 To balance 
 
 $5180 85 
 Richard's 
 
 400 00 
 5399 73 
 
 $5799 53 $5799 53 
 
 Thus Richard leaves his place free from debt, has 
 the snug little sum of $5,399 53 at interest, while 
 John leaves his family penniless, and a mortgage on 
 their home of $1,000 00 for Shylock to foreclose, and 
 send his pooi widow to the poorhouse or the insane 
 asylum. No comaaents needed. This simply proves 
 the falsity of the scarcity of money theory being no 
 detriment to the bread winners. 
 
100 
 
 They tell us that gold never changes in value, a 
 theory that every financial writer denies the truth 
 of, all admitting that a scarcity of the metal will 
 increase its value. If it be true that the value of 
 gold never changes, why did the British government 
 appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the mat- 
 ter? The best men she had were supposed to be on 
 that commission. Some of the most foolish ques- 
 tions were asked. Here are a set of them. They 
 were directed to inquire, among other things, "Whe- 
 ther the said changes are due, (1) To the deprecia- 
 tion of silver; or (2) to the appreciation of gold; or 
 (3) to both these causes." 
 
 That is to say, the horses having started off even, 
 you are to find out whether their having got so far 
 apart "is due to" the yellow horse having got so far 
 ahead of the white, or the white having got so far 
 behind the yellow, or "to both these causes." The 
 question means nothing and leads to nothing, and 
 would only be propounded by an imbecile. But 
 here is the finding of "Her Majesty's" Royal Com- 
 mission. "We may summarize our conclusions upon 
 this part of the case as follows: We think that the 
 fall in prices of commodities may be in part due to 
 an appreciation of gold, but to what extent this has 
 effected prices we think it impossible to determine 
 with any approach to accuracy." That is, the horses 
 having fallen apart, may '*be in part due to" one 
 having got ahead of the other in the race, but to 
 what extent that has put the other behind we cannot 
 tell. Finding such senseless twattle coming from 
 
101 
 
 this high quarter, I feel more charitable toward the 
 brainless utterances of our subsidized press. Their 
 interest was at stake, they well knew that a single 
 gold standard meant the spoilation of at least one- 
 third the value of all other property for money. This 
 is their view in fact stated as follows: 
 
 '*It must be remembered too, that this country is 
 largely a creditor country of debts payable in gold, 
 and any change which entails a rise in the price of 
 commodities generally; that is to say, a diminution 
 of the purchasing power of gold would be to our 
 disadvantage." 
 
 You will see they admit that fall in prices means 
 nothing but increase in the purchasing power of 
 gold. Their admission of stable normal (silver) 
 prices in India is confession of superiority of silver 
 in stability of value. 
 
 I will now submit lo the candid judgment of any 
 man, or set of men, if it is not true that the rise and 
 progress of any nation does not, and has not, always 
 been on an "increasing" currency, and the decline 
 on a falling or decreasing currency. Take a look at 
 Sparta, under Lycurgus, "the great Spartan law 
 giver," see his iron "Pecues," see when Shylock got 
 there with his gold "Pecues," see Sparta go into a 
 decline, decay and go out of existence. 
 
 Then look at our own country. When did she 
 make her giant strides, and when did she begin to 
 recede from her happy state? Was it not when 
 Shylock got possession of our finances? When con- 
 
102 
 
 traction of the currency began? That we began to 
 recede. Most certainly that is the date. 
 
 There was a time in Europe when to be a Roman 
 was greater than to be a king. At that time the 
 empire had $1,800,000,000; when she went to pieces 
 she had only $200,000,000. Such is the case in 
 every instance. Money is the storm center in every 
 nation. By the way, where will you find the grand 
 old Roman to-day? Look at that Dago on the street 
 corner there, that is he, made as he is now by cen- 
 tralization of capital in the hands of the few and 
 making slaves of the many. Will you longer sub- 
 mit? I pause for your answer when next you vote. 
 Vote once for your own interest, and not for the 
 name at the head of the ticket; but for the principle 
 of RIGHT regardless of the name of the party. 
 
 BEFORE THE ELECTION IN 1896. 
 
 During the campaign of 1892 the whole fight was 
 made on the tariff question, and after Cleveland was 
 elected all the legislation was on the money question, to 
 secure the gold standard and destroy the prosperity of 
 the people. During the McKinley campaign the whole 
 fight was made on the money question, and now that 
 they think the gold standard is a fixed fact, all you can 
 hear is tariff, tariff, tariff — trying to make the people 
 believe that all that is needed to make the people rich 
 is to tax them heavily. The claim was made that all 
 
103 
 
 that was needed to restore prosperity, set all the idle at 
 work, etc., etc., was to elect McKinley. Well, McKin- 
 ley was elected, and here is some of the prosperity which 
 has been the result of their plan for 
 
 RESTORING CONFIDENCE. 
 
 Bank failures and liabilities where given : 
 
 The National Bank of Illinois Liabilities $11,000,000 
 
 E. S. Dryer & Co •. " 1,200,000 
 
 Wasmansdorf & Hineman " 400,000 
 
 The Calumet Bank of Blue Island. ** 60,000 
 
 The Omaha Savings Bank " 50,000 
 
 The Commercial Savings Bank of 
 
 Roanoke, Va " 110,000 
 
 The Columbia National Bank " 318,009 
 
 The Minnesota Savings Bank " 230,000 
 
 First National Bank, Griswold, la. " 80,000 
 
 "Whitehall Savings Bank, Mulamphy Savings Bank, The 
 Atlas National Bank, The Dime Savings Bank, The 
 Comstock Bank of Grand Rapids, Mich., The Missouri 
 National, of Kansas City and others too numerous to 
 mention and worry the reader with. Suflfice it to say 
 that there are more than a hundred of them, and every 
 failure has robbed the depositors, nearly all of whom, 
 in numbers, are of the working class, and their little all 
 is swept away and swallowed up in the rapacious maw 
 of avarice and greed. 
 
 Will you longer submit to the dictation of the Bank- 
 ers' Association, or will you cut loose from their dicta- 
 tion politically, and be free men? The power is in your 
 .hands ; will you use it? Or will you continue to be the 
 
104 
 
 cringing, cowardly slave to the capitalist, and vote as lie 
 tells you, and thereby help him to keep the chains of 
 poverty riveted to your feet? Recollect that 
 
 "If a government contracts a debt with a certain 
 "amount of money in circulation and then contracts the 
 "money volume before the debt is paid, it is the most 
 " heinous crime a nation can commit against a people." 
 — Lincoln. 
 
 If all our circulation wTis issued by the government, 
 bank failures would have no effect on the circulation. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 Lands and Railroads. 
 
 Having shown the. actions and plans of the Bank- 
 ers' Association; how they have endeavored to sub- 
 jugate the people and make them their slaves by 
 controlling the money, we will try and put you on to 
 another one of the schemes to reduce the toilers to 
 as bad, if not worse conditions, than Russian serf- 
 dom. 
 
 The plan laid by them and the railroad companies 
 was foi* capital to g€t control of all the land. With 
 what success we will now try to show you First, 
 English Lords and Dukes (mostly) own and control 
 26,042,947 acres of land which is worked by ''Tenant 
 Farmers" on the European plan of slavery, as per 
 Hazzard Circular. This would make 651,073 forty 
 acre farms, and furnish homes for 3,275,865 people 
 in families of five. Next you will find in Messages 
 and Documents of 1885 that 14,929,121 acres were 
 granted to railroads on which the contracts were 
 never fulfilled. -This would make 373,228 forty acre 
 farms and furnish homes for 1,866,140 more people 
 in families of five. IS^e:?t see same document page 
 
106 
 
 788, and you will 100,000,000 more'acres stolen^nd 
 granted, but was never earned at all. The railroads 
 were built entirely on paper. But the people were 
 robbed again, as this land would make 2,500,000 
 forty acre farms, and furnish homes and comfort for 
 12,500,000 more people. Let us now see how this 
 huge fraud will look in cold figures. First, these 
 Europeans have robbed 651 ,073 families of five of 
 homes, or 3,255,365 people. The railroads have 
 robbed 2,873,228 families of five each of homes, or 
 14,366,140 people, which makes a grand total of 
 
 124,005 
 
 He 
 
 people 
 
 who 
 
 are 
 
 absolutely deprive 
 
 N 
 
 5 
 V 
 
 
 d_ 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 1 
 
 7 
 
 ^ 
 
 : 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 \ 
 
 15 
 
 
 13 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 13 
 
 19 
 
 
 21 
 
 \ 
 
 23 
 
 
 19 
 
 
 31 
 
 
 23 
 
 
 
 29 
 
 
 > 
 
 s 
 
 25 
 
 
 2<J 
 
 
 _27_ 
 
 
 25 
 
 31 
 
 
 33 
 
 
 35 
 
 k 
 
 31 
 
 
 33 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 _ 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 N 
 
 ^ 
 
 _ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 1 
 
 7 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 7 
 
 % 
 
 \ 
 
 _ 
 
 li 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 i^ 
 
 ■ 
 
 13 
 
 
 17 
 
 \ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 13 
 
 19 
 
 
 21 
 
 . 
 
 28^ 
 
 
 19 
 
 
 21 
 
 > 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 31 
 
 29 
 
 33 
 
 27 
 
 
 25 
 
 
 29 
 
 
 27 
 
 s 
 
 25 
 
 35 
 
 
 31 
 
 
 33 
 
 
 35 
 
 X 
 
 R.R. 
 
10? 
 
 the rights of a home in this once free and happ}' 
 country, by the manipulations of our officials. 
 Please note right here that the government price of 
 these lands is $1.25 per acre, and at that price these 
 railroads have received from the government $143,- 
 661,401 in lands, all of which is an absolute steal. 
 Who suffers the most? We, the people. We will 
 next show you the plan by which the people are 
 robbed again by these worse than highwaymen. It 
 is in this wise. The railroad receives each alternate 
 section of land for six miles on each side of the 
 road, hence they have a very great advantage over 
 the settler, as will appear by the foregoing diagram. 
 
 The railroad magnates sa}^ to the government, we 
 will begin on Section 1; they take out no patents, 
 hence pay no taxes. There is a stream runs through 
 these towns, and has a nice water power at the cen- 
 ter of the towns. Settlers buy government lands, 
 plat a village, and put up mills, stores, etc., and the 
 village becomes noted as a smart place. 
 
 What does the Railroad Company do now; they 
 take out their patent on the land on each quarter 
 township adjoining the village and put the land on 
 the market, for sale, at from $4.50 to $8.00 per acre, 
 it averages five. This land sold, and the country 
 still improving, they take out patents on the rest and 
 sell it for a like price. Now, what has the working 
 man and his family lost in the deal? They have 
 lost just the difference between $1.25 per acre and 
 $5.00 per acre on two townships of land. This 
 amounts to $172,800 on these four townships. How 
 
108 
 
 much would the same difference amount to on all 
 the land grants in the United States? On the grants 
 above set iorth it would amount to $143,661,401.00 
 on railroad land grants, while Europeans own 26,- 
 042,947 acres besides these railroad grants. 
 
 To give you an idea of the magnitude of these 
 land grants, we will say they equal the States of 
 New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Con- 
 necticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Del- 
 aware, Maryland, Virginia and Ohio. Still we won- 
 der why we, as workingmen, are poor and have no 
 homes. 
 
 Having shown you the amount we kave been 
 robbed of by the land grab scheme of these honest 
 rascals, the railroad kings, we will now take up the 
 cost of building roads, etc., taken from the report of 
 the committee appointed in 1872 on Transportation 
 Routes to the Seaboard, and published in 1874, 
 which shows as follows: 
 
 Capital. Cost. Watftr. 
 
 Erie Line N. Y. } 
 
 to Dunkirk, 459 Ul08,807,000 $40,000,000 $68,807,000 
 miles, ) 
 
 N. Y. Central to ) 
 Chicago, 980 Ul90,188,157 75,000,000 115,188,137 
 miles, ) 
 
 Pa. Line from ) 
 
 Phila to Chicago [ 78,290,374 67,000,000 11,290,374 
 890 miles ) 
 
 Totals $376,285,511 $188,000,000 $195,285,511 
 
109 
 
 Making a total of $195,000,000 on which to pay 
 a dividend of 10 per cent, per annum; the commerce 
 between the West and the East must annually con- 
 tribute over $19,500,000. Please recollect that this 
 contribution is on water and not on cost, expenses 
 and earnings compared. The above estimate in- 
 cludes all, stations and grounds, machine shops, 
 water tanks, and all property and appliances appur- 
 tenant to the realty $175,000,000, as lollows: 
 
 Five per cent interest on $87,500,000 
 
 first mortgage bonds $4,375,000 00 
 
 Eight per cent dividend on $87,500,- 
 
 000, capital stock 7,000,000 00 
 
 Seven per cent dividend on $50,000.- 
 
 000 equipment bonds 3,500,000 00 
 
 To annual sinking fund 1,000,000 00 
 
 Total annual interest account includ- 
 ing dividend and sinking fund. . . . 15,875,000 00 
 
 Which would be a daily expense of . . 43,496 00 
 
 And, divided among one thousand trains, would 
 amount, per train per day, to $43.49. This calcula- 
 tion is based on starting one hundred trains per 
 day, each way, on first eight hundred miles from the 
 seaboard, and fifty trains per day, each way, on the 
 western division, which would give, on the whole 
 road, one thousand trains moving in both directions 
 all the time. 
 
 Labor Account — We compute labor of all class- 
 es, officers, agents, skilled and unskilled labor, re- 
 quired in all departments for operating, replace- 
 
110 
 
 rnent, maintenance of way, rolling stock, etc., at ten 
 and two-seventlis men per mile of single track, mak- 
 ing a total aggregate on this road of 36,000 men, 
 which at the average of $2.50 per day, would 
 amount to $90,000 per day, and, on the foregoing 
 basis, to $90 per train per day. 
 
 Material Account (other than labor) — Rolling 
 stock : Cost of repairs to engines and tend- 
 ers per mile per day, 200 miles at 2}^c per 
 
 mile $ 5 00 
 
 Cost of repairs and replacements of coal and 
 freight cars at 19 7c each per day would be 
 per train of 30 cars 5 91 
 
 Total cost per train per d&j $10 91 
 
 The Pennsylvania Central gives same cost at 11 29 
 To be sure of enough, we put this item at. . . 12 20 
 
 Train Supplies : Coal, 10 tons per day @ $3.50 35 00 
 
 Oil and waste per day , 5 00 
 
 Water 1 00 
 
 Total $41 00 
 
 Recapitulation — 
 
 Interest account, per train per day 43 49 
 
 Labor account, " " 90 00 
 
 Material, rolling stock, train, '' 13 00 
 
 Train supplies, per train, per day 12 20 
 
 Material, roadway, " " 41 00 
 
 $199 69 
 
in 
 
 Total expenses per train per day of moving 300 
 tons 200 miles, $199 69. 
 
 The Philadelphia & Read4ng Railroad Company, 
 of carrying 520 tons a round trip of 190 miles at 
 $157.55, not including maintenance of way and roll- 
 ing stock, at which rate 300 tons could be moved 200 
 miles for $95.64. Add interest, $43,49, mainten- 
 ance of way $12.20, and it makes^$151.33, leaving a 
 margin in our favor of $46.38 per day for taxes, 
 damages, etc. 
 
 "VVe believe every item for operating and replace- 
 ment given above is in excess of actual cost. 
 
 Earnings. — A train of 30 cars carrying 300 tons 
 200 miles per day at 6 mills per ton per mile, is 
 $360. Cost of running the train as above shown is, 
 per day, $199.69. The bulk of freight, however, 
 goes east, hence it is necessary to compute earnings 
 and costs in both directions. 
 
 The Erie Railway Company's eastward tonnage 
 was 675,285 tons ; westward tonnage, 274,846 tons. 
 Hence the earnings would be as follows : 
 
 The eastward train $360 00 
 
 The westward train 146 00 
 
 Total for both trains $506 52 
 
 Cost of two trains per day 399 38 
 
 Two trains, hence divide by 2 , $107 14 
 
 Surplus profit after paying interest and divi- ^ 
 
 dend " 53 57 
 
112 
 
 Let us now find what the honest men get for noth- 
 ing in this last item. Recollect, we have paid all 
 expenses, repairs, labor, maintenance, interest and 
 dividends, and this item stands as a net gain to 
 them over and above all. It reads like this : $53.- 
 57Xl,000x313=$16,766,410 per year. For twenty 
 
 years the sum reaches .$335,328,200 
 
 Add 100,000,000 acres of land at $1.25 125,000,000 
 
 with nothing to show for it, and 14,- 
 
 929,121 acres, with a little to show 
 
 for it 18,661,401 
 
 and we have $478,989,601 
 
 of which the people have been robbed almost entire- 
 ly, Again, take the above lands, 114,929,121 acres, 
 and multiply it by $3.75, the difference between the 
 government price and the price at which the com- 
 panies sell it, and you will find another fraud on 
 the labor of the country, amounting to $430,784,103; 
 now add the $478,989,601, and we have the whole 
 of this railroad steal, amounting to $909,773,704. 
 Still the workingman keeps on voting the rascals into 
 power, and themselves into poverty, for party's sake. 
 We figured the freight at 6 mills per ton per mile ; 
 they get 15. 
 
 Please recollect, the above does not touch the 
 Union Pacific Railroad swindle, with its 287,000,000 
 acres of land. With its principal and interest, due 
 to the government, of $143,000,000. I suppose you 
 XQCoWect ^' Credit Mohilier,'' or " moving a credit." 
 They moved it (the credit) off from their shoulders 
 
113 
 
 on to tlic government's, and we have it yat— {all hit 
 the land). Tbey stole that ! 
 
 The Special Committee on Transportation to the 
 Seaboard, appointed by the Senate in 1872, was com- 
 posed of good men, that is, 
 
 William Windom, of Minnesota, 
 John Sherman, of Ohio, 
 Roscoe Conklin, of New York, 
 H. G. Davis, of West Virginia, 
 T. M. Norwood, of Georgia. 
 J. W. Johnson, of Virginia, 
 John M. Mitchell, of Oregon, and 
 S. B. Conover, of Florida, 
 
 who made an elaborate report after having occupied 
 the entire summer of 1874 in an exhaustive exami- 
 nation from which we have reported. You will find 
 in th:it report, at page 158, as follows: "In the mat- 
 ter of taxation, there are to day four men, represent- 
 ing the four great trunk lines between Chicago and 
 New York, who possess, and who not unfrequently 
 exercise powers which the Congress of the United 
 States would not venture to exert. They may at 
 any time, and for any reason satisfactory to them- 
 selves, by a single stroke of the pen reduce the value 
 of property in this country by hundreds of millions 
 of dollars. 
 
 An additional charge of five cents per bushel on 
 the transportation of cereals would have been equiv- 
 alent to a tax of forty-five millions of dollars on the 
 crop of 1878. No Congress would dare to exercise 
 
114 
 
 so vast a power except upon a necessity of the most 
 imperative nature, and 3'et these gentlemen exercise 
 it whenever it suits their supreme will and pleasure, 
 without explanation or apology. With the rapid and 
 inevitable progress of combination and consolidation 
 these colossal organizations are daily becoming 
 stronger and more imperious. The day is not dis- 
 tant, if it has not already arrived, when it will be 
 the duty of the statesmen to inquire whether there 
 is less danger in leaving the property and industrial 
 interests of the people thus wholly at the mercy of 
 a few men who recognize no responsibility but to 
 their stockholders, and principle of action but per- 
 sonal and corporate aggrandizement, than in adding 
 somewhat to the power and patronage of a govern- 
 ment directly responsible to the people, and entirely 
 under their control. What say you, my dear reader, 
 you are a part ot the government. Is it not time 
 that the government either owned or controlled the 
 Railroads? 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 Thoughts and Opinions. 
 
 To-day, August 28, 1895, if the government buys 
 $45,500,000 of silver bullion, that will make 65,000,- 
 
 000 silver dollars, and will cost every man, woman 
 and child sixty-seven cents for the purchase. Gov- 
 ernment coins it into dollars. Now, if you want one 
 what must you do; why pay the government 07ie 
 dollar before you can get it, either in labor or its 
 products, which makes the dollar cost you $1.67, as 
 you paid for the silver. Why not let the miner take 
 it to the mint and the government coin it /ree, and 
 you buy the dollar of the miner and save the sixty- 
 seven cents? 
 
 A Prophecy by the Immortal Lincoln. 
 "As a result of the war corporations have been en- 
 throned and an era of corruption in high places will 
 follow, and the money power of the country will en- 
 deavor to prolong its reign by working upon the 
 prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggre- 
 gated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. 
 
 1 feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of 
 
116 
 
 my country than ever before even in the midst of 
 war. God grant that my suspicions may prove 
 groundless." 
 
 M. Emil Lavalye, the distinguished English poli- 
 tical economist, asserts that the scarcity of gold is 
 the main cause of the decline in prices. 
 
 No reform, moral or intellectual, ever came Irom 
 the upper class of society, each and all came from 
 the protest of martyr and victims. The emancipa- 
 tion of the working people must be achieved by the 
 workmg people themselves. — Wendell Phillips. 
 
 The greasy mechanics, the mudsills of society, 
 will no longer be heard in their frenzied cries by 
 legislative bodies nor by the courts of this country 
 only to summarily silence their rage in a manner 
 the}' are not asking for. — ISf. Y. World^ subsidized. 
 
 When the communistic cry of 'bread or blood" 
 comes up from the laborer, we should administer a 
 decoction of strychnine in quantities amply sufficient 
 to meet the emergency in every case, that neither 
 bread nor blood will disturb them hereafter. — Chi- 
 cago Tribune, subsidized. 
 
 Falling prices and misery and despotism are in- 
 separable companions. The disasters oi the dark 
 ages were caused by decreasing money and failing 
 prices. With the increase of raone}', labor and in- 
 dustry gain new life.— -/^rt?'yV/ Jlume, 
 
117 
 
 Our legislators have been bought and sold till we 
 think no more of it than the buying and selling of 
 so many cattle and sheep in the market. Monopoly 
 is a danger compared with which slavery was a small 
 danger. — Benry Ward Beecher. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 An Appeal to Reason. 
 
 Here is where the old parties are? 
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 
 
 In 1861 it supported a platform which declared it un- 
 lawful to coerce a state. 
 
 In 1862 the democrats declared themselves in favor of 
 a vigorous prosecution of the war. 
 
 In 1864 thej^ intimated that the war was a failure. 
 
 In 1866 they rejoiced in its success. 
 
 In 1868 they opposed the constitutional amendments. 
 
 In 1870 they accepted them as necessary, and in 1872 
 thej^ approved them as wise ; and to show how subserv- 
 ient they were, and how much indebted to the republi- 
 can party for their principles, and how well they ap- 
 proved them up to that date, i. e., 1872, that year they 
 nominated a lifelong and always bitter republican — Hor- 
 ace Greeley — as their candidate for president. This was 
 too much for poor old Horace ; one dose of democracy 
 killed him. Requiescat in pace. 
 
 In 1862 the democrats denounced the legal tender act 
 as unconstitutional. 
 In 1868 they shouted themselves hoarse in favor of a, 
 
119 
 
 doctrine as to groeubacks, lar more extreme than the 
 wildest greenbacker. 
 
 In 1872 they pledged themselves to the resumption of 
 specie payments. In 1870 they advocated the uncondi- 
 tional repeal of the resumption act. 
 
 They are guilty of the crime of killing the greatest 
 man of the age — President Lincoln. 
 
 They have in their platform a part of the so-called 
 "Sherman act," but still their "stuffed prophet," Gro- 
 ver Cleveland, called an extraoi'dinary session of congress 
 to repeal said law ; and they thereb}' repealed a part, at 
 least, of what they call principle — and so did the repub- 
 licans. 
 
 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 
 
 It was the republican party that placed the " except " 
 clause in the greenback, so the money sharks might fat- 
 ten from the toil of labor — which they did by depreciat- 
 ing the greenback, buying the bonds with them at par ; 
 and when all bonds were bought they passed the credit- 
 strengthening act, which made them (the bonds) payable 
 in coin, thereby robbing labor of $450,000,000 of debt- 
 paying power. 
 
 Next thev passed a funding bill, to get the word "coin" 
 into the bond. 
 
 They then demonetized silver, and now the bonds are 
 payable in gold, which acts have swept away about eight 
 hundred million dollars of the debt-paying power of the 
 people. 
 
 They are guilty of "Credit Mobilier," Pacific railroad 
 swindle, whisky frauds, land frauds, and frauds of every 
 kind. 
 
 They have made prices of labor and its products fall 
 more than one-half, and have swept into the coffers of 
 the rich more than forty per cent of the entire asse!5.sed 
 
120 
 
 valuation of the United States, which now leaves in the 
 hands of labor less than twenty per cent of the property. 
 
 They, too, have killed one president (this, I suppose, 
 to show they are the equals of the democrats in crime). 
 
 Their platform, too, embodies part of the Sherman 
 act, the same as the democratic ; still, they vote to repeal 
 it. 
 
 The name republican has become the synonym for 
 rascality, embezzlement, fraud, mismanagement and 
 official corruption. 
 
 The democratic partj'^ stinks fearfully whenever its 
 slavery and war record is stirred. 
 
 There is no measure of public policy upon which all 
 republicans can agree. 
 
 There is no living issue of public interest upon which 
 the democrats can agree. 
 
 There is no live issue of public interest upon which 
 the two old parties are clearly antagonistic. 
 
 No democrat can give a good reason, based on a sound, 
 living political issue, why he should oppose the repub- 
 lican party. 
 
 No republican give a good reason, based on the politi- 
 cal doctrines of his party, for opposing the democrats. 
 
 They are both old spoils-hunters and pap-suckers • 
 
 They both favor hard money and the gold standard. 
 
 They both favor railway and steamship subsidies, and 
 by granting them have burdened the people. 
 
 They have never fulfilled their promises to the people. 
 Democracy in the east is a different commodity from 
 the western truck called by that name. 
 
121 
 
 The leaders of these old parties have always been a 
 merchantable article, taken by the highest bidder for 
 cash. 
 
 The machinery of these old parties has become so rot- 
 ten that it cannot turn out for the official station one 
 honest man to the score. The rank and file are honest, 
 but are misled by glittering generalities. They have 
 turned the people's money into bonds, and then bur- 
 dened the people with taxation to pay the interest on the 
 bonds. 
 
 Their rule has practically made slaves of the many 
 and masters of the few, filled the land with tramps, 
 clothed industry in rags, and made serfdom the heritage 
 of freedom. 
 
 They have outlived their usefulness, honesty and hon- 
 or, and deserve to die and be forgotten. 
 
 There can be no hope for the people in granting either 
 of them a future lease of power. By trusting, the peo- 
 ple have been robbed and brought to financial ruin. 
 
 Leave the old parties and kill this vampire. Listen to 
 the warning the immortal Lincoln pronounced : "I see 
 a disposition on the part of gentlemen to place capital 
 on a par with, if not above, labor. I warn the laboring 
 people to beware how they surrender any right which 
 they now possess, which, once surrendered, will surely 
 be used to close the door of advancement against such as 
 they until all of liberty shall be lost." 
 
CHAPTER XIL 
 Come Let Us Reason Together' 
 
 You know that it is not denied that b}' free coinage of 
 both metals, France was able to maintain the parity of 
 the two metals at her ratio of 15 J to 1, for over 70 years ; 
 nor can it be doubted that had she continued free coin- 
 age, the paritj' would have remained till now. France's 
 territory is smaller than some of our states. Our popu- 
 lation is nearly double that of hers, and is distributed 
 over an area of 3,000,000 of square miles. Our popula- 
 tion is increasing at the rate of a million or more per 
 year. Are we not warranted in saying that, taking into 
 account our vast territory, our great wealth and de- 
 mands for monej' for illimitable development, we are 
 stronger, not only than France, but Germany and Great 
 Britain included. We need no aid or monetary league 
 with them or any of them. Geographically we are for- 
 tunately situated for bi-metalism. 
 
 On this continent to the south of us and to the west in 
 Asia, there are 976,000,009 of people who use only silver 
 as money. They are the best customers for manufac- 
 tures and the chief source of foreign trade. We ought 
 
123 
 
 to have this trade. Proper legislation on the silver ques- 
 tion will greatly aid us in securing it. 
 
 The product of our gold mines will answer the de- 
 mands for our commerce with western Europe and our 
 silver mines with South America, Mexico and the 
 Asiatics. 
 
 Nature has been bountiful in supplying us with great 
 riches in mines of silver and gold. By the free coinage 
 of both, New York and not London or Paris would be 
 the money centre for the exchanges of the world. What 
 is needed is the courage of men — statesmen — not the tim- 
 idity of mice. Let the silver cord be loosened, the 
 golden pitcher broken at the fountain of free coinage for 
 both metals. The desire of the nations of the earth for 
 money will not fail us on that account. None, unless it 
 be England, and if she does, here is her reason for doing 
 so. 
 
 Because her money will only have a purchasing power 
 one-half as great as it is now. It will do more harm for 
 England than defeat by arms on both land and sea could 
 do in a thousand years. England is a creditor nation. 
 Her greatest rival today is the United States. If things 
 go as they now promise — free silver — this great Ameri- 
 can republic will soon rival her as the creditor nation of 
 the world. 
 
 Now what makes the so-called wealth, glory and 
 grandeurs of England under the gold monometallic basis? 
 We all know that her fleets were sent to Egypt ; they 
 bombarded the port of Alexandria ; her armies crossed 
 the soil of Egypt, butchering on their way the Ajrabs 
 
124 
 
 and E^ptians wherever found in their path in order to 
 capture the capital of Egypt and form a government 
 which could collect the interest on bonds sold at a heavy 
 discount, for the purpose of enabling the sovereign of 
 that country to build himself twelve worthless, showy pal- 
 aces. And this same government, in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, which cried against the slavery of the negro in 
 former decades, is now applying the lash to collect an- 
 nually $20 from each acre of ground that is under culti- 
 vation in Egypt Again, in order to prevent the drain of 
 silver from India to China (China being a great exporter 
 of tea to India), in order to prevent the balance of trade 
 dragging despised silver out of India to China in payment 
 of the balance of trade, this great and glorious govern- 
 ment of England, this great nation which some look up 
 to — this great nation which the gold bugs ask us to copy, 
 sent her war vessels to open the ports of China to the im- 
 portation of opium from India, knowing that in so doing 
 she was inoculating into the Chinese race a custom so 
 foul, so low, so loathsome that not one gentleman who 
 reads this would dare for one minute to support it. It 
 were better that all the opium lands of India were sunk 
 in the ocean than that one man should acquire the habic 
 of smoking opium. 
 
 We believe we have said enough to convince any fair- 
 minded man that all England wants, and all Wall Street 
 and the east wants (we mean the capitalist part) is the 
 fewest possible measures of value (dollars), so they will 
 be able to dictate to labor the price of its products, and 
 to the wage earner the price of his wages. 
 
125 
 
 The question is now left in the hands of the voters. 
 Will you vote for the free coinage of both silver and 
 gold into primary money, at the ratio of 16 to 1, and 
 freedom ; or will you vote for the single gold. standard 
 and serfdom ? We are in no mood for trifling ; financial 
 ruin stares us in the face ; we must and will 7iave relief, 
 and it must come through a reform in our monetary 
 system. No tariff tinkering will suffice; money, good 
 sound money, and plenty of it, is our demand ! 
 
 Dinna ye hear the slogan? The car of progress is roll- 
 ing on ; the men or parties that stand in the way will be 
 crushed. 
 
 The clans of the silver forces are gathering, they are 
 organized or organizing on every hill top. Will you be 
 one of them? If not, why not? When Abraham bought 
 the field and cave Macpelah from Ephralm, for a bury- 
 ing place for himself and family, he weighed him out 
 400 shekels of silver, current money among the mer- 
 chants. This is the first record we have of money ; there 
 is no record of gold as money for about 500 years after 
 that gold was only used for making golden calves, etc., 
 for the Jews to worship. They still continue to worship 
 at the same shrine and now propose to force you and us 
 to worship the same calf. Will you do it and remain a 
 pauper ; or will you vote with us and be free men? 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 Conclusion. 
 
 Is it not about time that the government should 
 control the circulating medium, and be obliged to 
 maintain it at a given per capita, instead of giving 
 over their sovereign power to a set of men who have 
 conspired to rob and ruin this Republic, as per circu- 
 lars in the first part of this work? See the wreck 
 and ruin around you on every hand. Is it your own 
 fault, is it your neighbor's fault, that you have no 
 employment? They tell you there is an overpro- 
 duction, and that that is the reason there is no work. 
 Ask yourself, is there nothing I want, and cannot get^ 
 by reason of having no money nor any work to get 
 money with? Turn back and read the "Panic Circu- 
 lar," in the prior part of this work, and see if you 
 cannot find there why there is no money, and why 
 you have no work. 
 
 Try and find out how there can be an overproduc- 
 tion when the people are half clothed and half 
 starved. 
 
 Do you, can you believe, the lying subsidized 
 press of the country, owned and controlled by the 
 Railroad Kings and Money Lords? Had you not 
 
127 
 
 rather believe your own good sense and what yonr 
 eyes see, your ears hear, and your body feels? Sup- 
 pose every one of the seventy-two millions of people 
 in this country should each receive one dollar to- 
 night ; would there not be $72,000,000 spent tomor- 
 row? Would not that small amount to each person 
 do away with seventy-two millions of dollars' worth 
 of the overproduction? It would, just as sure as 
 the sun goes down tonight. Then suppose the same 
 plan were followed for one single week , do you 
 think you would be standing idle or tramping the 
 country, looking for work? Who ever asked for 
 this contraction of the currency? Was it you? Ver- 
 ily NO. Who ever asked for the demonetization of 
 silver; who asks for the calling in and cancellation 
 of the greenback? Invested capital, and no one else, 
 except perhaps a lunatic or a fool. They tell you 
 and us, in their speeches and through their lying, 
 subsidized press, that the greenback- is a debt of the 
 United States. Grod pity the poor silly goose who 
 will say it. How can the United States owe the 
 United States a debt? When a man tells you that, 
 mark him down as a hnave or a fool, or perhaps 
 both. Ask the poor dolt if he ever owed himself a 
 dollar ; if he says he did, let him explain how he 
 paid it, and who he paid it to ; and be sure and find 
 out what kind of a receipt he got. In the sixties, 
 during the period which is now stigmatized as one 
 of inflation, the windows of business houses were 
 not darkened and business men did not go as mourn- 
 ers around the streets. Neither did the laborer go 
 
128 
 
 ■ home at night withouL broud to his wife and chil- 
 dren. Helpless millions did not cower and tremble 
 at the approach of winter for lack of food and shel- 
 ter. The public peace was not broken by riots in re- 
 sistance to starvation wages. The courts were not 
 principally occupied in enforcing collections, fore- 
 closing mortgages, ordering sheriff sales or in pun- 
 ishing the destitute and outcast. These are some 
 things that did not take place ; others that did are 
 equally striking. Good wages and good prices 
 stimulated every laboring man's muscle, every busi- 
 ness man's brain, and every power of machinery into 
 the highest and most productive activity ; hope and 
 encouragement were in every heart ; new farms were 
 bought and cultivated, new workshops were opened, 
 new manufactories were established, new tosvns»and 
 cities were founded and old ones expanded and im- 
 proved ; new railroads were built, giving employ- 
 ment to millions and bringing the remotest and 
 most obscure regions into immediate contact with 
 trade and civilization ; new mines of iron, coal and 
 silver were sunk into the earth, whose contents in 
 return assisted in the glad work of a universal, indi- 
 vidual prosperity. But I am reminded that this 
 well-known condition of happiness was a delusion — 
 that it was unreal and could not last ! Why was it 
 a delusion? Were not its comforts and blessings a 
 reality to the American people? But why did it not 
 last? But one answer can be given : 
 
 The money power determined it should not last ! 
 
129 
 
 The Garden of Eden before the fall was not more 
 hateful in the eyes of Satan than was this picture of 
 plenty and prosperity to those whose gain and pros- 
 perity depended on the scarcity of money, in the 
 hands of the people, and consequent hard times. 
 They began their work of spoliation more than thir- 
 ty years ago, and they have made the downfall com- 
 plete. They have haunted the halls of congress ; 
 they have thundered at the doors of tlfe Senate ; 
 they have subsidized the public press ; they have 
 tampered with the Chief Magistrate of the nation ; 
 and they have even stained and soiled the ermine 
 of the judiciary ; they have fortified themselves in 
 the high places of the Government, and, whether by 
 deceitful persuasion, artful speech, or open menace 
 and assault, they have not ceased to bring blight and 
 ruin to the people. The very madness of avarice has 
 impelled them from blow to blow, from act to act. 
 The picture of general welfare that we have drawn, 
 indeed, did not last. It has been defaced, torn, 
 stamped under foot by the repeated acts of legisla- 
 tion inspired by remorseless greed. 
 
 Did YOU ask for any such change? Did the peo- 
 ple ever send petitions there asking for any of the 
 enactments of the last twenty or thirty years? We 
 would have been glad to have been let alone and to 
 have let the natural laws of trade and business work 
 out a safe solution of every financial problem. We 
 hear loud complaint that the financial question is 
 under agitation coming from thoughtless or design- 
 ing men. Every act of financial legislation, for the 
 
130 
 
 last thirty or more years, has been dictated by in- 
 vested capital, and not one by the people. Every 
 agitation of the question in Congress has been made 
 in the same interest and to gain additional advan- 
 tage over the laboring classes. 
 
 Let the wealth producers of the country demand 
 at the hands of the government in tones so loud that 
 they cannot but be heard, that Silver shall be res- 
 tored to its time-honored place in our monetary sys- 
 tem ; that the Government shall coin all the money 
 of the country, whether of gold, silver or paper ; 
 and that every dollar shall be a full legal tender for 
 all debts to and from the government and among 
 the people ; and in quantities adequate to the de- 
 mands of trade. 
 
 Let that "Octopus," the National Bank, die a 
 natural death, and demand further government con- 
 trol of land, transportation and communication, the 
 establishment of postal savings banks for the benefit 
 and accommodation of the people. With these re- 
 forms and the adoption of the Initiative and Refer- 
 endum, we can and will become the greatest nation 
 on earth. But follow the path we are in now and we 
 will soon be a nation of aristocrats and serfs. We 
 will bid you a good-bye by giving you a letter from 
 the pen of the illustrious Thomas Jefferson to Albert 
 Gallatin, Oct. 16th, 1816. He said: " Put down the 
 banks, and if this country could not be carried 
 through the longest war against her most powerful 
 enemy without knowing the want of a dollar, without 
 dependence on the traitorous class of her citizens, 
 
181 
 
 without bearing hard on the resources of the people, 
 or loading the public with an iadefinitc burden of 
 debt, I know nothing of my countrymen. Not b}^ 
 any novel project, not by any charlatanry, but by 
 ordinary and well experienced means ; by the total 
 prohibition of all private paper currency at all 
 times ; by reasonable taxes in war, aided by the 
 necessary emission of public paper of circulating 
 size." So mote it be. 
 
 God's word standeth forever, it says, '*It must 
 needs be offenses come ; but woe to that man by 
 whom the offense cometh." The time will come 
 when, by the Divine judgment of heaven, the convict 
 will be less condemned than the corrupt legislator. 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 Panics and Failures under State Banks' Actions 
 in 1837, 1847, and 1857. 
 
 The coin supply in the banks of the United States 
 in 1836 (or State or wildcat banks), was only $43,- 
 937,625. Banks increased their currency from 1834 
 to 1837 $54,346,625, and decreased their coin $6,- 
 022,385, which produced the panic of 1837, 
 
 Again, from 1845 to 1848, the banks increased 
 their circulation from $58,562,608 to $128,506,191, 
 or an increase of $69,942,538, and only increased 
 their supply of coin $1,616,716. Bank of England 
 suspended this year and drew heavily on us iorbans, 
 which resulted in the crash at that time. 
 
 Again, in 1857, the banks had increased their cir 
 culation from $114,743,415 to $214,778,822, or an 
 increase of $100,035,407, with an increase of coin of 
 only $11,980,073. Bank of England suspended 
 again and drew on us for basis, this time to amount 
 of $7,000,000, which resulted in the fearful crash of 
 that year. 
 
 Now, let us see how a pyramid inverted will look 
 based on coin. Banks had the right to issue three 
 dollars in bills on every one dollar in coin ; and 
 
133 
 
 receive three dollars in deposits on one dollar issued, 
 (by looking the statement over you will see they is- 
 sued ten or more), but say three and we find as 
 follows: 
 
 In bank $1 00, on which they 
 
 Issue 3 00 in currency, and in 
 
 Deposits 9 00. 
 
 Or, we find $12.00 in bills resting on the one of 
 coin. 
 
 England draws $7,000,000, and the basis is gone 
 from under $84,000,000, as in 1857. Result, 4,000 
 failures. Loss, $200,000,000. Fearful robbery. 
 
 Our present panic is on, not from bank failures 
 but by contraction of the currency, and caused in th 
 year 1893 16,655 failures, with liabilities to theenore 
 mous amount of $1,754,597,000. How does this- 
 look? GOLD BASIS and ENGLAND as usual ! 
 The same old bug-bear, GOLD BASTS ! 
 
THE REMEDY. 
 
 The only remedy is the restoration of the bimet- 
 talic standard of money, leaving the supply of me- 
 tallic money to be regulated by the same laws that 
 govern the supply of everything. The people them- 
 selves in this country must take the matter in their 
 own hands and rescue themselves, or suffer the con- 
 sequences ; and the consequences will be that they 
 will lose their homes and their independence and 
 find themselves in no very long time in the condition 
 of the laboring classes of Europe or the Serfs of 
 Russia and the tenant farmers of Ireland. This con- 
 dition is being hastened by the destructive competi- 
 tion which the fall in the gold price of silver enables 
 silver-using nations to maintain against debtor gold- 
 standard countries. 
 
 In his recent prize essay on this subject, Mr. 
 George Jamieson, British consul at Shanghai, 
 China, says : "The result of all this must be that in 
 the competitive manufacturing industries of the 
 world, the divergence of value between gold and sil- 
 ver will inevitably lead to a gradual transfer of all 
 the great manufacturers from gold-using to silver- 
 using countries. Nor can a debtor nation prevent 
 this by protective tariff." 
 
 England in 1873 bought 730,485 bushels of wheat 
 from India, and 56,566,396 bushels in 1892. This 
 is the result of demonetization. How do you like it, 
 Mrs. Farmer? You are in the same boat with us. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 !■■ 
 
 013 739 653 1 #