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BENNER'S PROPHECIES 
 
 of Ahoi 
 
 Future Ups and Downs in Prices 
 
 WHAT YEARS TO MAKE MONEY ON PIG 
 IRON,,. HOGS, CORN, AND PROVISIONS 
 
 By SAMUEL BBNNER 
 
 AN OHIO FARMER 
 
 " I know of no way of judging tlie future hut by the past.' 
 
 —Patrick Henry. 
 
 SIXTEENTH EDITION 
 
 WITH FORECAST FOR 1907 
 (PAGES 256-258) 
 
 CINCINNATI 
 
 THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY 
 1907 
 
LIBRARY of G'ONGKESS 
 Two GoDies Received 
 
 MAR 28 1907 
 
 (/7-Qowr^sh\ Entry 
 
 CLASS A J^Xc., No. 
 
 /(o ^^3f. 
 COPY B. 
 
 
 Bntered According to Act of Congress, in the year 1875 
 
 By SAMUEIv BENNER, 
 
 In the Office of the I,ibrarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 
 Copyright, 
 BY THE ROBERT CI^ARK]^ COMPANY. 
 
 1897, 1899, 1905, 1907 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 TO THE 
 AGRICULTURAL, MANUFACTURING, MINING, MERCANTILE, 
 
 INDUSTRIAL, FINANCIAL, aNE COMMERCIAL 
 *" INTERESTS OF THE aNJTED STATES OP AMERICA. 
 
There is a time in the price of certain 
 products and commodities, 
 
 Which, if taken by men at the advance, 
 leads on to fortune; 
 
 And, if taken at the decline, leads to 
 bankruptcy and ruin. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface, ....••• ' 
 
 Introduction, . . .- . 
 
 Predictions, . . . - . 
 
 Pig-iron, . . . . • 
 
 Hogs, * . . - . ' • 
 
 Corn, . . • 
 
 Cotton, ...••• 
 Provisions, . . . . . 
 
 Panic, ...••» 
 Theory, . . . . • 
 
 Conclusions, . - . • 
 
 IP 
 
 13 
 30. 
 56 
 7^ 
 90 
 93 
 96 
 118 
 125 
 
 ADDENDA, 1884. 
 
 Revision of this Work, . . . . • .132 
 
 Prophecies Verified, . . . • •. • ^^^ 
 
 Signs of the Times, . . • ' • • • ^^^ 
 
 Average Yearly Prices for Pig-iron, ... 144 
 
 * 144 
 
 Failures, ....•••• ■^^'' 
 
 Railroad Stocks, ...••• 148 
 
 Miles of Railroad in U. S. . . • • • 1^3 
 
 Winter Packing of Hogs— Net and Gross Cost • . 1^5 
 
 Corn, ... < . . -15^ 
 
 The Weather, ^^^ 
 
 Stages of the Ohio River at Cincinnati, Ohio, . . 162 
 
 Corn and Hogs, ... . ... 163 
 
 Cotton and Crops, . . . , . . ,166 
 
 Wheat, . m 
 
VI ~ INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Forecast for 1887, , , 171 
 
 Forecast for 1888, . 176 
 
 Forecast for 1889-'91, . ' 183 
 
 Forecast for 1891, 193 
 
 Forecast for 1892, . 197 
 
 Forecast for 1894 . 205 
 
 Forecast for 1897, . . . . ■ . , . . . 217 
 
 Forecast for 1899, 225 
 
 Forecast for 1900, . , ,234 
 
 Forecast for 1904, o-a-ci,-=,= 24i 
 
 Forecast for 1905, 248 
 
 Forecast for 1907 . , 256 
 
PEEFAOE. 
 
 EN the following pages the object of the 
 writer is to give brief, full, and clear ex- 
 position of the ups and downs in prices for 
 certain products and commodities in the mar- 
 kets of our country, to all who are struggling 
 in the same for a competence. 
 
 To foresee the future intelligentlj^ in regard 
 to supply and demand, production and con- 
 sumption, is the great want that finance and 
 commerce are to-day struggling and grappling 
 with and striving to solve. 
 
 The question of prices will always be of great 
 interest to the producer and consumer. The 
 spirit of the age is tending toward speculation 
 in the products of the " Farm, the Mine, and 
 the Factory." All business operations for 
 profit and future contracts are attended with 
 a great deal of risk, and the leading branches 
 of trade demand information on the subject, 
 and that the uncertainties of the future be 
 lessened. 
 
 There is always a hesitancy and a desire for 
 further intelligence, in regard to engaging in 
 
 (yii) 
 
/Ill PREFACE. 
 
 any business where the chances for profit de- 
 pend upon so many contingencies and circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The author, in presenting a practical book 
 to tlie public on the subject, and on the 
 branches of trade of which it treats, is in- 
 spired with the belief that it will be the 
 greatest boon to the reader to have the years 
 of high and low prices pointed out in the 
 future. 
 
 It should be the highest aim of the farmer, 
 manufacturer, and trader, in a business point 
 of view, to penetrate the future and calculate 
 what years he can realize the best prices for 
 his products. 
 
 Content to be useful, instead of being volu 
 minous, the writer has confined the book to a 
 few of the most important branches of trade 
 To have extended the work to the dimension!: 
 of embracing other branches would have made 
 it more copious than the designed brevity of 
 the book would admit. 
 
 It is hoped that to this volume will be 
 accorded the merit of directing more atten- 
 tion to the ups and downs in prices, and the 
 causes producing and influencing the same. 
 
 And now, submitting the results of oui 
 labor, experience, and observation to the in 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 dustry and commerce of the country, the 
 author's wishes will be fully realized if this 
 little volume contains any information which 
 may be useful or of service to those interested, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 C^HE advance and decline in the average 
 ^^1^ price of pig-iron, hogs, corn, and provi- 
 sions in the markets of our country, for a 
 series of twenty years past, and for certain 
 periods, have been as alternately certain as 
 the diurnal revolutions of the earth upon its 
 axis; and the periods of high and low prices 
 have been as regular in rotation, as the an- 
 nual return of the four seasons. 
 
 Now, Reader: You who may study the ups 
 and downs in prices as collated and consid- 
 ered in these pages, and operate in accordance 
 with the advance of prices and tendencies of 
 the times, as here indicated, will surely be 
 successful; whilst those who stubbornly and 
 blindly prosecute on the decline, will do an 
 unprofitable business, and will meet with con- 
 tinued disaster and loss. 
 
 I am well aware that my prediction of the 
 
 downward tendency in the prices of pig-i ron, 
 
 hogs, corn, and provisions, and dull trade for 
 
 ^.he next two years, will be to some as unwel- 
 
 (x) 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 come as the tolling of the-fire bell at the hour 
 of midnight; and to others as unexpected as 
 was the approach of the Medes and Persians, 
 under the walls of Babylon, to the banquetors 
 at the royal board of Belshazzar ; but we can 
 not be blamed for foretelling that which can 
 not be averted and which past prices, and 
 signs of the times indicate, and which a con- 
 scientious conviction of duty compels us to 
 predict, with the hope that our premoni- 
 tion may serve to diminish disaster and save 
 national and individual interests from ruin. 
 
 I now at once make my predictions, and will 
 endeavor to demonstrate their certainty and 
 fulfillment to the comprehension of all, by an 
 examination of past prices, and their bearing 
 upon the future, as analyzed by the light of 
 practical experience and sound analogy. 
 
PREDIOTIOl^S. 
 
 PIG-IRON. 
 
 E PREDICT that the average price of No. 1 
 foundry charcoal pig-iron in the markets 
 of our country will be lower in the year 1876 
 than in 1875. 
 
 I predict that the average price of No. 1 
 foundry charcoal pig-iron in the markets of 
 our country will be lower in the year 1877 
 than in 1876, and that the daily price in some 
 months of that year will run below twenty 
 dollars per ton. 
 
 I predict that the average price of No. 1 
 foundry charcoal pig-iron in the markets of 
 our country will be higher in the year 1878 
 than in 1877. 
 
 I predict that the average j)rice of No. 1 
 foundry charcoal pig-iron in the markets of 
 our country will be higher in the year 1879 
 than in 1878, notwithstanding the resump- 
 tion of specie payments. 
 
14 BENNEU S PROPHECIEa. 
 
 I predict that the average price of No. i 
 foundry charcoal pig-iron in the markets of 
 our country will be higher in the year 1880 
 than in 1879. 
 
 I predict that the average price of No. 1 
 foundry charcoal pig-iron in the markets of 
 our country will be higher in the year 1881 
 than in 1880, and that the daily price in some 
 months of that year will run above fifty dol- 
 lars per ton. 
 
 The average prices as determined for the 
 " American Iron and Steel Association." 
 
 HOGS. 
 
 I predict that the average price of fat hogs 
 in the markets of our country will be lower 
 in the year 1876 than in 1875. 
 
 I predict that the average price of fat hogs 
 in the markets of our countiy will be lower 
 in the year 1877 than in 1876. 
 
 I predict that the average price of fat hogs 
 in the markets of our country will be higher 
 in the year 1878 than in 1877. 
 
 I predict that the average price of fat hogs 
 in the markets of our country will be higher 
 in the year 1879 than in 1878, notwithstand- 
 ing the resumption of specie payments. 
 
 X predict that the average price of fat hogs 
 
PANIC. 15 
 
 la the markets of our country will be higher 
 in the year 1880 than in 1879. 
 
 The average prices as determined by the 
 " Cincinnati Price Current." 
 
 PANIC. 
 
 I predict that there will be great depression 
 in general business, and many failures in the 
 years 1876 and 1877, and thai there will be a 
 commercial revulsion, and a financial crisis 
 in the year 1891. 
 
 Here are twelve prophecies of certain 
 events to take place in the future, and they 
 are of no uncertain sound; either one of 
 them, if taken advantage of, by large opera- 
 tors and speculators, would make and save 
 them millions of money, and would be of in- 
 calculable benefit to every person in this 
 country. To know when to shape oar agricul- 
 tural, manufacturing, and financial opera- 
 tions, m as to secure the best markets instead 
 of the worst, is the end much to be desired by 
 
 all. 
 
 These prophecies are made not upon sup- 
 posed fanciful speculation, but from the testi- 
 mony of twenty years' observation by the 
 writer, from living and experienced facts; 
 Crom the yearly average prices compiled by 
 
i6 benner's propheoies. 
 
 recognized official authority, and by anai 
 ogy, relying upon "history to repeat it 
 self." 
 
 The writer does not claim a " gift of 
 prophecy," but he does claim a Cast Iron RuU 
 that will do to keep in sight, and that future 
 ups and downs of the markets, and high and 
 low prices in certain products and commodi- 
 ties, can be calculated for some years to come 
 with as much certainty, and upon the same 
 principle that an astronomer calculates an 
 eclipse of the sun. 
 
 It is not upon record that Joseph had 
 Egyptian weather statistics, or tables of pro- 
 duction and prices, to base his. prediction 
 and interpretation of Pharaoh's dream; but 
 he relied upon divine power to fulfill his 
 prophecy. On our part, we base our predic- 
 tions upon the records of the past, and their 
 relation to the future, as governed by the un- 
 changeable laws of nature, and only rely upon 
 providence for their fulfillment to give us the 
 continued regular progress and development 
 of these laws, and to its usual dispensation for 
 seasons to make large or small crops, and not 
 on the peoples' efforts merely. 
 
 The author firmly believes that God is ir 
 prices, and that the over and under produo- 
 
UPS AND nOWNS. 17 
 
 tion of every commodity is in accordance 
 with his will, with strict reference to the 
 wants of mankind, and governed by the lawi 
 of nature, which are God's laws; and that the 
 production, advance, and decline of average 
 prices should be systematic, and occur in an 
 established providential succession, as certain 
 and regular as the magnetic needle points un- 
 erringly to the pole. 
 
 Are not all kinds of business at loose ends — 
 astray, tossed on the tempestuous sea of un- 
 certainty — from our imperfect knowledge of 
 natural causes and the laws by which they 
 operate; and our lack of accurate statistics 
 of production and prices, a knowledge of 
 which would enable us to discover and estab- 
 lish reliable rules for our guidance in the fu- 
 ture ? Is there any thing certain and settled 
 in farming, except that a broom-handle is a 
 sure cure for hoven in cattle I Are not farm- 
 ers, furnace-men, manufacturers, traders and 
 speculators at random, like a ship without 
 compass or rudder ? Do not all operations in 
 business depend for success upon a certai 
 number of fixed, reliable rules? The rules 
 we have to commence and transact business 
 upon are stereotyped rules, that " Honesty is 
 the best policv • " that industry, energy, per- 
 
18 ^ benner's pkophecies. 
 
 severance, prudence, economy, and so on, lead 
 to riches and competence. These are all good 
 enough in their line, and indispensable to 
 success, but are they all-sufficient ? Is this 
 knowledge all that is absolutely required for 
 successful business in every department of 
 trade? Is there not a knowledge of some- 
 thing more which a business man w^ants? 
 And who is not a business man ? In order to 
 guide him in reference to future prices that 
 are to rule in the markets of our country, 
 we can not close our eyes and ignore the fact 
 that there is a want of rules by which to in- 
 terpret the " signs of the times," and to ena 
 ble us to comprehend the future status of the 
 markets, so we may know six months or a 
 year ahead what are to be the conditions and 
 circumstances that will produce the coming 
 ups and downs in prices for any product or 
 commodity, and when the changes from high 
 and low prices are to take place. 
 
 How are we to get this information, this 
 insight into, or foresight of the future ? 
 
 Do the Records of the Weather Give the Rule f 
 
 In seeking to forecast future prices of agri 
 cultural products, the weather is an impor- 
 
UPS AND DOWNS. 19 
 
 tant element of uncertainty. AVitli the rap- 
 idly increasing means of observation, and the 
 deep interest taken by governments and 
 scientists every-where in the laws of climate, 
 the development and path of storms, nature 
 of calmSj theory of winds, movements of 
 masses of hot and dry air, and the phenom- 
 ena of rain and snow, we may in time learn 
 to calculate with certainty what years will 
 be dry or wet ; when we may expect years of 
 heat, storm, and cold; but with all the 
 weather statistics of the past, tables of meteor- 
 ology, and not excepting the weather wisdom 
 of almanac makers, it will not come within 
 the province of this work to lay down rulea 
 by which to forecast the future of the 
 weather. It will require time, research, with 
 improved means, and a more complete series 
 of meteorological and climatological observa- 
 tions to form a system of probabilities that 
 can be useful ; and when the weather proba- 
 bilities aie reduced to a science, it will thee 
 be a long step to determine agricultural pro- 
 ductions and prices from them; and if the 
 time should come when the weather bureau 
 at Washington can predict twelve months 
 ahead instead of twenty-four hours, we can 
 then know in advance what the seasons are 
 
20 benner's prophecies. 
 
 to be, the number of bushels or pounds of any 
 thing to be produced, what prices will rule ; 
 and we can all make money. 
 
 It will not be one of the points of this 
 book to determine the causes of things, or the 
 conditions and elements which will produce 
 the coming ups and downs in prices; with 
 these questions these prophecies have nothing 
 to do; it will only come within its sphere to 
 ascertain and point out the periodical return 
 of effects, in the changes from high and low 
 prices. 
 
 We know the effects as manifested in the 
 ups and downs of average prices, and good 
 and bad trade, and it seems as though there 
 ought to be an established cause to produce 
 results of so much certainty, periodicity, and 
 alternate regularity. 
 
 The difficulty enccuntered in determining' 
 the causes producing the changes in produc- 
 tion and prices is, that we are compelled to 
 reason a posteriori^ from effect to cause, and 
 " what can we reason but from what we 
 know." All original causes are invisible, and 
 that which is rendered visible through devel- 
 opment is an effect; the cause must exist an- 
 tecedent to the effect. The manner in wiiich 
 causes and their laws operate to produce thesf 
 
UPS AND DOWNS. 21 
 
 effects may be found in our solar system, upon 
 which we hereafter give some theories. All 
 nature is found to be the servant of law : 
 spring, summer, autumn, and winter succeed 
 each other in unchangeable regularity, and 
 ^he recurrences of the various convulsions of 
 nature are being determined on scientific 
 principles; none of these things happen by 
 chance, but all of them by some law which 
 will shortly be solved ; and when the causes 
 producing the changes in the weather, and 
 the operations of their laws are better under- 
 stood, we may be then better able to discover 
 their influence on the state of business in 
 manufacture, trade, and commerce; then we 
 may be enabled to fathom the conditions and 
 elements that will produce the coming ups 
 and downs in prices which are to rule in the 
 markets of our country. 
 
 Do the Statistics of Production Give the Rulet 
 
 To ascertain when the changes from high 
 ay.d low prices are to take place : 
 
 Who is it that can teil us what is to be the 
 production of corn, cotton, wheat, tobacco, or 
 any product that grows from the ground, and 
 is dependent upon the season foi the life oi 
 
22 benner's prophecies. 
 
 death of the plant ? No one ; after they have 
 gathered and collected all the information ob- 
 tainable in regard to the acreage to be planted 
 or 8own, the seasons make large or small 
 crops, and not the farmers. 
 
 A cold, wet spring through the months of 
 April, May, and June, is almost fatal to the 
 corn, cotton, tobacco, and other plants. Also 
 a dry, hot summer, has the effect to destroy 
 the growing stocks. Floods and early frosts are 
 great destroyers of the cereals in our northern 
 latitudes ; either one of these elements oper- 
 ating diminishes the number of pounds oi 
 bushels, and produces short crops ; therefore, 
 we can not beforehand determine what will 
 be the production of any year by that which 
 has been planted or sown. 
 
 Statistics of agricultural products or manu- 
 factured commodities are generally too late to 
 be available for present use; they come after 
 a person has made their investment or dis- 
 posed of their property. Agricultural statis- 
 tics, as generally compiled at Washington, 
 tell the farmer the aggregate amount or num 
 ber of bushels produced six months or a yeai 
 after their crops have been harvested ant 
 told 
 
 Statistics of production, either estimated oi 
 
UPS AND DOWNS. 23 
 
 sold for consumption, are not sufficient to 
 operate upon ; one is too soon, the other too 
 late. 
 
 Commercial estimates are too high. 
 
 The future can not be calculated upon in- 
 telligently by agricultural statistics. The 
 reason why they are not reliable is, that they 
 are not given in by farmers correct : one far- 
 mer will think it has something to do with 
 taxes, and he will give them in low; another, 
 to magnify the yield of his farm, and other 
 purposes, will give them in high; therefore, 
 they can not be a criterion for future calcula- 
 tion and prices. 
 
 Again, statistics of what has been produced 
 may vary considerably from the available 
 supply. We can not make any correct esti- 
 mate or compile any statistics of what has 
 been done with a crop. The corn crop of one 
 year may not feed more than two-thirds of 
 the stock that the crop would of another 
 year. 
 
 Statistics of foreign exports are not to be 
 depended upon. The estimated aggregate 
 amount of the yearly production of any crop 
 or manufactured commodity, does not from 
 year to year approximate any regularity of 
 increase or decrease that indicates future pro- 
 
24 benner's prophecies. 
 
 duction ; and therefore the course of future 
 prices can not be determined by them. 
 
 Statistics are generally huge columns of 
 figures, of which no one knows all the chan- 
 nels from whence they came, all the clerical 
 errors in their compilation, and parties inter- 
 ested in their manipulation. 
 
 In attempting to explore and explain the 
 elements in these statistical tables and prob- 
 lems of which people think are few and eas- 
 ily read, the real supply and demand will be 
 as unfathomable as th'j waters of the briny 
 deep. 
 
 Does the Price Give the Rule? 
 
 The price of any product is the exponent 
 of the accumulated wisdom of the country in 
 regard to the available supply and prospec- 
 tive demand for that product; and as the 
 price advances or declines, so it indicates the 
 surplus or deficit of any product or commod- 
 ity. 
 
 The daily price is always known in the 
 markets. There may be incidental causes, 
 which are always producing slight and tem- 
 porary fluctuations in value. The variation 
 in price in one locality from another may bf 
 found in the cost of transportati'^n or othei 
 
UPS AND DOWNS 25 
 
 local causes. The price ts aUvay- known; 
 the amount of any product and the demand 
 for the same, is not so easily obtained. The 
 books are always posted in regard to price, 
 but several pages behind on amount of prod 
 act available and the demand for the same 
 The price is the index of the probable amounl 
 of any product or commodity that is demanded 
 for general consumption. 
 
 The price which an article will command 
 to-morrow or next week can not always be 
 known, as there are so many contingencies to 
 cause temporary fluctuations in the markets. 
 One or more of the various products may be 
 manipulated so as to influence the price to 
 advance or decline for a short time, but specu- 
 lators can not influence any market only tem- 
 porarily. 
 
 It is not within the wisdom of finite beings 
 to comprehend all the temporary circumstan- 
 ces connected with prices, as governed and 
 influenced by supply and demand, weather 
 and seasons, combinations and corners, longs 
 and shorts, puts and calls, and bulls and bears 
 to operate upon the market. 
 
 Now as the temporary price is uncertain 
 let us look further into the subject of price 
 to find a rule, and take the average to ascer 
 
20 
 
 BENNER'S PROPHECIES. 
 
 tain if there is any regularity existing in the 
 run of tlie markets. As prices of agricultural 
 products are governed by production, and pro- 
 duction is governed by the seasons, and as it 
 takes the four seasons to determime the abund- 
 ance or scarcity of a crop; therefore we are 
 compelled to take the yearly average price to 
 get above and bej^ond the control and influ- 
 ence of speculators, manipulators, and corners 
 upon the market. 
 
 The yearly average price is ascertained by 
 taking the price each day, week, or month, at 
 one or more of the markets where the articles 
 are bought and sold, and by adding the whole 
 together, and then dividing b}^ the number 
 of times taken, the quotient will give the 
 average for a year. 
 
 When the yearly average price is very low 
 for any product or commodity, and next yeai 
 advances, and so on until it reaches the high 
 est average, is that which is here denomi- 
 nated an "up.^" When the average price de- 
 clines from one year to another to the lowest 
 average, is that which is here denominated a 
 ''downf' 
 
 The "ups and downs" of yearly average 
 prices, in a series of years for some articles 
 are very noticeable; and it can be observed 
 
UPS AND DOWNS. 27 
 
 that it takes a required number of years to 
 complete an "up and down." 
 
 Now to find a rule that can give us any foro 
 sight of future markets, we must look to the 
 past ups and downs of average prices; then 
 ascertain how man}^ years it takes to complete 
 an up and down in any product or commodity 
 then determine in what order the ups and 
 downs are repeated in the next cycle ; and if 
 there is found any noticeable periodicity in 
 cycles, then we have a rule which can be 
 applied to the future. An up and down or a 
 down and up in average prices, is in this 
 book denominated a cycle. 
 
 The cycles in yearly average prices 
 
 Gives Us The Rule. 
 
 The indubitable evidences and testimonies 
 of observation have established this rule as 
 the safest we have ever practiced and have 
 ever found adapted to this purpose. And in- 
 side of this rule, like a wheel within a wheel, 
 is to be found our " Cast Iron Rule," which if 
 that one extreme invariably follows another, as car 
 be witnessed in .all the operations of nature 
 in all the business afiairs of man, and in all 
 the ramifications of trade and industry; anu 
 
ZS benner's prophecies. 
 
 in every cycle of average prices it is shown to 
 what extent these extremes run. This rule 
 when applied to pig-iron, hogs, corn and provi- 
 sions, is as persistent as the attractive and re- 
 pulsive forces of the magnet, and as unchange- 
 able as the laws of the Medes and Persians. 
 
 This knowledge of the years in which high 
 and low prices return in the markets, belong 
 to the farmer, manufacturer, and legitimate 
 trader, as well as the speculator ; and it is as 
 important that this intelligence should be 
 known to one as to the other. 
 
 The ups and downs in prices, as considered 
 in this book, have reference to a series of years 
 as distinguished from the daily and weekly 
 fluctuations. War, panic, and elections have 
 not changed the general yearly course of prices 
 in some articles for many years past; and we 
 only go back so far as we have been enabled 
 to obtain reliable yearly average prices, or the 
 official records of monthly prices at New York, 
 and from them we can date their unfolding, 
 and since that time establish by our rule the 
 full development of our system of prophecy. 
 
 It is not necessary for us to look beyond the 
 present century, or to the histor}^ of prices in 
 older countries, for epochs of abundance and 
 scarcity, to prove recurring cycles in prices 
 
DPS AND DOWNS. 29 
 
 The alternation of good and bad harvests is 
 *^ell known in English history. "Tooke" 
 published a history of prices in 1838, giving 
 an exhaustive analysis of the causes producing 
 abundance and scarcity in crops in the eight- 
 eenth century, but did not establish any rule 
 by which the future course of prices could be 
 arithmetically calculated. 
 
 It is to the present nineteenth century, and 
 in the land of free America, the most favored 
 nation upon the earth, that divine providence 
 has arranged this matter, for not only the 
 spread of the true principles of religion and 
 liberty, but the full development of the 
 operations of the unchangeable laws of nature 
 around and about us. 
 
 The battles of Lexington, Concord and Bun- 
 ker Hill, the centennial of which we celebrated 
 in 1875, was the commencement of our strug- 
 gles for freedom from the tyrannical yoke of 
 England. The War of 1812 was the final con- 
 summation of our independence in the arts 
 and sciences, commerce and politics ; and the 
 period in our history after which we can date 
 the development of the reaper and mower, 
 sewing-machine, grain elevator, power loom, 
 cotton gin, stereotype, steam printing press^ 
 railroad, steamboat, electric telegraph, the 
 
30 benner's prophecies. 
 
 compilation of average prices, new elements 
 and sciences, and a multitude of inventions 
 and discoveries for the advancement of man 
 in his onward path of progress, and in the 
 knowledge of the waj^s of an inscrutable provi- 
 dence. 
 
 Now instead of pondering over farmers' de* 
 liveries, weekly receipts, visible supplies, and 
 entering into an expensive collection and 
 elaborate examination of statistics of what, 
 the probable production of pig-iron, corn, and^ 
 hogs will be, and the commercial demand for 
 the same, and what old elements will be want- 
 ing and new ones to be developed, and watch- 
 ing and waiting to hear from New York, let 
 us call history to the witness stand, and see 
 what it has to testify on the subject ; and also 
 bring into court the testimony of observation 
 and experience, by taking the course of the 
 averages in past markets, as compiled by reli- 
 able and official authority ; and also the years 
 in which money has been made and lost in 
 the different branches of trade, and then bj 
 our rule make the application for the future 
 
 PIG-IRON. 
 
 The following statement, prepared by Hol 
 Henry C Carey, in 1849, embraces all that is 
 
PIG-IRON. 31 
 
 definitely known of the progress of the iron' 
 industry in this country prior to 1854. 
 
 Mr. Carey's Pig-iron Statistics. 
 
 In 1810 the whole number of furnaces in 
 the Union was 153, yielding 54,000 tons of 
 metal, equal to 16 pounds per head of the pop- 
 ulation. 
 
 In 1821 the manufacture was in a state of 
 ruin. 
 
 In 1828 the product had reached 130,000 
 tons, having little more than doubled in 
 eighteen years. 
 
 In 1829 it was 142,000. Increase in one 
 year nearly ten per cent. 
 
 In 1830 it was 165,000. Increase in two 
 years more than 25 per cent. 
 
 In 1831 it was 191,000. Increase in three 
 years about 50 per cent. 
 
 In 1832 it was 200,000, giving an increase 
 in three years of above 60 per cent. 
 
 In 1840 the quantity given by the census 
 was 286,000, but a committee of the Home 
 League, in New York, made it 347,700 tons 
 Taking the medium of the two, it would give 
 about 315,000 tons, being an increase in eight 
 years of 50 per cent. * 
 
32 benner's prophecies. 
 
 In 1842 a large portion of the furnaces were 
 closed, and the product had fallen to probably 
 little more than 200,000, but certainly less 
 than 230,000 tons. 
 
 In 1846 it was estimated by the Secretary 
 of the Treasury at 765,000 tons, having 
 trebled in four years. 
 
 In 1847 it was supposed to have reached the 
 amount of not less than 800,000 tons. 
 
 In 1848 it became stationary. 
 
 In 1849 many furnaces being already closed, 
 the production of the present year can not be 
 estimated above 650,000 tons; but from the 
 accumulation of stock, and the difficulty of 
 selling it, it is obvious that the diminution 
 will be greater. 
 
 The above statement, it will be observed, ia 
 only statistical in regard to production, al- 
 though it is stated that in 1821 the manufac- 
 ture was in a state of ruin ; and in 1842 a 
 large portion of the furnaces were closed. 
 This probably was in consequence of low 
 prices that prevailed at this time. 
 
 In the report of the Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury for 1863, the only official source for aver- 
 age prices since the war of 1812, or the -panic 
 of 1819, and prior to 1844, that I am able tc 
 obtain, is, however, sufficient for our purpose ; 
 
PIG-IRON. 33 
 
 it is recorded that 1825, '26, and '27 were 
 years of very high prices in pig-iron; after 
 these years the price declined, the tariff of 
 twelve and one-half dollars per ton was re- 
 duced in 1833, and in the year 1834 the price 
 ha'i declined to a very low figure for that 
 time. Business was depressed in all branches 
 of trade; the aggregate amount of duties on 
 all imports were the lowest that had'been col- 
 lected for many years before that year ; this 
 date is forty-two years ago, and I commence 
 my table of the ups and downs in prices of 
 pig-iron at this time. 
 
 The finance report of 1863, in giving prices 
 for the New York market, states that in 1836 
 there was a material rise in prices in all arti- 
 cles, especially pig-iron, which is quoted at 
 sixty dollars per ton ; and in 1837 the price 
 advanced to seventy dollars per ton for Scotch 
 pig, which was an extremely high price, and 
 three years from the low prices of 1834. 
 
 The panic in money caused the suspension 
 of specie payments by the banks in May, 
 1837, yet the price of pig-iron had commenced 
 to decline in March of that year, before the 
 panic had cast its blighting shadow over thf 
 country. 
 
 In the years 1838, '39, '40, '41, and '42 the 
 
34 benner's prophecies. 
 
 price continued to decline, and 1843 was a re- 
 markable year for the extreme depression m 
 prices that prevailed for all staple articles. 
 Scotch pig was quoted in September of that 
 year as low as twenty-two and one-half dollars 
 per ton ; this low price was six years after the 
 high prices of 1837. 
 
 Tn the year 1844 the price- commenced to 
 advance, and in 1845, in the month of May, 
 the price is quoted at fifty-two and one-half 
 dollars per ton. The price had increased thirty 
 dollars per ton in twenty months. The max- 
 imum price was reached in a few months less 
 than two years from the minimum price of 
 1843— mark this! 
 
 Yearly average prices in Philadelphia of 
 No. 1 Anthracite foundry pig-iron, from 1844 
 to 1874, both years inclusive ; and production 
 of pig-iron from 1854 to 1874 as compiled foi 
 the American Iron and Steel Association. 
 
PIG-IRON. 
 
 35 
 
 TABLE OF YEARLY AVERAGE PRICES- 
 
 TEAR. 
 
 1844 
 1845 
 1846 
 1847 
 1848 
 1849 
 1850 
 1851 
 1852 
 1853 
 1854 
 1855 
 1856 
 1857 
 1858 
 1859 
 1860 
 1861 
 1862 
 1863 
 1864 
 1865 
 1866 
 1867 
 1868 
 1869 
 1870 
 1871 
 1872 
 1873 
 1874 
 
 PRICE. 
 
 25J 
 29J 
 
 m 
 
 30J 
 
 26J 
 22f 
 
 22| 
 36i 
 36J 
 27f 
 
 26t 
 22i 
 23f 
 22| 
 20i 
 235 
 35J 
 59J 
 46J 
 46| 
 44i 
 39i 
 40| 
 33i 
 35J 
 
 42i 
 30i 
 
 TONS. 
 
 736,218. 
 
 784,178. 
 
 883,137. 
 
 798,157. 
 
 705,094. 
 
 840,627. 
 
 919,770. 
 
 731,544. 
 
 787,662. 
 
 947,604. 
 1,135,996. 
 
 931,582 
 1,350,343 
 1,461,626. 
 1,603,000. 
 1,919,641. 
 1,865,000 
 1,912,608 
 2,854,558, 
 2,868,278. 
 2,689,413. 
 
36 benner's prophecies. 
 
 The following are the high and lo^ pxicetj 
 years in which are the highest and lowest 
 monthly averages, which - shows whon the 
 changes commence in the ups and downs of 
 the markets for pig-iron. 
 
 In Finance Report the highest daily price 
 in 1837, was, in January, 70 dollars per ton.. 
 In report of the Secretary Iron and Steel As- 
 sociation, the highest monthly averages are 
 as follows : 
 
 1845, May, 34 J dollars per ton. 
 
 1854, June, 38 '' " 
 
 1864, August, 73f " 
 
 1872, September, 53 J " " 
 
 The Finance Report gives the lowest daily 
 price for 1834, in April, 38 dollars per ton; 
 for 1843, in July, 22-| dollars per ton. 
 
 In report of the Secretary Iron and Steel 
 Association, the lowest monthly averages are 
 as follows : 
 
 1850, July, 20 dollars per ton. 
 
 1861, October, . 18f " " 
 
 1870, December, 31J '' " 
 
 After the high priced year 1845, the price 
 of pig-iron declined, and in 1846, '47, '48, '49 
 it continued on the downward scale; and in 
 1850, the average by the table is 20J dollars 
 per ton, making five in number of declining 
 
PIG-IRON. 37 
 
 years since 1845, and recording severe depres- 
 sion in the iron trade, following the depres- 
 sions of 1834 and 1843. 
 
 Our war with Mexico in 1846, '47, '48, and 
 the influx of gold from California, did not 
 have the effect of changing the direction of 
 the price of iron, as it continued to decline 
 during the war and after peace was declared. 
 After the year 1850 the price -again advanced 
 in 1851, '52, '53 and in 1854, the price reached 
 the high average of 36 dollars per ton, making 
 four years of advances from 1850. 
 
 The uncertainty of all manufacturing busi- 
 ness, especially the manufacture of pig-iron, 
 for the want of general knowledge when the 
 periodical decline in price is to commence — 
 of which it seems our sharpest and most ex- 
 perienced men have made mistakes, as serious 
 and fatal as persons of less pretensions, experi- 
 ence, and business qualifications — is exempli- 
 fied in the following : 
 
 The Iron King of the Hanging Rock iron 
 region in Ohio, in the year 1854, was so led 
 astray by success and fortunate operations in 
 making pig-iron, as to order wood chopped 
 and ore mined the fall and winter of that year, 
 sufiicient, it was claimed, to run a certain fur- 
 nace the succeeding year " thirteen months out 
 
38 bbnner's prophecies. 
 
 of twelve.''^ As pig-iron at fifty dollars per ton 
 would make all furnace owners rich, it was 
 surely the veritable " Alladin's Lamp," and it 
 was only necessary for furnace men to toKch 
 King Pig-iron and, " mirabile dictu,^^ up would 
 come the oriental genii with untold wealth. 
 But alas! what of the times? Had the chances 
 been studied, or were furnace men courting 
 the " delusive phantom of hope " and blind- 
 folding themselves ? What did the balance 
 sheet of that year show ? A loss of fifteen 
 thousand dollars. And why? Because the 
 price of pig-iron nad tumbled in obedience to 
 the effects and mandates of that uniform, uni- 
 versal and inexorable law of over-supply and 
 ander-demand. 
 
 There were a host of furnace men at that 
 time whose thoughts were in the same chan- 
 nel, and who claimed that iron was the scep- 
 ter to wield and control the commerce of the 
 world ; and demanded fabulous prices for their 
 furnace property, ignoring and forgetting the 
 records of past history, that iron has its upa 
 and downs like other articles of manufacture; 
 and that its power to control is as potent on 
 the decline as when on the advance. And ir 
 that year 1855, without their consent and 
 beyond tneir control, and in accordance with 
 
PIG-IRCm. 39 
 
 an e:=tablished natural rule, their pig-iron waa 
 left " high and dry," and as time glided along 
 in the seven succeeding years, their property 
 would not sell for one -half the sum that before 
 a reasonable price demanded. The business 
 becp.me prostrated, and furnace men lost stacks 
 of money ; the great majority of owners were 
 compelled to realize on their stacks of pig-iron 
 and sacrifice their furnace property to keep 
 out of bankruptcy. The price continued to 
 decline to the year 1861. The writer knew 
 of merchantable hot blast charcoal pig-iron 
 selling as low as thirteen dollars per ton 
 during the winter of 1860 and '61, in the city 
 of Cincinnati. The seven years from 1854 to 
 1861 were very disastrous to the iron trade, 
 and prostrated more furnaces than any period 
 of declines in the history of this country. 
 
 The commercial reaction and financial diffi- 
 culty of 1857, produced a general calamity; 
 paralyzed the hand of industry and cramped 
 the energies of the people for four long con- 
 tinued years after that revulsion. 
 
 In the fall of 1860 the banks of Baltimore, 
 Philadelphia, Richmond and other southerc 
 cities suspended, and in the spring of 1861 
 the war of rebellion burst upon us like a clap 
 of thunder in a clear sky, creating terrible 
 
40 benner's prophecies. 
 
 disturbance in all the ramifications of busi- 
 ness, stopping the wheels of commerce and 
 producing general consternation and stagna- 
 tion in the iron trade. 
 
 I assert it here as a stubborn fact, as show- 
 ing my faith in these cycles, that if the war 
 of rebellion had commenced in 1854 or in 1864, 
 the general course of prices for pig-iron would 
 have been downward in the following seven 
 years after 1854 and the following six years 
 after 1864, succeeding the same condition to 
 eras as the price after 1845 declined five years 
 during the Mexican war of 1846, '47 and 
 '48; however, the price would not have ruled 
 BO low in 1861 and 1870 as it did in 1850. And 
 I also assert as an unquestionable fact, that if 
 we had not have had the war of rebellion from 
 1861 to 1865, the price of pig-iron nevertheless 
 would have advanced in the years 1862, '63 
 and '64, although the price would not have 
 reached so high an average as it did in uhese 
 years. 
 
 These assertions coincide with our remarks 
 heretofore, that war, panic, and elections do 
 not change the general course of prices in 
 their cycles ; however, it may be that wlt and 
 commercial revulsions are coincident with the 
 Advance and decline of the price of pig-irop in 
 
PIG 'IRON. 41 
 
 the present century. Now, again we have 
 seen the price decline in 1865, '66, '67, '68, '69 
 and '70. Six years of decline, although the 
 averages do not run so low as they did from 
 1864 to 1861. 
 
 Again the price takes the ascending scale 
 in 1871, and scarcely two years from the mini- 
 mum price of 1870 reaching the maximum in 
 1872, when the average of forty eight dollars 
 is recorded. Mark this advance, and remem- 
 ber the twenty months' advance from 1843 to 
 18451 The present cycle commencing with 
 the advance of 1871 and '72, and continuing 
 with the declines of 1873, '74 and '75, brings 
 us up to the present year 1876. 
 
 In the table of yearly average prices for 
 the year 1847, the price is higher than in 
 1846. The Financial Report gives the price 
 lower in 1847 than in 1846— there appears 
 this discrepancy between these two authori- 
 ties. Also for the yea^ 1858 the price is 
 lower than in 1859; which probably was 
 )ccasioned by the panic in the fall of 1857, 
 depressing the price in 1858 for a short time 
 below its natural and proper position. And 
 in 1865 we also notice the price depressed a 
 fraction below the price of 1866. And again, 
 in 1868 the price is lower than in 1869. These 
 
42 benner's prophecies. 
 
 irregularities in the years of declines, if rot 
 errors in compilation, are likely effects of ac- 
 cidental and temporary causes. In the years 
 of advance in the price of iron, we have none 
 of these irregularities. 
 
 It has been within the experience and ob- 
 servation of the writer; and as for himself re- 
 quires no authority for the information that 
 the price of pig-iron was very high in the 
 years 1837, 1845, 1854, 1864, and 1872, and 
 that these years were the highest priced yeara 
 since 1834; and also that the iron trade wa3 
 severely depressed in the years 1834, 1843, 
 1850, 1861, and 1870, and that these years were 
 the lowest priced years since 1834. 
 
 Now we have our data; having traveled 
 over the facts in a voyage of discovery and 
 secured our evidence, let us form our cycles 
 and see if we can make out a rule. Com- 
 mencing with the low priced year, 1834, we 
 have stated that the price advanced three 
 years to 1837; declined six years to 1843, 
 making a cycle between low prices of nine 
 years. Again the price advanced two years to 
 1845, and declined five years to 1850, making 
 a cycle of seven years. Again advanced four 
 years to 1854, and declined seven years to 1861, 
 making a cycle of eleven years. Again ad- 
 
PIG-IRON. 43 
 
 vanced three years to 1864, and declined si:S 
 years lo 1870, making a cycle of nine years. 
 Again advanced two years to 1872, and de- 
 clined three years to 1875. ^ 
 
 It will be noticed that the years of advancefi 
 are as follows : 3, 2 — 4, 3, 2. The declines are 
 6, 5 — 7, 6, and 3, up to the present, denoting 
 that the present declines are not full by two 
 years, of which it is necessary to have a cy- 
 cle of seven years in its order between lowy 
 prices. Unless history in detail does not repeat 
 itself, the future can not be judged by the 
 past, and all human calculations as to cycli- 
 cal movements in prices are as naught; and 
 there is not any thing sure and certain for 
 man at the present day and age but death 
 and taxes. 
 
 We have so far but three years of decline 
 from the high prices of 1872, and if the cycle 
 of seven years, from 1843 to 1850, is to make 
 its periodical return, and be repeated in its 
 natural order of two years of advance and five 
 of decline, then the cycle of seven years be- 
 tween low prices in its order is to be filled up 
 from 1870 to 1877; and, therefore, vve musi 
 have two years more of decline after 1875 ti 
 fill up the cycle, and we have no doubt but 
 that "history will repeat itself" here as it has 
 
14 benner's prophecies. 
 
 done in other cycles which will verify and es- 
 tablish the accuracy of our prophecy. 
 
 Let us return to 1837, after which there are 
 six years of decline to 1843, and two years of 
 advance to 1845, making a cycle in high 
 prices of eight years. Again the price de- 
 clines five years to 1850, and advances four 
 years to 1854, making a cycle of nine years. 
 Again the price declines seven years to 1881, 
 and advances three years to 1864, making a 
 cycle of ten years. Again declines six years 
 to 1870, and advances two years to 1872, mak- 
 ing a cycle of eight years. Again declines 
 three years to 1875, requiring two years more 
 of decline, and four years of advance to make 
 a cycle of nine years, the next cycle in its 
 order, which cycle in high prices ends in the 
 year 1881, this yenY will be the next highest 
 priced year for pig-iron. 
 
 The following scale will enable the reader 
 to better understand the different cycles ii 
 high and low prices, and the order in which 
 thi'v return. 
 
PIQ-IR{Jl^ 
 
 45 
 
 THE PAST. 
 
 CP8. 
 
 DOWNS. 
 
 18.35 
 
 1838 
 
 3 1886 
 
 1839 
 
 - 1837 
 
 a 1840 
 " 1841 
 
 
 
 1842 
 
 
 1843 
 
 9 1844 
 ^ 1845 
 
 1848 
 
 1847 
 
 
 5 1848 
 
 
 1849 
 
 
 1850 
 
 1851 
 
 1855 
 
 4 1852 
 ^ 1853 
 
 1856 
 
 1857 
 
 1854 
 
 7 1858 
 
 
 1859 
 
 
 1860 
 
 
 1861 
 
 1862 
 
 1865 
 
 31863 
 
 1866 
 
 1864 
 
 « 1867 
 " 1868 
 
 
 
 1869 
 
 
 1870 
 
 9 1871 
 
 1873 
 
 ^ 1872 
 
 1874 
 
 
 1875 
 
 THE FUTURE. 
 
 1878 
 
 1876 
 
 A 1879 
 
 1877 
 
 ^ 1880 
 
 
 1881 
 
 1882 
 
 
 1883 
 
 
 1884 
 
 
 7 1885 
 
 
 1886 
 
 
 1887 
 
 
 1888 
 
 1889 
 
 
 3 1890 
 
 1893 
 
 1891 
 
 1893 
 
 
 gl894 
 " 1895 
 
 
 9 1898 
 
 1896 
 
 ^ 1899 
 
 1897 
 
46 BK^7''^-^'^ PROPHECIES. 
 
 At the bottom of the scale is shown the 
 lowest priced years, 1834, 1843, 1850, 1861, 
 1870 ; and in the future 1877, 1888, and 1897. 
 
 At the top are the highest priced years, 
 1837, 1845, 1854, 1864, and 1872; and in the 
 future, 1881, 1891, and 1899. 
 
 This scale shows that the cycles of the lowest 
 priced years are in a decreasing series of 
 arithmetical progression, and in the order of 
 11, 9, 7, and repeat. The cycles of the high- 
 est priced years are in an increasing series 
 of arithmetical progression, and in the order 
 of 8, 9, 10, and repeat. Also we observe that 
 the price of pig-iron advances and declines 
 in a decreasing series of arithmetical progres- 
 sion, the advances in the order of 4, 3, and 2 
 years, and repeat; the declines in the order 
 of 7, 6, and 5 years, and repeat. 
 
 Since 1834 and including 1875, the price of 
 pig-iron has declined twenty-seven years, and 
 advanced fourteen years, making the ratio of 
 declines to the advances as two to one. The 
 present cycle ending in 1877, will complete 
 five cycles in low prices since 1834; the five 
 cycles in high prices will be completed Jn 
 1881. The return of the commencement of 
 the dififerent cycles in their periodical order 
 
PIG-IRON. 47 
 
 is twenty-seven years, one-half the ordinary 
 life-time of man. 
 
 On page 45, the year of advances are grouped 
 together, under the head of ups; and the 
 years of declines under the head of downs 
 for the old series, and continued in the future 
 for the new series. We are now in the cj^cle 
 of seven years between low priced years, and 
 at the beginning of the fourth year of de- 
 clines in this cycle, two more years will com- 
 plete this cycle, and also the old series of the 
 ups and downs. 
 
 In the year 1878 we shall enter a new se- 
 ries of ups and downs; the advances 3om- 
 mencing with four years, and declines with 
 seven years, making a cycle of eleven years 
 in low prices. Also we are now in the cycle 
 of nine years in high prices, and in 1881 the 
 present high priced year cycle will be com- 
 plete, and end. And after 1881 we shall enter 
 the cycle of ten years in high prices, complet- 
 ing this cycle in 1891. 
 
 In the years 1878, 79, '80, and '81, the price 
 of pig-iron will be on the ascending scale, the 
 iron trade will again be prosperous ^ and in these 
 years, especially the last two, 1880 and 1881, 
 money will be made very fast in this busi- 
 ness, unless trammeled by unwise legislation ] 
 
48 benner's prophecies. 
 
 upon the currency and tariff; and in the 
 year 188 J, in the months of September and 
 October, the price will be at the highest. After 
 these months in that year, the price will have 
 a downward tendency and begin to tumble, 
 and it will be fortunate for all persons who 
 may be readers of this book, and may regu- 
 late their business affairs according to the 
 light here shown, to close out their invest- 
 ment at a good price in that year, and i^ 
 would be to the interest and benefit of out 
 whole country if our iron men, statesmen, 
 and others, would only take advantage of thig 
 information, which would be the means of 
 placing more real money in the pockets of the 
 people and coffers of the nation, than the 
 wonderful alchemy at Washington, which is 
 invoked by politicians to transform old rags 
 into beautiful yet numberless greenbacks. 
 
 When the iron trade is depressed, so is 
 trade in every department of manufacture 
 dull and unprofitable. It is to the interests 
 of Trade Unions to ponder and well consider 
 these predictions; as upon their certainty, 
 their losses by strikes for higher wages, or to 
 maintain former rates in these years of de- 
 cline could be averted, by knowing the un 
 changeable tendencies of the times. 
 
PIG-IRON. 49 
 
 We have in the beginning predicted that 
 the daily price in 1877 will run below twenty 
 dollars per ton ; and in 1881 above fifty dol- 
 lars per ton. The inspiration that directs this 
 prediction is found in the fact that " one ex-~^ 
 treme invariably follows another," and that 
 the daily price runs below twenty dollars per 
 ton in all the low priced years, and above 
 fifty dollars per ton in all the high priced , 
 years. ^ 
 
 The years 1882, '83, '84, '85, 'SQ, '87, and '88 
 will be years of decline in the price of pig- 
 iron, and years of depression in this business. 
 These seven years of decline will be a repe- 
 tition of the seven years from 1854 to 1861. 
 We have had but one of these seven year de- 
 clines since 1834, and it would be to the ben- 
 efit of this country if we should never have 
 another; however, the writer is compelled by 
 the rule of cycles to point it out in the fu- 
 ture, and warn the iron trade of this impend- 
 ing danger. And we proclaim it, to all who 
 may be readers of this book, and engaged in 
 any way in the iron trade, to be prepared 
 after the year 1881 for breakers ahead 1 1 
 What we have to say on these cycles m 
 prices we are positive of, and we may as well, 
 right here, state that this is a positive book. 
 4 
 
60 benner's prophecies. 
 
 In the repetition of these seven years of der 
 cline, which these cycles surel,y indicate, ev- 
 ery furnace in this country will be slaughtered, 
 unless backed by large capital and ability to 
 stand great loss, or hold their iron, stop their 
 furnaces, husband resources, and wait for bet- 
 ter times, as pointed out in these pages. 
 These declines will not encounter a general 
 panic, as did the former seven year declines 
 in the panic of 1857, or the present five year 
 declines in the panic of 1873 ; and, therefore, 
 they will be more gradual. 
 
 In the years 1889, '90, and '91, the price of 
 pig-iro 1 will be on the advancing scale again, 
 and will be three years reaching the highest 
 price in 1891. This will be a period of money 
 making in the iron business, and these will 
 be three years of general prosperity in all de- 
 partments of trade and industry. 
 
 After 1891 the pries of pig-iron will decline 
 for six years, and these declines will again be 
 disastrous to this business; in fact, all busi- 
 ness will be on the same retreating road to 
 hard pan, as they are in this year, and will be 
 in the next, as the iron and other trades and 
 industries after 1891 will be under the effects 
 of a commercial and financial revulsion. a.» 
 shown hereafter under the head of " Panic " 
 
PIG-IRON. 
 
 The writer now claims that his showing in 
 the preceding pages of past prices in pig-iron 
 the cycles between high and low priced years 
 and their periodical return, has a legitimate 
 bearing upon the future, that no one can 
 gainsay, and no human knowledge can contra 
 diet; the predictions are based upon sound 
 analogy; their fulfillment is demonstrated to 
 a certainty ; and that time will surely verify 
 the prophecies. 
 
 The changes of the ups and downs in 
 prices and cycles in the iron trade are peri- 
 odical and not hap-hazard, and succeed each 
 other in a gradual and natural order. 
 
 After the price of pig-iron has declined 
 from the high price of fift^ dollars per ton 
 down to as low as thirty dollars per ton, the 
 saying that then is the time to invest in the 
 iron business, is the " ignus fatuus " that has 
 swamped the iron men of this country in not 
 having a clear conception of the number cf 
 years in which the declines continue. 
 
 We can not determine when the price of 
 any product or commodity is at the highest 
 0! lowest by the knowledge of when prices 
 begin to rise or fall ; we can only determine 
 that by the number of years in the ups and 
 
62 benner's prophecies. 
 
 downs comprising each dififerent cycle in high 
 and low prices. 
 
 I will record here some axioms which must 
 Ije admitted, because they are self-evident. 
 
 That prices are high when they are above 
 the cost of production on a declining market. 
 
 That prices are low when they are below 
 the cost of production on an advancing mar- 
 ket. 
 
 When the price of an article declines below 
 cost, production will diminish until demand 
 increases and prices advance. 
 
 When the price of an article advances 
 above cost, production will increase until de- 
 mand ceases and prices decline. 
 
 And that the cost of production is the 
 wages of labor, interest on capital, and wear 
 of land and machinery. 
 
 When the price of pig-iron is thirty dollars 
 per ton, it may be either high or low, and like 
 a certain game with cards, the points depend 
 upon the trumps that are out. 
 
 If the cost of production is above on a de- 
 clining market, then thirty dollars per ton is 
 high ; if the cost of production is below on au 
 advancing market, then thirty dollars per ton 
 is low. 
 
 The ratio of advance in price exceeds th? 
 
PIG-IRON. 63 
 
 ratio of increase in cost of production, and 
 there is money made very fast in the iron 
 business during the 2, 3, and 4 years of ad- 
 vance in price. 
 
 On the other hand, the ratio of decline itk 
 price exceeds the ratio of decrease in the cost 
 of production, and furnaces lose money on the 
 5, 6, and 7 years alternately of the decline in 
 price, unless wages and expenses are curtailed 
 in time. 
 
 To apply our Cast Iron Rule, when the 
 jrice of pig-iron has been as high as fifty dol- 
 lars per ton, the price in the succeeding 
 years has invariably declined to twenty dol- 
 lars per ton ; and, vice versa^ when the price 
 has been as low as twenty dollars per ton, the 
 price afterward, in a certain number of years, 
 Has advanced as high as fifty dollars per ton. 
 
 The iron business is a very uncertain trade 
 for persons to engage in who are not ac- 
 quainted with the number of years in which 
 the price advances, as they are only from two 
 to four years, while the declines are from five 
 to seven years. 
 
 The enormous home production and excess- 
 ive importation of foreign iron in 1871 and 
 1872 produced a break in prices, and with the 
 over production of 1873 and 1874, and the 
 
f54 benner's prophecies. 
 
 panic of 1873, the iron trade is again pro6« 
 trated. 
 
 To persons not acquainted with the rules 
 by which these changes occur, as regulated by 
 an overruling providence, it is to them a 
 wonderful illustration of the peculiarities of 
 trade and the uncertainty of prices, as at-* 
 tempted to be explained by our limited 
 knowledge of supply and demand. 
 
 In the spring of 1872 the country was pros- 
 perous and advancing beyond all past his- 
 tory ; railroads were extending their lines 
 across the continent in every direction, mark- 
 ing the most gigantic railroad expansion the 
 world ever beheld; creating an unpreceden- 
 ted demand for iron, giving an impetus to the 
 manufacture thereof, that had no parallel in 
 the history of this or any other country, run- 
 ning the production to nearly three millions 
 of tons in that year. All at once comes a 
 rsnap and a crash : a reaction sets in so speedy 
 and terrible, so general and decided, that we 
 become amazed at the mysterious workings 
 of this trade and the decrees of an all-wise 
 Providence. 
 
 The decline in the price of pig-iron since 
 1872 has been over fifty per cent. 
 Iron masters are crying out, " Give us pro- 
 
PIG-IRON. „ ''>6 
 
 tectioii or we are ruined," while the si ent 
 whisper to "reduce the product" is not will- 
 ingly and generally heard. The Secretary of 
 the Iron and Steel Association reports thai 
 out of 701 furnaces on the first of February, 
 1874, there were 398 stacks out of blast ; nev- 
 «irtheless there were fifty new furnaces com 
 pleted in 1873, thirty-eight in 1874, and forty- 
 six stacks in the course of erection, and othei 
 new furnaces projected in 1875. What blind- 
 Aess and what folly 1 1 
 
 The remedy at present is not to be found in 
 a tarifi" alone on foreign importation ; a home 
 competition is here in our midst more formid- 
 able than all foreign competition combined. 
 Seven Hundred Furnaces, some of which 
 cast one hundred tons of metal per day, are ready 
 to swell the home production on the first show 
 of an advance in price, beyond the most ex- 
 traordinary consumption, and producing stag- 
 nation more disastrous than ever. 
 
 It is a hard alternative for furnace men to 
 be compelled by the "logic of facts and 
 events," to blow out their furnaces and sus- 
 pend business for so long a time, but to be 
 "forewarned is to be forearmed;" is it not the 
 part of wisdom and policy to stop before the cap- 
 ital is gone and stock unprofitably consumed ! 
 
56 benner's prophecies. 
 
 We have not seen, in our experionce or 6* 
 servation, neither do the facts and records Oii 
 modern history show, a i.»drmanent advance 
 until after five years from the highest price : 
 and is the presen-t decline and cycle to be an 
 'Exception to all others? and in the face of, 
 and succeeding the greatest supplying capac- 
 ity the world has ever witnessed ? and when 
 other manufactures and trades, and all rail- 
 roading is depressed and unprofitable, and 
 when all Europe stands ready to supply any 
 demand at pauper prices outside of this 
 country ? 
 
 Verily, the hand-writing is upon the wall 
 and so plain it needs no magi to decipher 
 what it means. 
 
 HOGS. 
 
 The history of the Hog Crop and its va- 
 rious manufactures and products is intimatelj 
 connected with the growth and progress of 
 the Corn Crop, and the price of one now 
 generally fluctuates with the price of the 
 - other. 
 
 The packing of pork before the era of rail- 
 roads was confined to very narrow limits, and 
 there was not much value placed upon the 
 hog at that period, as will be seen by the fol- 
 
HOGS. 6"? 
 
 lowing sketch written by Charles Cist, of 
 Cincinnati, Ohio : 
 
 "Hog raising has always been a profitable, 
 and therefore a favorite department of farm- 
 ing in what was formerly called the West, 
 but which now constitutes the great center, aa 
 respects population, of our rapidly expanding 
 Tepublib. The rich harvests, to be had sim- 
 ply for the gathering, yielded by the oak, 
 beech, hickory, and other trees of our forests, 
 popularly termed mast, formed, to a great ex- 
 tent, for many years, fattening food for swine. 
 The roots in the woods, with the natural 
 grasses, supplied subsistence during the spring 
 and summer months, so that the sole expeuise 
 to the farmer, in raising hogs, was the feeding 
 of those too young for market, and of thost 
 reserved for stock and for increase, at the cost 
 of the Indian corn necessary for their wintei 
 sustenance. In early days, and before the in 
 troduction of railways, this cereal would not 
 repay the expense of transportation to mar- 
 ket, and therefore hardly entered into the con- 
 sideration of what it cost to raise hogs. In 
 fact, taking into view the prolific character 
 of the animal, and the small amount of labor 
 and expense involved in its care and cure, it 
 was the general impression in the West that it 
 
58 BENNER'S PR0PHEC1E3. 
 
 cost nothing for a man to make his own pork 
 and for a long time vast quantities of slaugh 
 tered hogs were sold in this region at pricef 
 ranging from seventy-five cents to one dollat 
 per hundred weight, an^ 'considered suffi- 
 cientiy remunerative at these rates. The 
 writer has seen in the southern portion of 
 Illinois, and within twenty-five miles' of land 
 carriage to the Ohio, immense quanties of 
 Indian corn ofiered at six cents per bushel ; 
 yet &> this low figure the grain would net 
 bear transportation to the river. 
 
 "The farmer, unless in the neighborhood of 
 a distillery, was compelled to feed his crop tc 
 his cattle or hogs. Even at a much laten 
 date, between the scarcity of timber for fuel, 
 and the low price of corn, large quantities of 
 the latter article have furnished fuel in fcht 
 prairie region of the State referred to. 
 
 " As the cultivation of the country opened 
 and the wood ranges became more restricted, 
 it was found that it paid better, while it waa 
 more convenient, to feed the hogs on corn than 
 to turn them out to the woods, as they grew 
 faster and increased more rapidly in fat as 
 well as in flesh, while the quality both of 
 meat and lard, was thereby greatly enhanced 
 in VAlue. At this period, for want of good 
 
HOGS. 
 
 59 
 
 Toads, grain to a limited extent only was stld 
 to the whisky distillers; its low price not 
 permitting it to be carried by wagons to the 
 distilleries unless from short distances. Undei 
 these circumstances pork packers commenced 
 at various points in the West for the supply 
 of the eastern markets, while the rapid in- 
 crease of hogs kept pace with the correspond- 
 ing improvement of the western country and 
 the enlargement of its corn crops. • 
 
 " Then came *>he era of railroads. It was at 
 .'ince seen that hogs could be delivered at 
 market points, either East or West, at less 
 expense, in shorter time and in better condi- 
 tion, than they had hitherto been taken by 
 droves. There was also no giving out of the 
 hogs on the route. The natural result was to 
 give a new impulse to the raising of swine; 
 and from that period the hog became one of 
 the most important staples of the country." 
 
 In examining the history of prices for hogs 
 the past half century, we find that the price 
 ruled very low up to the year 1830. This was 
 the period when there was so little demand 
 in Cincinnati for any portion of the hog other 
 than hams, shoulders, sides and lard, that thi 
 heads, spare ribs, neck pieces, back bones, etc^ 
 were regularly thrown into the Ohio rive/ tc 
 
60 benner's prophecies. 
 
 get rid of them. Afterwards, in 1835 the pro- 
 ducts of the hog became more valuable, and in 
 the year 1836, in the city of New York, the 
 price of mess pork advanced to thirty dollars 
 per barrel, and lard to eighteen cents pel 
 pound. (See Finance Report of 1863.) This 
 year was a very high priced year for hogs and 
 their product. I have not been able to get 
 the average price for fat hogs at this time, as 
 Wiere were probably none compiled; therefore 
 we are compelled to take the price of prod- 
 uct as we find it given by official authority. 
 After the year 1836 the price of product 
 declined each year to 1842. Mess pork was 
 quoted in New York at six dollars and seventy- 
 five cents per barrel. The highest quotation 
 in the decade from 1840 to 1850, was in the 
 year 1847, the great famine year in Ireland. 
 Mess pork in New York City was sixteen 
 dollars per barrel, eleven years from the high 
 prices of 1836. Mark this ! 
 
 I have not been able to collect reliable 
 yearly average prices for fat hogs prior to the 
 year 1855, as there appears to be no sources 
 accessible to obtain them; and as I have not 
 the evidence to show any noticeable periodi- 
 city or regularity existing in the return of 
 low prices before that time, I therefore com 
 
30O& 
 
 61 
 
 mence my table of averages in the year 1855, 
 which is twenty-one years ago, and forty years 
 since 1836, the commencement of our cycles 
 in high prices for product and hogs. 
 
 Table of average prices for fat hogs at Cin- 
 cinnati, Ohio, since 1855, and the whole num- 
 ber of hogs packed in the West during the 
 winter seasons of 1849, '50 to 1874, 75, in- 
 clusive, as compiled by the Cincinnati Price 
 Ourrent 
 
 YEARS. 
 
 NO. OF HOGS, 
 
 PRICE Nm. 
 
 QBOSS, 
 
 1849 . 
 
 . 1,652,220 . 
 
 
 
 1850 . 
 
 . 1,332,867 . 
 
 
 
 1851 . 
 
 . 1,182,846 . 
 
 
 
 1852 . 
 
 . 2,201,110 . 
 
 
 
 i853 . 
 
 . 2,534,770 . 
 
 
 
 1854 . 
 
 . 2,124,404 . 
 
 
 
 185-5 . 
 
 . ^-^,489,502 . 
 
 $6.05 
 
 $4.84 
 
 1856 . 
 
 . 1,818,468 . 
 
 6.23 
 
 4.99 
 
 1857 . 
 
 . 2,210,778 . 
 
 5.16 
 
 4.13 
 
 1858 . 
 
 . 2,465,552 . 
 
 6.58 
 
 5.27 
 
 1859 . 
 
 . 2,350,822 . . 
 
 6.21 . 
 
 4.97 
 
 1860 . 
 
 . 2,155,702 . . 
 
 5.97 
 
 4.78 
 
 1861 . 
 
 . 2,893,666 . , 
 
 3.28 
 
 2.63 
 
 1862 . 
 
 . 4,069,520 . . 
 
 4.45 
 
 3.56 
 
 1863 . 
 
 . 3,261,105 . . 
 
 7.00 
 
 5.60 
 
 1864 . 
 
 . 2,422,779 . . 
 
 14.62 
 
 11.70 
 
 1865 . 
 
 . 1,785,955 . . 
 
 11.96 
 
 9.57 
 
 1866 . 
 
 . 2,490,791 . . 
 
 7.52 
 
 6.02 
 
 1867 
 
 . 2,781,084 . . 
 
 8.25 
 
 6.60 
 
 1868 . 
 
 . 2,499,873 . . 
 
 10.51 
 
 8.41 
 
 1869 . 
 
 . 2,635,312 . . 
 
 11.82 
 
 9.46 
 
62 
 
 benner's prophecies. 
 
 YEA Rib. 
 
 NO. OF HOGS. 
 
 PRICE NET. 
 
 GR0S8. 
 
 1870 . . 3,695,251 . . $8.25 m.QO 
 
 1871 . . 4,831,558 . . 5.45 4.36 
 
 1872 . . 5,410,314 . . 4.90 3.92 
 
 1873 . . 5,466,200 . . 5.73 4.5^ 
 
 1874 . . 5,566,226 . . 8.74 6.99 
 Average price at Cincinnati for 20 years :s 
 
 $7.43 net or $5.94 gross. 
 
 The difference that Cincinnati pays above 
 the average for the West is as follows: 
 
 1872 1873 1874 
 
 Cinoin'ti net. $4.90 $5.73 $8.74 
 
 West " 4.65 5.43 8.33 
 
 25 30 41 
 
 These dates refer to the years in which the 
 crop was made. The packing season com- 
 mences in November and ends in the following 
 March. It is shown in the table that the av- 
 erage price for hogs was greater in 1856 than 
 .n 1855, but less in 1857. This depression in 
 the advance was produced by the panic, how- 
 '^ver, in 1858, the general course of price 
 asserts itself with an average higher than 
 either of the three years preceding it. After 
 the high priced year 1858, the average starts 
 out on the descending scale, declines in 1859, 
 *60 and '61, making three years of declines 
 with an average in 186j. of two dollars and 
 
HOGS. 83 
 
 iixty three cents per hundred weight gross. 
 Tl)i8 year was the beginning of the war, when 
 farmers were almost compelled to give away 
 their hogs on account of the low prices that 
 prevailed. 
 
 It is a well known fact to the farmers and 
 packers, that when the price of hogs advanced 
 in 1862, '63 and '64, that all parties made 
 money ; and that these years of advances cul- 
 'ninated in 1864 with an average of eleven 
 dollars and seventy cents per hundred 
 weight gross, which is the highest yearly 
 average price ever paid in this country for 
 hogs. In the years 1865 and '66, the average 
 price declines, making only two years of de- 
 cline after 1864. In 1867 the price takes the 
 ascending scale, — higher in 1868, and still 
 higher in 1869, with an average of nine dollars 
 and forty six cents per hundred weight gross, 
 making three years of advance after 1866. 
 After the year 1869 the price took the descend- 
 ing scale; lower in 1870, '71 and 72, getting 
 down to the average of three dollars and ninety 
 cents per hundred weight gross, making three 
 years of decline after 1869. In the year 1873 
 the price advanced notwithstanding the great 
 revulsion in trade of that year, and continued 
 to advance in 1874 ; and the average will be 
 
64 benner's prophecies. 
 
 higner in 1875 than in 1874, making three 
 years of advances since 1872. 
 
 Ngw if^t us go back in review and form our 
 cycles. Commencing with 1836, a high priced 
 year in product, we find the next high priced 
 year in product to be the year 1847, eleven 
 years from 1836. Extending this eleven years 
 forvA-'ird we have the high priced year 1858; 
 our commencing year in high average prices 
 for hogs. Extending the time eleven years 
 further gives us the high priced year 1869, 
 making three eleven year cycles in high 
 prices. 
 
 Again let us return to the year 1850, a low 
 priced year for hogs, and add eleven to that 
 year, and we have the year 1861 a low priced 
 year; add eleven again, and we have 1872, a 
 low priced year, making three eleven-year 
 cycles in low prices. 
 
 But we are traveling too fast, and we must 
 return to 1847, a high-priced year. After this 
 year the price declined three years to 1850, 
 and then advanced three years to 1858, mak- 
 ing a shorter cycle of six years in high prices; 
 also after 1853 the price declined two years to 
 1855, and then advanced three years to J 858, 
 making a cycle of five years in high prices, 
 and these two shorter cycles from i847 to 
 
HOGS. 65 
 
 l858, making an eleven jtai cycle. After 
 1858 the price declined three years to 1861, 
 and then advanced three years to 1864, mak- 
 ing a short cycle of six years in high prices. 
 Also after 1864 the price declined two years to 
 1866, and afterwards advanced three years to 
 1869, making a cycle of five years in high 
 prices, and completing another long cycle of 
 eleven years. Now, again, after 1869 the price 
 declined three years to 1872, and then ad- 
 vanced three years to 1875, making a cycle 
 again of six years in high prices, and com- 
 pleting one of the short cycles composing the 
 present eleven year cycle, which will end 
 with a short cycle of five years in the year 
 1880. Returning to 1850, the next low priced 
 year was 1855, making a cycle of five years in 
 low prices. After 1855 the next low priced 
 year was 1861, making a cycle of six years in 
 low prices. Again after 1861 the next low 
 priced year was 1866, making a cycle of fivt 
 years in low prices. After 1866 the following 
 low priced year was 1872, making a cycle of 
 six years in low prices. 
 
 It will be noticed that the short cy les com' ^ 
 posing the eleven year cycles in high prices, 
 since 1847, have been alternately six and five 
 years; and the short cycles in low prices, since/ 
 5 
 
66 benner's prophecies. 
 
 1850, have been alternately five and six 
 years. 
 
 The axiom, " History repeats itself," implies 
 a cyclical movement in human affairs, and aa 
 it is a generally received opinion that every 
 thing moves in cycles, especially in nature, 
 we are forced to predict, judging the future 
 by the past, that in the years 1876 and '77 the 
 price of hogs must decline in the average, so 
 as to fill the required number of years neces- 
 sary to complete the present five and eleven 
 year cycles in low prices ending in 1877; also 
 after two years of decline there must be three 
 years of advances to the year 1880, to com- 
 plete the next five and eleven year cycles in 
 high prices, and therefore demonstrating to a 
 certainty and to the comprehension of all, the 
 fulfillment of our second series of prophecies. 
 
 On the following page is a scale of years to 
 enable the reader to see the different cycles 
 in their order, also the ups and downs in 
 prices for the past and in the future. 
 
 This scale shows the years, of lowest and 
 highest prices for the hog and its products 
 lince 1836, coming down in five and six year 
 sycles after 1847. At the top of the scale are 
 the highest priced years, 1836, 1847, 1853, 
 1858, 1864, 1869, and 1875 for the past, and 
 
HOOb. 
 
 87 
 
 PAST. 
 
 UPS. 
 
 DOWNS, 
 
 1856 
 
 1859 
 
 1857 
 
 186C 
 
 1858 
 
 1861 
 
 1862 
 
 
 1863 
 
 1865 
 
 1864 
 
 1866 
 
 1867 
 
 1870 
 
 1868 
 
 1871 
 
 1869 
 
 1872 
 
 1873 
 
 
 1874 
 
 
 1875 
 
 
 FUTURE. 
 
 1878 
 
 1876 
 
 1879 
 
 1877 
 
 1880 
 
 
 1884 
 
 1881 
 
 1885 
 
 1882 
 
 1886 
 
 1883 
 
 1889 
 
 
 1890 
 
 1887 
 
 1891 
 
 1888 
 
68 BENNER-S PROPHECIES. 
 
 1880, 1886, and 1891 for the future. At the 
 bottom are the lowest priced years, 1850, 1855, 
 1861, 1866, 1872, for the past, and 1877, 1883, 
 and 1888 for the future. 
 
 We have now passed out of the cycle of six 
 years in high prices, the year 1875 closing this 
 cycle. The next cycle in high prices will re- 
 quire five years ending in 1880 ; at that time 
 the price of hogs will be high. 
 
 We are also in the cycle of five years in low 
 prices, this cycle ending in 1877, whe^i the 
 price of hogs will be low, and farmers com- 
 plaining about the prices they are compelled 
 to accept for their hogs. Pig-iron will also be 
 at a low price at that time, placing agricul- 
 ture and manufacture at a low ebb ; prices 
 low all round will make "hard times" and 
 "dull trade." 
 
 After 1877 agriculture and manufacture 
 will go hand in hand, the price of hogs and 
 pig-iron will be on the ascending scale, busi- 
 ness in all departments will improve up to 
 the year 1880 and 1881, after that time prices 
 will decline and advance alternately in each 
 different branch of trade, until the year 1891, 
 when general business will culminate through" 
 out the country, especially with iron and 
 
HOGS. 69 
 
 aogs, two of the most important and leading 
 branches of trade. 
 
 It is to be observed that the price of hogs 
 do not go up and down with the number of 
 hogs packed. By referring to the column in 
 1858, d high priced year, the packing exceeds 
 any previous year with the exception of 1853. 
 In 1862 the price advanced with the enormous 
 packing of four millions of hogs. In 1869 the 
 price advanced, while the packing exceeded 
 that of 1868 ; and also the same may be said 
 of 1873 and 1874 over the packing of 1872. 
 
 The price of hogs invariably advance three 
 years in succession. In the year 1859 the 
 price declined, while the packing was short 
 of 1858. Also in 1860 the price declined, 
 while the packing was short of 1859. In 
 1865 the price declined, while the packing 
 was short of 1864 600,000 hogs. 
 
 In some of the years, as the packing in- 
 creased or decreased in number, so the price 
 advanced or declined; an increase of packing 
 diminished the price, and vice versa. There- 
 fore it is not safe to rely too much upon re- 
 sults based upon the number of hogs packed. 
 
 The price of hogs decline two and three 
 years alternately in the cycles of low priced 
 years. 
 
70 benner's prophecies. 
 
 The aggregate number of hogs in all the 
 states and territories, as estimated by the De- 
 partment of Agriculture at Washington in 
 1873, was 32,632,000; in 1874, was 30,860,900. 
 The packing in 1873 and 1874 was about one- 
 sixth of the whole number in each year. 
 Chicago packs more pork than any city in the 
 United States or in Europe. Total number 
 packed in 1874 was 1,690,348 hogs — nearly 
 one-third of the whole packing of 1874. 
 
 As the winter packing of hogs is only about 
 one-sixth of the total number produced, it is 
 an important question what becomes of the 
 other five-sixths, and what proportion is an- 
 nually killed. I must acknowledge this to be 
 a task, to undertake to make out such an ac- 
 count by any system outside of the art of 
 "double-entry book-keeping." Almost ever}^ 
 farmer's family, for domestic consumption, kill 
 from one to twenty or more hogs every year, 
 and there has never been any statistics com- 
 piled for a record of the number thus slaugh- 
 tered. 
 
 There were engaged in farming, according 
 to the census of 1870, 5,922,471 persons, about 
 one-sixth of the population ; if each farmer had 
 killed on the average but one hog, the aggre- 
 gate would exceed the total winter packing foi 
 
lious. 71 
 
 commerce of 1874. Then we must considei 
 the number of hogs that have been slaugh- 
 tered by butchers in the cities and towns, the 
 number that annually die with disease, and 
 also the number that is reserved for stock and 
 for increase. From these facts we can under- 
 stand why the price is not altogether governed 
 by the number of hogs packed in our large 
 cities ; since 1868 the number of hogs packed 
 has yearly increased. 
 
 Every farmer, feeder, drover, and packer, 
 should know the years in which the price of 
 hogs ard to advance or decline. There are 
 seldom any two years in succession in which 
 the average price ranges the same. In the 
 table of averages, there are two years in which 
 they are the same, 1867 and 1870; however, 
 they are three years apart, one on the ad- 
 vance, the other on. the decline. 
 
 In the years 1858, 1864, and 1869, a great 
 many persons made money on hogs, and, 
 elated with good fortune, were tempted to try 
 again in 1859, 1865, and 1870; and through 
 ignorance of the workings of the ups and 
 do??-ns in prices, were caught with one dol- 
 lar corn-fed into six dollar hogs, and they lost 
 the profits and gains of the preceding years, 
 and no doubt the same will be repeated by 
 
72 benner's prophecies. 
 
 others in 1876; as 1875 was a profitable and 
 a high priced year. We see continually some 
 of our best traders " caught out in the wet/* 
 and to some persons it will always require a 
 Columbus to show them how the egg is to 
 stand upon its end. 
 
 The price that hogs will bring each yeai 
 fan be approximated by the course of the past 
 iverages; however, it is governed by supply 
 and demand, and state of trade in reference 
 to the past commercial revulsion and the fu- 
 ture coming crisis and the condition of the 
 currency. Periodical revulsions do not in 
 their effects change the general course of 
 prices in their cycles, but they have a tempo- 
 rary influence to depress prices below their 
 natural and proper position, and an after in- 
 fluence to keep down the averages to lower 
 limits. If the people would only learn such 
 years and stay out of this business, or confine 
 themselves to smaller trade, when these de- 
 clines in prices are to take place, especially 
 after panic years, they would not complain so 
 n:uch of " hard times " and "high taxes." 
 
 Farmers think that packers do not pay a 
 m.^cient price for hogs, Tie a prices are on 
 the decline. 
 
HOGS. 73 
 
 Packers think they are paying too much 
 for hogs, when prices are on the advance. 
 
 Now in both cases, farmers and packers are 
 at a loss to know what the future development 
 of prices will be. 
 
 In the farmer's case, he receives all there is 
 in the market, whether it covers cost or not, 
 and the packer loses money on the further 
 decline. 
 
 In the packer's case, he pays the market 
 price, and makes money on the further ad- 
 vance. 
 
 It is ai established fact that the quantity 
 of hogs in this country is ruled and governed 
 by the current price of corn. 
 
 In the commencement of the periodical ad- 
 vance in the price of corn, and until it reaches 
 the highest price, large shoats are marketed 
 and butchered, the hogs that should be win- 
 tered are slaughtered ; small farmers and feed- 
 ers sell their stock hogs in the fall and win- 
 ter, to large feeders and speculators. In 
 consequence of hogs being massed they get 
 overlaid by large numbers bedding together 
 during the cold and inclemency of the winter; 
 and without the use of the kitchen-slops, and 
 by the use of soft, frosted, and rotten corn, 
 peculiar to these years, they become diseased 
 
74 benner's prophecies. 
 
 and therefore more die by cholera, thumps, 
 and other diseases. 
 
 On the other hand when the price of corn 
 h€gins its periodical decline, and until it gets 
 to the lowest, farmers and small feeders keep 
 their stock hogs, and by the more equal dis- 
 tribution in smaller numbers, hogs liye, are 
 more healthy and plenty. Farmers think it 
 will pay better to feed their corn to stock 
 hogs, and raise more young hogs, than to sell 
 their corn on a declining market ; but in this 
 they are mistaken, as they are unknowingly 
 producing cheap pork for the whole world, by 
 an over production, the surplus of which has 
 to go out of the country for consumers. 
 
 The amount of hog products exported cor- 
 responds inversely with the prices; when- 
 ever we export large amounts they are at low 
 prices, and when prices are high our exports 
 a>T8 inconsiderable. 
 
 To sell corn and hogs at the market price 
 in the fall to others who have not studied the 
 chances, the production in the years of de- 
 cline is made profitable by them ,vho know 
 wlien to come in out of the storm. vVhen the 
 p?jriodical advance in the price of hogs is ap- 
 proaching, the butchers, drovers, and packers 
 secure contracts by subtle arguments with the 
 
uoGs. 75 
 
 .ariners for their hogs, and as a consequence 
 the farmers are not benefited to the full ex- 
 tent of the advance, as they are induced to 
 engage too soon, therefore they lose the op« 
 portunities which belong to them. It is the 
 usual expression and opinion that when a 
 farmer has his hogs fat, that then is the time 
 to sell ; this depends upon what cycle of sea- 
 sons and prices are ruling in the markets of 
 our country. If on the periodical decline, 
 after a year of short crops and high prices 
 the previous year, such as 1858, '64, '69, and 
 '75, then would be the time to sell. If on the 
 periodical advance after a year of good crops 
 and low prices the previous year, such as 1861, 
 '66, and 72, then if you have a little " specula- 
 tion in your eye," it no doubt would be a good 
 time, and pay you to hold for a rise. 
 
 As buyers and sellers of products we can 
 only be gainers by scarcity and high prices, 
 and that only for that article which was ob- 
 tained when plenty and at low prices. 
 
 Speculating in hogs is generally with the 
 majority a matter of Jveads and tails; when 
 successful they are owlish wise, and of course 
 know all about it; but when vjdi'-i €101. the 
 " devil is in the hog^ It is a most signifi- 
 cant fact in these price cycles, and a confirma* 
 
76 benner's prophecies. 
 
 tion of the theor}^ that God is in prices — that 
 the price of corn and hogs could advance in 
 the years 1873, '74, and '75, during and im- 
 Dcediately succeeding the great revulsion in 
 trade of 1873, and when all business was be- 
 coming depressed and prostrated in manrfao- 
 tnring industry, trade unions striking to 
 maintain former rates, mills and furnaces 
 closing their doors, merchants complaining of 
 dull times, millions of laborers and mechanics 
 idle, and no work to do. Yet we say, notwit? 
 standing all this, corn, hogs, and provisionii 
 have advanced in price in these years ; for the 
 cycle of six years in high prices from 1869 to 
 1875 was to be filled, and it Avould have been 
 contrary to the order and laws of nature to 
 have been otherwise. 
 
 CORN. 
 
 This cereal is known as the largest of all the 
 grain crops, and one of the most useful prod- 
 ucts known to man It is the chief basis for 
 provisions, and a very important element in 
 OUT breadstuff supplies. Notwithstanding the 
 greater value of v/heat per bushel, corn is the 
 giTTiit item in the prosperity of the West, and 
 upon the good price of corn depends the wel- 
 fare of the fai mer. A large and over-estimated 
 
CORN. 77 
 
 corn crop, that reduces the price to a nominal 
 sum, makes farmers feel poor, and in turn re- 
 acts upon merchants and manufacturers, an«l 
 brings about dull trade. 
 
 Our agric'iltural products and stock are the 
 oasis and si pport of all commerce, and of all 
 I'lsiness and trade in every department of 
 human activity, and upon which all other 
 industries rest. Their scarcity or abundance 
 depends upon the seasons, and mostly require 
 a year to bring them to perfection and ma- 
 turity, while manufactured commodities can 
 generally be produced in any quantity, and 
 in a much shorter time. 
 
 The commerce of the world is so dependent 
 upon agricultural productions, that to ascer- 
 tain their probable annual amount, has be- 
 come an object of the greatest utility. A 
 scarcity or abundance of crops affects the ex- 
 changes of the world, and tends to forecast 
 future prices, and to give some clue to future 
 production. 
 
 Estimated yield of corn in the United 
 States from 1840 to 1874— the years 1862, 
 '63, and '64, for Northern States only — and 
 average prices from 1862 to 1874 inclusive, 
 collecte 1 from agricultural and statistical re* 
 oorts. 
 
7^ 
 
 BENNEKS PROPHECIES. 
 
 /EARi,: 
 
 FBOB UCTION. A VERA 9& 
 
 PRICES, era 
 
 1840 . . 
 
 . 377,000,000 . . 
 
 
 1850 . . 
 
 . 592,000,000 . . 
 
 
 186C . . 
 
 . 838,000,000 . . 
 
 
 1862 . . 
 
 . 533,000,000 . . 
 
 . 34 
 
 1863 . . 
 
 . 397,000,000 . . . 
 
 69 
 
 1864 . . 
 
 . 530,000,000 . • . 
 
 99 
 
 1865 . . 
 
 . 704,000,000 . . , 
 
 46 
 
 1866 . . 
 
 . 867,000,000 . . . 
 
 68 
 
 1867 . . 
 
 768,000,000 . . . 
 
 69 
 
 1868 . . 
 
 906,000,000 . . , 
 
 62 
 
 1869 . . . 
 
 774,000,000 . . . 
 
 75 
 
 1870 . . , 
 
 1,094,000,000 . . . 
 
 54 
 
 1871 . . . 
 
 991,000,000 . . 
 
 48 
 
 1872 . . . 
 
 1,092,000,000 . . . 
 
 39 
 
 1873 . . . 
 
 932,000,000 . . . 
 
 48 
 
 1874 . . . 
 
 854,000,000 . . . 
 
 65 
 
 If we could have yearly average prices of 
 corn for the whole country since 1825, we 
 would find that they would show the same 
 regularity in ups and downs that they do after 
 1862. The Finance Report of 1863 in giving 
 prices for the New York markets (which are 
 a long ways from the corn producing states) 
 shows that prices were very high in 1825, '26, 
 in 1836, '37, in 1847 and in 1858. The statis- 
 tics of the Department of Agriculture show that 
 the average price was very high for 1864; in 
 fact higher than ever before in this country; 
 aad again the price is at the top figures in 
 
CORN. 7& 
 
 1869, as can be seen in the table of yearly 
 average prices for corn. The average price 
 for 1875 will be high, and it is the next high 
 priced year after 1869. These high priced 
 years correspond with the price of hogs. These 
 years are the highest priced years since 1830, 
 m&king eleven year cycles up to 1858, after- 
 wards in short cycles of 6 and 5 years to 1864, 
 '69 and 75. The next high priced year for 
 corn, which is in the future, will be the year 
 1880, eleven years from 1869, and five years 
 from 1875. 
 
 We find the cycles of eleven years in low 
 prices by taking the quotations in the Finance 
 Report of 1863 for the New York markets, and 
 commencing in 1828, a low priced year, run- 
 ning to 1840, then to 1850, and to 1861 ; after- 
 wards according to the yearly averages, as 
 shown in our table to 1872, the last low priced 
 yoar. The next low priced year coming down 
 to five year cycles, will be in 1877, and the one 
 following eleven years from 1872, will be 1883. 
 
 The same scale of prices for hogs will answer 
 for corn. When the price of hogs has been'^ 
 high the price of corn has been high, and the 
 game when the price of hogs has been low, the 
 price of corn has been correspondingly low. 
 4ft^r 1858, high and low priced years run in 
 
80 benner's prophecies. 
 
 the same order of six and five year cycles in 
 the price of corn that they do for hogs. 
 
 Now judging the future by the past, and 
 looking to history to repeat itself with ap- 
 proximate accuracy in detail, it is our judg- 
 ment upon which we predicate this prophecy, 
 that the average price of corn up to the year 
 1891, will advance and decline with the aver- 
 age price of hogs, as shown in the scale of 
 cycles in the price of hogs; and that the gen- 
 eral advance and decline in the price of corn, 
 will precede the general advance and decline 
 in the price of hogs. This is inferred from 
 the fact, as before stated, that the current price 
 of corn governs the quantity of hogs in this 
 country. 
 
 The price of hogs, if $2.50 gross, on the 
 farm, will realize to the farmer 25 cents per 
 bushel for his corn. 
 
 $3.00 
 
 Gross, 
 
 30 cents 
 
 per 
 
 Bushel. 
 
 4.00 
 
 
 40 
 
 a 
 
 (( 
 
 u 
 
 5.00 
 
 
 50 
 
 u 
 
 u 
 
 u 
 
 6.00 
 
 
 60 
 
 n 
 
 u 
 
 a 
 
 7.00 
 
 
 70 
 
 u 
 
 a 
 
 u 
 
 8.00 
 
 
 80 
 
 u 
 
 u 
 
 u 
 
 9.00 
 
 
 90 
 
 il 
 
 li 
 
 a 
 
 10.00 
 
 
 100 
 
 u 
 
 u 
 
 i( 
 
 The average prices gross for hogs compared 
 
CORN. 
 
 81 
 
 ^#ith the average prices for corn per bushel 
 since 1862, in which the fact can be noticed 
 that the price of one follows the price of the 
 other in the ups and downs since the ; ear 18C8 
 aB regularly as evening follows morning. 
 
 HOGS, GROSS. CORN PER BUSHEL 
 
 1862 
 1863 
 1864 
 1865 
 1866 
 1867 
 1868 
 1869 
 1870 
 1871 
 1872 
 1873 
 1874 
 1876 
 
 Average prices for 1875 not collected and 
 published in time for this book. 
 
 The corn crop never falls short in the grow- 
 ing corn as much as one-half, but a large crop 
 can be cut short by frosts, floods, damp, etc., 
 in the amount secured. It is not so much in 
 the frilure of the crop, as in that which is 
 done with it. 
 
 The rational explanation of the partial 
 6 
 
82 isenner's prophecies. 
 
 failure of the corn crop in any one year, may 
 be found in the peculiarities of the seasons. 
 The number of acres planted is no criterion 
 of future production and prices. 
 
 We were well informed in the summer of 
 1874, by the Agricultural Bureau at Washing- 
 ton, the commercial bulletins of the East, and 
 crop reporters of the West, that there were 
 two million more acres in corn that year than 
 in the year 1873. Some of the eastern papers 
 were clamorous that the crops of 1874 were 
 simply enormous, and that prices would rule 
 very low; therefore the "bears" of the East 
 commenced to fix the price of corn on the 
 supposition of very great abundance, while 
 the merchants began to grow concerned about 
 their stocks of merchandise, for fear the farm- 
 ers in their poverty would not be able to take . 
 the usual amount. Now what was the corn 
 crop and price for 1874, compared with 1873, 
 taking the estimates of the Department of 
 Agriculture for production and prices, as they 
 are the only statistics at my command. 
 
 1873, Production, 932,000,000 Price, 48c, 
 
 1874. " 854,000,000 ^' 65c. 
 
 78,000,000 17c, 
 
CORN. 88 
 
 A decrease of seventy-eight million of 
 sushels in product, and an increase of seven- 
 teen cents in price. 
 
 This surely shows if there can be any de- 
 pendence placed upon these statistics, that 
 seasons make large or small crops, and that 
 future prices can not be foretold by the acre- 
 age planted or sown. 
 
 The number of acres in corn and produo- 
 tion in all the states and territories in the 
 year 
 
 1872 was 35,526,836 product 1,092,000,000 
 
 1873 " 39,197,148 " 932,000,000 
 
 3,670,312 160,000,000 
 
 This statement shows an increase in area 
 planted of three million six hundred and 
 seventy thousand three hundred and twelve 
 acres, while there was a decrease in product 
 of one hundred and sixty million of bushels, 
 with an advance in average price in 1873 
 ov3r 1872 of nine cents per bushel. 
 
 This increase in area planted is equal to 
 the whole number of acres in corn in 1873 in 
 tho great state of Iowa, the second state in 
 the union for corn. With this very largR ad- 
 dition in area for corn, it is a surprising fact 
 
84 benner's prophecies. 
 
 fchat the number of bushels produced was on* 
 hundred and sixty million of bushels lees 
 than the year before. 
 
 Is it any wonder that some operate upon an 
 overestimate, and others on an underestimate, 
 when we see that the seasons have so much 
 influence to make large or small crops, and 
 also when our knowledge is so limited in re- 
 gard to meteorological phenomena, which re- 
 peat themselves in well defined and estab- 
 lished periods ? 
 
 It has been argued, and is proverbial, that it 
 does not make any difference to the farmers 
 whether they raise large or small crops in the 
 aggregate ; what they lose in price they gain 
 in quantity, and what they lose in quantity 
 they gain in price. 
 
 Now let us see if statistics o5 agricultu.e 
 vdll carry out this assertion. Let us take the 
 last cycle of six years between high prices of 
 which we have the yearly average prices, for 
 all the states and territories. Commencing 
 with the high priced year 1869, and en-^ing 
 in 1874, the year before the next high priced 
 year, giving us three years of small produc- 
 tion and high prices, and three years of large 
 production and low prices. 
 
CORN. 85 
 
 Years in which were the smallest number of 
 bushels produced and highest prices: 
 
 1869 774,000,000 75c. 580,500,000 
 
 1873 932,000,000 48c. 447,310,000 
 
 1874 854,000,000 65c. 555,100,000 
 
 2,560,000,000 l,582,96~o7oO 
 
 Years in which were the largest number of 
 bushels produced and lowest prices: 
 
 1870 1,094,000,000 54c. 590,760,000 
 
 1871 991,000,000 48c. 475,680,000 
 
 1872 1,092,000,000 39c. 425,880.000 
 
 3,177,000,000 1,492,320,000 
 
 In the large crop years of 1870, '71, and '72, 
 there was produced six hundred and seven- 
 teen millions of bushels more of corn than in 
 the small crop years of 1869, '73, and '74, and 
 there was realized in these small crop years, 
 by the farmers, ninety million and sixty-four 
 thousand dollars more money. 
 
 This statement is as clear to the world as 
 the light from a kerosene lamp, if there can be 
 any approximate correctness in the estimates 
 of the Department of Agriculture, that it 
 does make a difference, and that all the labor 
 employed and exerted, and expenses incurred 
 
86 fiENNER's PROPHECIES. 
 
 to produce and handle this six hundred and 
 seventeen millions of bushels more of corn in 
 1870, 71, and 72, than in 1869, 73, and 'H, 
 was so much labor and money literally thrown 
 g.way so far as the farmers' direct gains ware 
 eoncerned, while they should have raised 
 twenty millions of bushels more corn to have 
 realized the same money that was realized 
 out of these short crop years. 
 
 Let us make a comparison by taking the 
 years in this cycle of the greatest extremes 
 in production : 
 
 1869 . . 771,000,000 75c. 58,050,000 
 1872 . .1,092,000,000 39c. 42,588,000 
 
 318,000,000 15,462,000 
 
 There were produced in 1872 three hundred 
 and eighteen millions of bushels more of corn 
 than in 1869, and there were realized fifteen 
 :million four hundred and sixty-two thousand 
 dollars less money. 
 
 As corn was cheap in 1872, and the farmers 
 fed a great portion of it to hogs, let us see 
 bow they came out with hogs : 
 
 1869 . 2,635,312 hogs packed 9.46, 24,930,051 
 1872 . 5,410,314 " " 3.92, 21,208,430 
 
 2,776,002 3,721,621 
 
CORN. 87 
 
 In 1872 there was sold to packers two mil 
 lion seven hundred and seventy-five thousand 
 and two hogs more in 1872 than in 1869, and 
 the farmers realized three million seven hun- 
 dred and twenty-one thousand six hundred 
 and twenty-one dollars less money. 
 
 It is evident that in the years of decline to 
 lower prices, a large over-estimated yield is 
 not the boon desired by the farmer, and it is 
 undoubtedly to the interest of the farmer to 
 use more of that energy that relaxes no effort ; 
 the perseverance that never grows weary in 
 striving to produce more corn in the years of 
 advances towards higher prices. 
 
 The farmer, however, is placed in the same 
 category in respect to low prices that the man- 
 ufacturer is placed ; if the farmer has to take 
 a low price for his grain and stock at inter- 
 vals, he is compensated in being enabled to 
 purchase manufactured commodities in their 
 low priced years, therefore alternately each 
 has its years of high and low prices that 
 either can take advantage of. 
 
 It is to the interest of the farmer not to be 
 governed too much by present demand, aud 
 not to continue in the course it directs too 
 loixg. The demand can be calculated— the 
 population does not always vary with the 
 
88 benner's prophecies. 
 
 seasons ; it is the supply that makes gener 
 ally the fluctuations in prices. It is in the 
 nature of things that the farmer should re- 
 ceive the benefit of three years advance in his 
 corn and hogs in every cycle of prices, and it 
 would be injustice to him if he should be 
 compelled to lose his labor and toil by the 
 wolfish and bearish cry of enormous crops and 
 low prices. 
 
 The ups and downs in prices for corn, hogs, 
 and pig-iron, and the activity and depression 
 in general trade, are no doubt caused by an 
 over and under production for a term of years, 
 and the writer has an idea that these cycles 
 in prices, which are so well defined, and re- 
 peat themselves with such surprising accu- 
 racy, are connected in some way with th<9 
 cycles of nature, which are fixed because they 
 are produced by regularly and permanently 
 fixed causes, which are constant and uniform. 
 
 The peculiarities of the weather and atmos- 
 pheric currents, producing these extremes 
 which are not conducive to large crops of 
 either stock or grain, were seen in the polar 
 current which came down from high lati- 
 tudes on a course parallel to the Rocky Moun- 
 tains in the year of 1874, producing the sever- 
 est and most continued cold we have exper* 
 
CORN. 89 
 
 ienced for eleven years, since the winter of 
 1863-64, and in the summer of 1875 the trop- 
 ical current or trade winds being deflected by 
 the Mexican elevations, entered the great 
 basin of the Mississippi, and again deflected 
 by the mountain spurs in Alabama, they 
 swept freely over the states of Kentucky 
 Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa; 
 the great corn region of the world, laden with 
 the aqueous vapors of the Gulf of Mexico, 
 and coming in contact and condensed by these 
 cold northern currents, occasioned in June, 
 July, and August of 1875 the greatest amount 
 of rain-fall and most disastrous floods since the 
 years 1836, 1847, and 1858. 
 
 In all the years prior to and including the 
 high priced years in corn and hogs, we have 
 had extremes in the weather. We had 
 droughts in 1845, '46, and heavy rain-falls in 
 1847. , The heat droughts and cold winters of 
 1856, '57, and ^58 were very remarkable. The 
 cold winters and droughts of 1863, '64, were 
 unprecedented. Extremes of heat, rain, and 
 droughts in 1868 and '69 were disastrous to 
 the crops, and the same can be said of 1873, 
 74, and '75. The years 1879 and 1880 will 
 again be years of extremes in the weather, 
 producing short crops and high prices. 
 
90 be.nnek's prophecies. 
 
 We have the information from high astron- 
 omical authority, that in the year 1880 we are 
 to have a planetary combination as to three 
 of the largest planets connected with our solar 
 system, such as has not occurred before for 
 about 2,300 years. These planets are all to 
 reach the nearest point in their orbits to the 
 sun at the same time, having the effect upon 
 the earth of the most violent and wonderful 
 changes in her atmospheric and magnetic 
 system that has ever been recorded in his- 
 tory. 
 
 COTTON. 
 
 To give contemporary testimony to corrob- 
 orate and verify our price cycles in corn and 
 hogs, we will take the price of cotton, which 
 grows out from the ground, and is affected by 
 the weather. Corn and cotton occupy all the 
 territory lying between the lakes and gulf. 
 The cotton crop of the Mississippi would be 
 affected by the floods at the North whenever 
 we would have extraordinary rain-fali.:, or by 
 unusual early or late frosts. 
 
 The price of cotton collected from Finance 
 Reports of 1857, '58, '63, and '73, these prices 
 being from the most reliable sources accessi- 
 ble in the absence of any other ofl&cial record : 
 
COTTON. 
 
 91 
 
 1821 
 1822 
 
 1823 
 1824 
 
 1825 
 
 1826 
 1827 
 1828 
 1829 
 1830 
 1831 
 1832 
 1833 
 1834 
 1835 
 
 1836 
 
 1837 
 1838 
 1839 
 1840 
 1841 
 1842 
 1843 
 1844 
 1845 
 1846 
 
 1847 
 
 1848 
 1849 
 1850 
 1851 
 1852 
 1853 
 1854 
 
 16c. 
 16 
 11 
 15 
 
 '20— 
 12 
 10 
 10 
 10 
 
 9 
 
 9 11 
 
 9 
 11 
 12 
 16 
 
 -16 
 
 14 
 10 
 14 
 
 8 
 10 
 
 8 11 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 -10 — 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 11 
 12 
 
 8 11 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 1855 
 
 1856 
 
 1857 
 
 1858 
 
 1859 
 
 1860 
 
 1861 
 
 1862 
 
 1863 
 
 1864 
 
 1865 
 
 1866 
 
 1867 
 
 1868 
 
 1869 
 
 1870 
 
 1871 
 
 1872 
 
 1873 
 
 1874 
 
 1875 
 
 1876 
 
 1877 
 
 1878 
 
 1879 
 
 1880 
 
 11 
 
 1891- 
 
92 renner's prophecies. 
 
 These prices are for New York, which are 
 sometimes ruled by speculators, and allowance 
 must be made for their incorrectness. 
 ^ The price of cotton is more influenced by 
 the state of trade in the world than the price 
 of corn and hogs, and therefore it does not fol- 
 low the production in this country so close as 
 the former products. Commencing in 1825, 
 ■Tn find the price of cotton to be twenty cents 
 per pound, the highest quotation in the scale 
 -except during the war of rebellion ; the next 
 highest quotation is in 1836, eleven years 
 from 1825. In looking ahead in the table, we 
 find 1847 a high priced year in respect to 
 other years preceding and immediately after 
 that year. Again in 1858, we find a high 
 price with the year before and the year after, 
 all high priced years. Again, in 1869 we have 
 ihe next high price after the war, the war 
 coming in on a short cycle of six years. Now 
 extending our price cycle of eleven years from 
 1869, it gives us the year 1880, our next high 
 priced year for cotton, and running eleven 
 years further, we have the year 1891, when 
 cotton, corn, hogs, pig-iron, will be at a high 
 price, and general business prosperous — ^up to 
 that year. 
 
PROVISIONS. 93 
 
 PROVISIONS. 
 
 The year of the provision trade begins the 
 first of November and ends on the last day 
 of October. 
 
 The statistics are mostly made up com- 
 mencing with November. However, with 
 these statisoics, as generally compiled, the 
 writer in his observation does not lay much 
 store by them. 
 
 How many hogs are annually killed is one 
 of the mooted and unsolved problems of the 
 day. The statistics of winter and summer 
 packing of hogs are no doubt reliable, or as 
 near correct as can be compiled, but the do- 
 mestic killing by farmers and butchers is 
 not collated for the public, which is a very 
 important item to be considered in our pro- 
 vision statistics. Therefore we are forced to 
 take for granted that a part is not sufficient 
 without the whole. 
 
 It is almost an impossibility to procure full 
 and reliable statistics of the exact amount of 
 hog products in this country ; and also what 
 becomes of all the pork, bacon, lard, etc., that 
 are prepare-d in this country to be consumed 
 at home, or sold to commerce. And again, 
 what the probable commercial demand .Til] 
 
94 benner's prophecies. 
 
 be for hog products within the provision year. 
 As there are so many elements entering into 
 the probable supply and prospective demand^ 
 that we can not form a correct opinion in ref- 
 erence to the advance or decline in prices 
 other than by keeping in view the advance 
 and decline in the general course of pricee 
 for hogs from year to year. 
 
 The price of the hog products have hereto- 
 fore followed closely to the price of hogs. 
 Taking the last cycle in high prices for hogs^ 
 we find that after the high priced year 1869, 
 the price of provisions declined in 1870, '71, 
 and '72, reaching the lowest limit in the sum- 
 mer of 1872. In the year 1873, when the 
 price of hogs advanced, provisions also ad- 
 vanced. Speculators are generally alive to 
 these facts, and on these periodical advances 
 they are ready and willing to operate, and in* 
 vest as described in the following. 
 
 Chicago was well convinced in 1873, while 
 hogs were advancing in price, that " then was 
 the time in the price which, if taken at the 
 advance, leads on to fortune," and her opera- 
 tors went in on a bull speculation, and not 
 only bought up all the stock offered at current 
 rates, and contracted for all prospective sup- 
 plies for Chicago, but went to New York and 
 
PKOVISIONS. 96 
 
 bought up all stock offered, and all options, 
 also went into European markets, and bought 
 back their own stuff that had been shipped 
 ©arly and at low prices, and when the combi- 
 nation had secured the control of the mar- 
 kets, up went the price to extraordinary figures 
 for the first year of advances in hogs and pro- 
 visions after the former declines. Chicago 
 was happy, and her speculators pocketed 
 millions of money. 
 
 This Western bull campaign in provisions, 
 with its lofty Texian horns tossing the mar- 
 kets to such dizzy heights as it did in 187So 
 could not have been successful, with all its 
 financial strength, in any of the years of de- 
 cline in the price of hogs. 
 
 The speculators who may attempt in 1876 
 or 1877 to bull the provision markets, can no 
 more thrive and prosper than can swamp 
 fever live on the lofty peaks of Chimborazo. 
 And if this speculation be undertaken in 
 these years, these Western operators will real- 
 ize that they are mistaken, and will be 
 slaughtered in this business as surely as were 
 the deluded Hindo pilgrims mistaken in the 
 means of salvation, and uselessly slaughtered 
 when casting themselves between the wheels 
 of tho car of Juggernaut. 
 
96 benner's prophecies. 
 
 PANIC. 
 
 Panics in the commercial and financial 
 world have been compared to comets in the 
 astronomical world. It has been said of com- 
 ets that they have no regularity of move- 
 ment, no cycles, and that their movement^ 
 are beyond the domain of astronomical 
 science to find out. 
 
 It has been admitted by astronomers that 
 the comet of 1874, named Coggia, was a new 
 comet and a stranger; one that has not vis- 
 ited this part of the universe before within 
 the history of mankind. However that may 
 be, the writer claims that Commercial Revul- 
 sions in this country, which are attended with 
 financial panics, can be predicted with much 
 certainty ; and the prediction in this book, of 
 a commercial revulsion and financial crisis 
 in 1891 is based upon the inevitable cycle 
 which is ever true to the laws of trade, as 
 affected and ruled by the operations of the 
 laws of natural causes. 
 
 The panic of 1873 was a commercial revul- 
 sion ; our paper money was not based upon 
 specie, and the banks only suspended cur 
 lency payments for a time in this crisis. 
 
 As it is not in the nature of things in each 
 
PANIC. 
 
 succeeding cycle to operate in the same tune 
 and manner, the writer claims that the " signs 
 of the times" indicate that the coming pre- 
 dicted disturbance in the business world will 
 be not only an agricultural, manufactur- 
 ing, mining, trading, and industrial revul- 
 sion, but also a financial catastrophe^ producing 
 a universal suspension of specie payments, 
 and the closing up of all the banks in this 
 country. 
 
 It is not necessary to give a detailed ac- 
 count of the effects of disorderly banking in 
 our colonial and revolutionary history, and 
 the different panics prior to the war of 1812, 
 to establish cycles in commerce and finance. 
 
 Such a history would fill many pages with- 
 out answering the purpose of this book, and 
 would be as intricate and difficult to under- 
 stand as the prices of stocks and gold in Wall 
 Street, as the eternal fitness of things at that 
 time were on trial, and necessarily unsettled, 
 80 far as man could understand. 
 
 The war of 1812 was the period in the his- 
 tory of the United States of America when 
 it was deemed a necessity for this country to 
 become a manufacturing nation, as a balance 
 wheel to maintain the prosperity of agricul- 
 ture and commerce, and also to declare her in- 
 7 
 
98 benner's prophecies. 
 
 dependence forever from any nation upon the 
 earth. 
 
 It is a doleful commentary upon the times 
 that such calamities in the history of oui 
 country, as hereafter mentioned, should have 
 occurred amidst a profusion of all the ele- 
 ments of wealth, prosperity in trades and 
 manufactures, and independence in the arts 
 and sciences. 
 
 It will only be necessary for the purposes 
 of this book to state that the business of this 
 country before, during, and after the war of 
 1812 had culminated in the year 1819, as 
 commercial history will show ; and that a re- 
 action in business followed this year, the be- 
 ginning year in our cycles of commerce and 
 panic. 
 
 However, we deem it important to notice 
 at this period the operations of banking in 
 brief as a good criterion of the prosperity and 
 adversity in general business, and the fluctu- 
 ations in the activity of industry and com- 
 merce. 
 
 In the Report of Finances for 1854, '55, it is 
 stated that from the adoption of the Federal 
 Constitution in 1787 to the year 1798, no pea 
 pie enjoyed more happiness or prosperity ohaa 
 the people of the United States, nor did any 
 
PA ^ic. 99 
 
 country ever flourish more within that space 
 of time. During all this time, and up to the 
 year 1800, coin constituted the bulk of the 
 circulation ; after this 3^ear the banks came, 
 and all things became changed ; like the upaa 
 tree, they have withered and impaired the 
 healthful condition of the country, destroyed 
 the credit and confidence which men had in 
 one another, and inflicted on the people polit- 
 ical and pecuniary diseases of the most deadly 
 character. 
 
 The bank-note circulation began to exceed 
 the total specie in the country in the years 
 1815, '16, and '17, and in the year 1818, the 
 bank mania had reached its height ; more 
 than two hundred new banks were projected 
 in various parts of the Union. The united 
 issues of the United States Bank, and of the 
 local banks, drove specie from the country in 
 large quantities, and in the year 1819, when 
 the culmination in general business had been 
 reached, and contraction of the currency be- 
 gan to be felt', multitudes of banks and indi- 
 viduals were broken. The panic producing a 
 disastrous revulsion in trade, caused the fail- 
 ure of nine-tenths of all the merchants in 
 this country and others engaged in business, 
 and spread ruin far and wide over the land 
 
100 benner's prophecies. 
 
 Two-thirds of the real estate passed from tlie 
 hands of the owners to their creditors. Vol' 
 umes would be required to portray the horrors 
 and sufferings produced by this general com- 
 mercial and financial revulsion in business 
 and trade. 
 
 A banktT, in a letter to the Secretary of 
 State, in 1830, describes the times as follows: 
 " The disasters of 1819 which seriously affected 
 the circumstances, property, and industry 
 of every district of the United States will be 
 long recollected. 
 
 " A sudden and pressing scarcity of money 
 prevailed in the spring of 1822; numerous and 
 very extensive failures took place in 1825 ; 
 there was great revulsion among the banks 
 and other monied institutions in 1826. The 
 scarcity of money among the trades in 1827 
 was disastrous and alarming ; 1828 was char- 
 acterized by failures among the manufactures 
 and trades in all branches of business. . La- 
 mentable and rapid succession of evil, and 
 untoward events prejudicial to the progress of 
 productive industry, and causing a baneful 
 extension of embarrassment, insolvency, liti- 
 gation, and dishonesty, alike subversive of 
 social happiness and morals. 
 
 "Every intelligent mind must express regret 
 
PANIC. 101 
 
 and astonishment at the occurrence of these 
 disasters in tranquil times and bountiful sea- 
 sor.s, amongst enlightened, enterprising, and 
 industrious people, comparatively free from 
 taxation, unrestrained in pursuits, possessing 
 abundance of fertile lands and valuable min- 
 erals, with capital and capacity to improve, 
 and an ardent disposition to avail themselves 
 of the advantages of these great bounties." 
 
 After the year 1828 business continued to 
 be depressed, vibrating according to circum- 
 stances until 1834, a year of extreme dullness 
 in all branches of trade ; after which our stock 
 of precious metals increased very fast, busi- 
 ness revived, and in the year 1835 and '36^ 
 the imports of gold and silver increased to an 
 enormous extent ; as the banks increased theii 
 reserves of specie, they also correspondingly 
 issued bank notes — each increased issue of 
 paper money led to the establishment of ne^ 
 banks. 
 
 The State banks that had numbered in 
 1830 only three hundred and twenty-nine, with 
 a capital of one hundred and ten millions, 
 increased, according to the treasury report, by 
 the first of January, 1837, to six hundred and 
 twenty -four, or, including branches, to sever 
 
102 benner's prophecies. 
 
 hundred and eighty-eight, with a capital paid 
 in of two hundred and ninety million^. 
 
 Mark the result I and culmination 1 1 a 
 panic! U in the month of May, 1837, and 
 suspenpion of specie payments by all the 
 banksy and a general commercial revulsion 
 throaghout the country, involving the fortunes 
 of merchants, manufacturers, and all classes 
 enraged in trade, in consequence of a ruinous 
 fall in prices. This year of reaction makes 
 the second year in our panic cycles, and is 
 eighteen years from 1819. 
 
 It is not necessary to go over almost the 
 same history again to show that business 
 was depressed, and trade was stagnant after 
 1837 down to the year 1843, and then up and 
 down to the year 1850, a year of extreme 
 dullness in all branches of trade and industry, 
 after which year a change came, and business 
 was again prosperous to the year 1857, when 
 we again experienced a commercial and finan* 
 cial crisis and reaction, not only in this country 
 but all over the world, making the third year 
 in our cycles, and twenty years from 1837. 
 
 History repeats itself \dth. marvelous aeon- 
 racy in detail from one panic year to another. 
 The general direction of business after the 
 panic of 1857 was on the same downward 
 
PANIC. IUj 
 
 ^ade that had characterized the times after 
 the panics of 1819 and 1837, until all business 
 had culminated in depression in the yeai 
 1861, after which trade again improved, and 
 was very active during the war of rebellion and 
 up to the year 1865, when a temporary reac- 
 tion set in ; and, reader, let me observe here, 
 that if then had been the time for a commer- 
 cial revulsion and panic in money, the catas- 
 trophe would have been the most deplorable 
 national calamity upon record. However, t^£' 
 cycle was not then complete, and the con 
 merce and trade of the country continued t( 
 be semi-prosperous until 1870, after which 
 year commercial activity was the order of the 
 day, all branches of business and manufacture 
 flourished and was prosperous; our railroad 
 building was astonishing in the world in the 
 years 1871, '72; but the end must come, and in 
 September, 1873, we had the culmination — a 
 crushing panic, and reaction in all trades, 
 .jianufactures, railroads, and industries, which 
 .8 still going on, and we have not yet reached 
 Dard pan. 
 
 These <wre facts of late history, and are so 
 fresh in lue recollection of the mind of the 
 reader, that it is only necessary to refer td 
 them. The panic of 1873 makes the fourtt 
 
i04 benner's prophecies. 
 
 year in our panic cycles, and sixteen years 
 from 1857. 
 
 Ae to whether it is the paper money or the 
 manufacturing and trading industries of the 
 .country, which call out and into use the pa- 
 per money that produce these periodical in- 
 flations and contractions, by which trade is 
 stimulated and deranged, and extremes in 
 business activity is brought about, is a mat- 
 ter for the statesman and historian to ascer- 
 tain and record ; it is only sufficient for our 
 present purpose to point out the panic y«ars, 
 and to show that the preceding years were 
 prosperous and profitable years in trad'e; 
 while the succeeding years, for a certain 
 length of time, were years of depression and 
 loss in business; and we observe that since 
 the business of the country has abandoned 
 specie as a currency, and adopted paper 
 money in lieu thereof, the manufacturing 
 interests have attained larger proportions, 
 and that there are more regularity and system 
 in the return of the advance and decline in 
 general business, and that the culm* mating 
 years in activity and depression can be calcu* 
 lated and ascertained with greater certainty. 
 
 The CYCLES in panics with the cycles o/ 
 PIG-IRON in the sam£ scale. 
 
^'ANIC. 
 
 106 
 
106 BENNER's prophecies, ^/a 
 
 The panics of 1819, '37, '57, and '73, during 
 this period of years, stand out upon the pages 
 of the history of this country in their magni- 
 tude compared with other panics, as the planet 
 Jupiter compares with the lesser planets in 
 our solar system. 
 
 Commencing with the commercial revulsion 
 of 1819, we find it was eighteen years to the 
 crisis of 1837; twenty years to the crisis of 
 1857; and sixteen years to the crisis of 1873 — 
 making the order of cycles sixteen, eighteen, 
 and twenty years and repeat. The cycle of 
 twenty years was completed in 1857, and the 
 cycle of sixteen years ending in 1873, was the 
 commencement of the repetition of the same 
 order. It takes panics fifty-four years in their 
 order to make a revolution, or to return in tht 
 Bame order; the present cycle consisting of 
 eigbteen years will end in 1891, when the next 
 jurvio^ w.Ul burst upon us with all its train of 
 woes. 
 
 Returning to the bottom of the scale, there 
 we find the years of poor trade and hard 
 times; between panic years in the scale there 
 are two low points, indicating two different 
 times of depression in the iron business ; these 
 low points indicate the hard pan years in gen 
 iral buPT*'^«^ft. Confidence after these yoarfi, 
 
PANIC. 
 
 107 
 
 especially after the latter, exercises its empire 
 and casts overboard the incubus that haa 
 weighed down enterprise and energy; these 
 years are the ending of the declines, the begin- 
 ning of better prices and more prosperous 
 times. The year 1877 is the next low point 
 in our scale for price of pig-iron. This year 
 will be a dull and unprofitable year for the 
 iron trade, and also for general business. 
 
 The next high point will be 1881, a prosper- 
 ous year for the iron business. However, in 
 the year 1882, and the six succeeding years 
 running to 1888, like the years after 1854 and 
 1864, we may look for squalls in the money 
 market, blue-Mondays, black-Fridays, and tor- 
 nadoes in banking, and the first financial flury 
 under the coming specie basis, which will 
 have to rest upon a confidence artificially 
 created and artificially supported, unless the 
 currency is contracted to that minimum which 
 would prostrate the industries of the country, 
 paralyze the life and, energy of our people, and 
 produce convulsions and depressions only 
 equaled in the years succeeding 1819, '37, and 
 '57, filling up the pages of history with com- 
 mercial and financial disasters, as they were 
 filled up to 1831 and 1850. After the yeai 
 1888 the price of pig-iron will advance, aU 
 
108 benner's prophecies. 
 
 business will be prospLTous, corn and hog» 
 will be on the advince, agriculture and manu- 
 facture will be active, all trades and industries 
 will make money up to the year 1891, when 
 :7e predict a panic which will not be confined 
 to, the United States, or this continent, but 
 will sweep over the world like the panics of 
 1819 and 1857, and will be felt with equal 
 severity in other countries. 
 
 Since 1819, panics burst upon us after the 
 price of pig-iron had commenced to decline, 
 and therefore it is not chargeable to a general 
 panic as the direct cause of the price of iron 
 taking the descending scale; the price declines 
 without a general panic, (see scale after 1845, 
 and '64,) and the same wull be the case in 1881. 
 ^.n 1891, the commencement of the decline in 
 the price of pig-iron will precede the panic of 
 8eptember or October of that year. 
 
 Q'he writer claims that the iron trade is the 
 chief and ruling industry in this country, if 
 not in the world J Iron is the most useful of 
 all metals, in fact the bone and sinew of gui 
 civilization, and the most important elem3n^ 
 of progress, as seen in the sewing machine, 
 reaper and mower, spinning-jenny, power 
 loom, steamboat, railroad, laud and submarine 
 telegraph. And as the iron industr}' raises or 
 
PANIC. 109 
 
 falii in the scale of prosperity, so does the 
 general business of the country. Pig-iron is 
 our north star to guide us over the dangerous 
 roads of commerce. It is the barometer of 
 trade, and as the sudden falling of the mer- 
 cury denotes violent changes in the atmos- 
 pherical world, so does the periodical decline 
 in the price of pig-iron indicate panic, depres- 
 sion, and general stagnation in business. 
 
 The United States of America will in the 
 future surpass all the world besides, in the 
 production of pig-iron and in the manufacture 
 of its products; and if this trade could be es- 
 tablished upon a firm basis, and the labor 
 employed in dull times until it has accumu- 
 lated capital, with the ingenuity, invention, 
 and skill of the indomitable Yankee in the 
 complex processes of its manufacture, with 
 our abundance of cheap raw material, and by 
 the aid of natural gas for fuel as lately and 
 :;uccessfully applied at Pittsburg, a thorough 
 knowledge of the ups and downs of prices in 
 the markets and cycles of good and bad trade, 
 this industry in this country in its colossal 
 proportions, would in a short time, defy the 
 world's competition, give us better and 
 cheaper iron; give more steadiness to prices, 
 
110 BENNER'S PR0PH^CIE8. 
 
 and greatly mitigate 4;he consequences of peri- 
 odical crises and depressions. 
 
 The highest and lowest prices in the cycles 
 of high and low priced years for iron are in a 
 progressive order, as reported in the monthly 
 price tables of the Iron and Steel Association. 
 The high prices commencing in January, 1837, 
 going over to May in 1845, to June in 1854, to 
 August in 1864, and to September in 1872. 
 The low prices, commencing in April, 1834, 
 reaching to July in 1843, to July in 1850, to 
 October in 1861, and December in 1870 ; show- 
 ing that each cycle extends a fraction over the 
 required years. The low prices for 1877 will 
 run into January of 1878. 
 
 The panic of 1819 began early in the year, 
 ?M that of 1837 in May, and of 1857 in Sep- 
 tember, and of 1873 in September. The price 
 of pig-iron in 1881 will not reach the maxi- 
 <num until September; after that month it 
 will begin to decline. The price of pig-iron 
 in 1891 will not begin to decline before Sep- 
 tember, as the panic will not appear before 
 that month in that year. 
 
 Astronomy tells us that eclipses return in 
 the same order every eighteen years. Every 
 eclipse within this period of eighteen years 
 belongs to a separate series of eclipses; that is, 
 
PANIC. Ill 
 
 there is but one eclipse during the eighteen 
 years which belong to the. same series. This 
 periodical return was discovered by the an- 
 cients, and by this rule they were able to fore- 
 tell the appearance of many of the eclipses 
 years in advance; and by close observation 
 through many centuries, astronomers at this 
 day can foretell the exact hour and minute of 
 the appearance of any or all the eclipses. 
 Other cycles of motion in the heavens vary in 
 their particular order of series. Science will 
 yet show that there is a reality in the connec- 
 tion between human events and the operations 
 of nature; the causes and the laws by which 
 they operate we are now ignorant of. 
 
 The cycles in panics and ups and downs in 
 prices of agricultural and manufactured arti- 
 cles are but the effects of a cause, which is 
 manifested in periods of sixteen, eighteen and 
 twenty years in panics; that return in the same 
 order every fifty-four years, in periods of eight, 
 nine, and ten years in the price of pig-iron; 
 which return in the same order every twenty- 
 seven years, and down to five and six years in 
 the price of corn and hogs; which return in 
 the same order every eleven years ; and by a 
 series of observation in the future, the particu- 
 lar month and day could be ascertained when 
 
112 benner's prophecies. 
 
 these changes in the ups and downs in prices 
 will occur. When once these cycles are de- 
 fined, ascertained, and calculated upon to a 
 :aionth and day, by a careful compilation of 
 prices in each cycle, and the natural causes 
 producing them discovered and verified, then 
 their return can be calculated to continue in 
 that exact order as long as other cycles in mo- 
 tion ; as they are the effects of other motions, 
 and will return with as much certainty and 
 astronomical exactness, as the return of the 
 eclipses of the sun and moon ; and it does not re- 
 quire a belief in the fabulous to have faith in 
 their periodical appearance. These cycles in the 
 operations of cause and effect have always ex- 
 isted. There has been no confusion. Man has 
 been continually making discoveries of the 
 manner in which the laws of nature operate. 
 
 In my predictions I stated that 1876 and '77, 
 would be years of great depression in general 
 ousiness, and that there would be many fail- 
 ures in these years ; they will come at the end 
 of the five years' decline in the price of pig- 
 iron ; and it does not require a gift of prophecy 
 to foretell many failures in all of these years. 
 
 The " signs of the times " can be calculated 
 by comparing 1876 and 1877 with other years 
 after commercial panics, and the fall in the 
 
PANIC. il3 
 
 price of pi'g-iron — for instance, 1842, '43, and 
 1860, '61 — and the s^tate of business preceding 
 these years, remembering that 1876 is presi- 
 dential year, and that presidential years like 
 1820, 1840, and 1860, immediately succeeding 
 commercial revulsions, are years of depression 
 in business, the uncertainty of the times and 
 of future legislation clogs the wheels of 
 commerce and stops business. " Hard times '' 
 and " dull trade " are surely upon us for the 
 next two years. The working man who de- 
 pends upon his labor for his living, espec- 
 ially they who are engaged in the iron trade, 
 surely have a dreary prospect — compelled by 
 low wages to practice the most rigid economy 
 in the necessaries of life, in the use of bad 
 flour, black molasses, pressed shoulders, and 
 store pay. And in the depression of the agri- 
 cultural, manufacturing, and industrial inter- 
 ests, as they will be depressed all over the 
 land in the next two years, the sting of hard 
 times will come to every man's home. 
 
 In all these years of reaction and depression 
 in general business. Providence works upon 
 the minds of men, as witnessed at the present 
 time by the religious excitement in the East, 
 created by the evangelists Moody and Sankey, 
 as instruments in the hands of God to start in 
 
114 BENNER^S PROPHECIES. 
 
 motion a religious wave that will in the next 
 two years sweep over the entire western 
 country. — Men in time of trouble put more 
 trust in God, and are inclined to more thought- 
 fulness. 
 
 The writer stated in his predictions that 
 notwithstanding the resumption of specie 
 payments, the price of iron and hogs will be 
 higher in 1879 than in 1878. The price of 
 iron and hogs will have already suffered a 
 diminution in premium and price in their 
 low priced year 1877. It is natural for prices 
 eo advance in 1878, 1879, and 1880, and no 
 '^gislative act can prevent it. The return to 
 specie payments will give confidence in busi- 
 ness and stability to trade. 
 
 Congress made a mistake in not fixing 
 January 1, 1878, as the time for the resump- 
 tion of specie paj^ments ; this delay will cause 
 the government and people to lose twelve 
 months of recuperative strength in the great 
 commercial and financial battle of 1891. 
 
 January 1, 1878, is the time when all need- 
 inl and necessary contraction of the currency 
 for a specie basis will be in conformity with 
 the universal contraction of business, which 
 will have been going on ever since the re* 
 Fulpion of 1873, and when general depression 
 
PANIC. 115 
 
 will have reached the very bottom of hard 
 pan, and when the times will demand that 
 contraction in trade and currency must cease, 
 an 1 the ending of the cycle in low prices for 
 pi^-iron, the great jupiter of trade. 
 
 The combined interests of the people will 
 demand that this incubus and scare-crow upon 
 industry and trade be confined to the shortest 
 period consistent with the times, and that 
 there be no contraction after the year 1877. 
 Agriculture, manufacture, mining, commerce, 
 ^nance, and the cycles of high heaven demand 
 it ; to restore business confidence ; to relieve 
 general distress, and to repair national and 
 .ndividual disaster. 
 
 Commercial panic is the reaction from over 
 trading and over expansion of credit and con- 
 fidence, an excess of commerce and finance. 
 Political economy abounds in theories to ex- 
 plain the cause of panics. It is not necessary 
 to look about for a cause; commercial and 
 financial revulsions are the consequences of 
 many causes. 
 
 When the price of iron begins to decline 
 there is a panic in iron. When the price of 
 hogs commence to decline there is a panic in 
 hogs. When the price of cotton, wool, wheat, 
 or any product begins to fall, there is a panic 
 
116 benner's prophecies. 
 
 in that particular article ; the supply exceeds 
 the demand. Prosperity in the aggregate 
 creates general confidence, and expands credit, 
 and this swells the prosperity, increases the 
 demand for money, inducing banks to extend 
 their issues and loans to the utmost, until the 
 climax is reached; then comes the panic, the 
 inevitable crisis and reaction ; the pressure 
 to realize produces a decline in prices ; confi- 
 dence is lost, capital, ever sensitive, with- 
 draws ; a run commences on the banks, enrting 
 in financial and commercial disaster. 
 
 Commercial revulsions are governed by a 
 law beyond the control of man, and are con- 
 fined to no creed, party, or politics. 
 
 The panic of 1819 was in Monroe's admin- 
 istration ; that of 1837 in Martin Van Buren's; 
 of 1857 in James Buchanan's ; and of 1873 in 
 U. S. Grant's. 
 
 No governmental or congressional subsidies ; 
 no legislative enactments, tariffs, or currencie.;; 
 no financial syndicates, convertible or inter- 
 changeable bonds ; no bribery of legislators oi 
 betrayal of constituents can arrest or change 
 heir course. 
 
 When the period arrives for a panic, any 
 breeze or signal, no matter what reverses the 
 engine, the times take the downward grade, 
 
PANIC. 117 
 
 4.nd there is no general recovery until we 
 h2?jr pig-iron demanding 
 
 "Watchman! what of the Night?" 
 
 Ihis ideal will have been standing out 
 apon the dome of the weather-beaten tower of 
 tinie, gazing into the dim vista of the future, 
 for five long years of disaster and ruin, wait- 
 ing for the period foreseen and predicted, 
 when the glimmer of the year 1878 can be 
 discerned in the eastern horizon, not a mete- 
 oric flash which illumes the night with a 
 transient and uncertain glow; but the con- 
 tinued morning radiance, which is the fore- 
 runner of the full light and glory of a bright 
 noon-day — will then exclaim AROUSE, PIG- 
 IRON I monarch of business ! come forth from 
 the chambers of thy slumbering silence, the 
 dawn of a new era is at hand I hogs, corn, and 
 cotton fall into line, and start in motion the 
 wheels of commerce, industry, and trade ! 
 
 The resumption of trade and industry in 
 the year 1878 must go on ; the Gibraltar of 
 hard times will be passed in 1877 ; the mills 
 and furnaces will start up ; the price of pig- 
 iron, hogs, corn, and provisions will be on 
 the advance. Agriculture, manufacture, min- 
 ing, commerce, and finance, will begin to 
 
118 benner's prophecies. 
 
 prosper ; the industries oY all this country will 
 be born of new life, and with our finances 
 ipon a sound basis, and a stop put to the 
 enormous importation of foreign goods, that 
 we can manufacture ourselves, which will 
 gi"* 3 us the balance of trade, and enable us to 
 i:eep our gold at home, and a general knowl- 
 edge among the people of the duration of the 
 ups and downs in prices, and when we may, 
 expect the return of commercial panics — this 
 country with its forty millions of population, 
 seventy thousand miles of railway, and two 
 hundred millions of acres of cultivated land, 
 will prosper and advance beyond any nation 
 which has appeared in all ages of the world, 
 and the chronicles of its future history, if 
 i«rell written, will rival the stories of oriental 
 imagination. 
 
 THEORY. 
 
 We have had to hunt down Price Cycles 
 by establishing periodicity in high and low 
 priced years; the length of the different 
 periods in which they have repeated them- 
 selves, and by indisputable dates, facts, and 
 figures, demonstrating their regularity. 
 
 The cause producing the periodicity and 
 length of these cycles may be found in "Du? 
 
THEORY. 119 
 
 solar s,ystem. The writer does not claim a 
 knowledge of the causes and conditions under 
 which they occur, and the reasons why they 
 occur; meteorological scientists have heen labor- 
 irg and exploring the records of all ages to 
 discover a Meteorological Cycle — the great desid- 
 eratum of the age. 
 
 In the Elements of Meteorology, by Prof. 
 John H. Tice, of St. Louis, Mo., published in 
 1875, are meteorological cycles, demonstrated 
 and verified according to his theory, which is 
 tliat Planetary Equinoxes are the causes of the 
 iisturbance to which our earth and atmos- 
 phere is periodically subject. 
 
 That all the elements of disturbance are 
 physically interwoven with and inseparable 
 ■'^rom the planetary system, and that Jupiter 
 it his equinoctial points suffers physical per- 
 turbations both in his body and atmosphere, 
 T jbably more intense than the disturbances 
 it our equinoxes. These cause similar atmos- 
 pherical and physical paroxysms in Jupiter, 
 as our equinoctial disturbances do; namely, 
 electric and magnetic storms and earthquakes 
 in the body of the planet ; and in the atmos- 
 phere, violent tornadoes and hurricanes, ac- 
 companied with terrible electric explosions, 
 heavy rain-falls and hail storms, and that 
 
120 benner's prophecies. 
 
 these equinoctial disturbances in Jupitei 
 affect the sun, and through the sun the solar 
 Bysiem. The result upon the earth and ita 
 atmosphere is an enormous increase of elec- 
 tric intensity. Gives the equinoxes of Vul- 
 can, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, 
 and Saturn, and also a historical record of 
 auroras, sun-spots, earthquakes, magnetic dis- 
 turbances, cyclones, rain-falls, and hail storms, 
 in verification of his cycle, and demonstrates 
 that Jupiter is the cause of the atmospheric, 
 telluric, and solar perturbations that occui 
 once and in a modified form twice in every 
 one of his orbital revolutions, and that the 
 maximum disturbance upon the earth must 
 occur at or near Jupiter's equinox, and that 
 the energy of the equinox of any planet is 
 intensified when that of another occurs at or 
 about the same time. Fixes 11,86 years as 
 the length of the Jupiter year, and names it 
 ne Jovial Cycle, and assumes that on the 
 following years in this century have occurre^i^ 
 and will occur, the Jovial Major Equinox : 
 
 1800.58 
 
 1859.88 
 
 1812.44 
 
 1871.74 
 
 1824.30 
 
 1883.60 
 
 1836.16 
 
 1895.46 
 
 1848.02 
 
 
THEORY. 121 
 
 The cycles of 11 years in the price of corn 
 Mid hogs, 27 years in the price of pig-iron, 
 and 54 years in general business, can not be 
 accounted for upon any known theory in the 
 Operations of trade. Therefore we must look 
 elsewhere for a cause and solution of the 
 problem. 
 
 The fact of the existence of these cycles ia 
 patent to any close observer, and as to 
 whether any hypothesis or theory would be 
 of practical utility when not a demonstrated 
 and verified truth, is for the reader to deter- 
 mine. 
 
 In our 11 year cycles commencing in 1836, 
 and running to 1847, '58, and '69, we observe 
 :hat our cycles fall behind the Jovial Cycle. 
 We have not the daily or monthly prices for 
 corn and hogs, so as to ascertain if there are 
 fractions of a year in our cycles; if there 
 ^ould be, they would be found to be small. 
 We know there are fractions in the cycles for 
 pig-iron extending over four months from 
 1837 to 1845, and in other cycles from one to 
 two months, but not sufficient fractions in 
 any cycle within the past forty years, and 
 will not be before 1891, to change the number 
 of years in any high priced year cycle of 
 either hogs or pig-iron. 
 
122 bennbr's prophecies. 
 
 The meteorological cycle, as verified by 
 r*rof. Tice, seems to be well demonstrated by 
 lis array of historical facts. 
 
 Hij forecasts of the weather during the 
 year 1875 was verified with surprising accur- 
 acy, and we have no doubt that his theory in 
 •egard to sun-spots, earthquakes, auroras, and 
 nagnetic disturbances is well confirmed. 
 However, it is to be considered that other ele- 
 ments and influences may operate to cause 
 abundance or scarcity in stock and grain 
 :;rops. 
 
 Facts are the data of all just reasoning, and 
 the primary elements of all real knowledge. 
 The fact seems to be philosophically certain 
 jhat all the planets which compose our solar 
 system are essential to that system : the sun 
 *o the planets, the planets to the sun, and all 
 to each other ; and when certain combina- 
 »ions are ascertained which produce one legi- 
 -iimate invariable manifestation from an an- 
 alysis of the operations of the combined solar 
 system, then we may be enabled to discover 
 the cause producing our price cycles, and the 
 length of their duration. 
 
 It is evident from our showing of the ups 
 and downs in prices, and the high and low 
 priced years, that these cycles repeat them- 
 
THEORY. 123 
 
 «elves in definite length; and without deter- 
 nining a fixed and exciting cause for their 
 3xistence, or attempting to verify theories of 
 which we are distrustful, we will risk our 
 reputation as a prophet, and our chances for 
 success in business upon our 11 year cycle in 
 3orn and hogs; in our 27 year cycle in pig- 
 'ron, and in our 54 year cycle in general 
 trade, upon which we have operated with suc- 
 cess in ihe past. 
 
 Modern facilities have brought the ends of 
 the earth together, and nearly obliterated the 
 cycles in famine and bread riots, but in turn 
 have developed well defined cycles in prices. 
 By the aid of steam and electricity, a de- 
 ficiency in one part of the earth is soon sup- 
 plied by the surplus of another ; therefore, 
 natural productions are more equalized over 
 the country ; and as the average aggregate 
 yearly amount is regulated by productive and 
 Unproductive seasons, prices follow nature 
 more closely than formerly, and their cyclea 
 must correspond very closely with meteoro- 
 logical cycles. 
 
 The influence of the sun-spot period upon 
 production and prices, has formed the subject 
 of numerous discussions during the present 
 ■century ; and it is a singular fact that scien* 
 
124 benner's prophecies. 
 
 iists have made the discovery that large and 
 small crops have occurred at intervals approx- 
 imating to eleven years, the average length of 
 the sun-spot period. It may be a meteorologi* 
 csl fact that Jupiter is the ruling element in 
 our price cycles of natural productions ; while 
 also it may be suggested that Saturn exerts an 
 influence regulating the cycles in marufac- 
 ture and trade. 
 
 Herschel and Leverrier, away out in the 
 regions of immensity, beyond the range of 
 human eyesight, may send forth an electric 
 influence afiecting Jupiter, Saturn, and, in 
 turn, the Earth. Heathen mythology claimed 
 that Saturn was the deity who presided over 
 time, as he was the most distant planet from 
 the earth of any that are visible to the naked 
 eye, and requiring twenty-nine years to make 
 a revolution around the sun. Saturn appears 
 to have been king of Crete, in whose time iron 
 was said to have been discovered on Mount 
 Ida, owing to a fire by lightning producing a 
 conflagration in the woods. Vulcan wrought 
 the new iron mines and made iron imple- 
 ments. Ancient astrology claimed to foretell 
 future events by the motion of the stars, and 
 in this they were not far wrong, although they 
 were not regulated in their predictions by 
 
THEORY. 125 
 
 cycles in motion, but by certain changes in 
 the stars at certain times, aided by the celestial 
 globe, and approaches, recessions, and aspects 
 of the planets. Ancient astrology is now being 
 Buperceded by modern science. All great 
 events and convulsions in nature are now 
 being explained and accounted for upon fixed 
 physical causes. 
 
 The deluge of Moses, if we look for a physi- 
 cal cause, can be found in the precession of 
 the equinoxes. The perihelion having a 
 period of over 25,000 years, crossed the equator 
 when the translation of the ocean from ^le 
 northern to the southern hemisphere, would 
 necessarily produce wrecks of countries, great 
 physical changes, and floods upon the earth. 
 For all history concurs in describing a deluge, 
 and science demands its recurrence about 
 every 12,000 years. 
 
 » 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Tn view of the immensity of the interests 
 involved, and the magnitude of the gains or 
 losses incurred in the advance and decline of 
 each price and panic cycle, and the conse* 
 quenoes of the effects upon all business and 
 trade, well might we be surprised and apton- 
 
126 benner's prophecies. 
 
 ished at the opportunities afforded for accumu- 
 lation and the chances for disaster, that by 
 rule of cycles we are compelled to predict. 
 
 Persons who undertake to search for coal 
 outside of the coal fields, to mine for ore out- 
 side of the iron region, or prospect foi any 
 mineral by which through ignorance of the 
 teachings of geology, they would be constantly 
 led to squander their means for that which 
 they can not find — could be compared to a 
 person who undertakes to make money during 
 the decline of prices. Failures in business are 
 caused principally by our ignorance of when 
 the ups and downs in prices are to take place. 
 It has been stated that in the city of Boston, 
 in a series of forty years after the year 1800, 
 that only five in one hundred men remained 
 in business ; they, had all in that time failed 
 or died destitute of property. It has been 
 stated and ascertained that not more than one 
 per cent of the best class of merchants escape 
 from failing in Philadelphia, and that not 
 more than two per cent of the merchants of 
 New York ultimately retire on an independ- 
 ence during periods of twenty-five and thirty 
 years. In Cincinnati, out of a list of some 
 four hundred of the principal business men 
 who were in trade in that citv at a certain 
 
CONCLUSION. 127 
 
 period, there were only five in business at the 
 end of twenty years from that date. Such is 
 mercantile success, and we see the same re« 
 peated in all the leading and different branch- 
 eft of trade. 
 
 As compiled by Dunn, Barlow & Co., of New 
 York City, for the year 1873, throughout the 
 country there were 5,183 failures of business 
 men, with liabilities aggregating to $228,499- 
 000; for the year 1874 there were 5,830 failures, 
 with liabilities of $155,239,900; and the indi- 
 cations of reports for 1875, are that the failures 
 will number as many as in the former years. 
 The greater proportion of these failures were 
 brought about by losses sustained in the 
 shrinkage of values, and decline of prices in 
 each price and panic cycle. The people seem 
 ignorant of the terrible teachings of history, 
 and few are prepared to take advantage of 
 these turns in trade ; and the great majority, 
 through ignorance of the time when the ups 
 and down in prices are to take place, are 
 caught with incomplete enterprises upon 
 their hands. 
 
 It is noticed that the great majority of the 
 business men of broken down fortunes, have 
 become so not by accident, but by dealing too 
 largely when prices were on the decline. In 
 
J28 BENNER^S PROPHECIES. 
 
 the general declines of business after the 
 panics of 1819, '37, '57, and '73, the loss to the 
 nation through non-employment of labor and 
 in various ways, is estimated to aggregate a 
 sufficient sum in each of these reactions to 
 pay our national debt. George Peabody laid 
 the foundation of his fortune by buying Amer- 
 ican securities in one of our commercial 
 depressions, the price which, taken at the 
 advance, led him on to competence. 
 
 Reader, if you are young, life is short. You 
 can not afford to make any mistakes, or mis8 
 any opportunities. You must take the tide 
 at the advance. You can not wait a life time 
 for the results of your experience; you must 
 act upon what others know, or your life will 
 be spent to little use and without much accu- 
 mulation of property. The cycles of pros- 
 perity and adversity alternate inside of every 
 ten years ; but few of these prosperous decades 
 are yours in an active business life ; therefore 
 do not waste your strength, or impair your 
 energies on these periodic declines, as fore- 
 shadowed in the future by the bright writtea 
 pages of past history. 
 
 Barnum has well said, in his celebrated 
 lecture on the art of money getting, " You can 
 not accumulate a fortune b}'^ taking the road 
 
CONCLUSION. 129 
 
 ihat leads to poverty." The whole history of 
 krade and commerce is full with the records of 
 disaster, which has been brought about by mis- 
 takes of men who could not read the letters 
 upon the sign posts ; while on the other hand 
 Dur libraries are crowded with the chronology 
 of man's success in business and trade, by 
 taking the price and times at the advance, 
 which leads on to fortune. 
 
 Within the present century the increase of 
 knowledge, improvements in machinery, and 
 the discoveries in the arts and sciences, have 
 advanced with a speed unparalleled in the 
 annals of history. New light in various de- 
 partments of human activity is now rapidly 
 ftnd continually breaking in upon the world. 
 The invention of the steamboat, railroad, and 
 ^legraph, have imparted astonishing lessons 
 to mankind. Each discovery of the laws of 
 nature unfolds to the mind of man, new and 
 exalting evidences of the wisdom of the Crea- 
 tor. Astronomers who attempt to explore the 
 immensity of the starry regions; to discover 
 unseen and unknown worlds, and to find out 
 the ways of God in the wonders of the heavens, 
 are not in this enlightened age denounced as 
 false philosophers and charged with an im* 
 pious invasion of the domain of God. Each 
 9 
 
130 benner's prophecies. 
 
 rising science has fought and struggled with 
 superstition and ignorance ; and in all ages no 
 effort has been spared to blast them in the bud 
 of their being, or crush them in the cradle of 
 theii infancy. 
 
 It has only been a short time before the 
 present century, that if any one had predicted 
 the crossing of the ocean in a vessel driven by 
 steam, or of conveying news by electric agency 
 around the earth, over the land and under the 
 water in advance of time, or of daguerreotyp- 
 ing the human face on a metallic plate by the 
 light of the sun, and then chemically fixing 
 it there; or of forecasting the future of the 
 weather ; production and prices by the rule of 
 cycles as regulated by providence ; such per- 
 sons would have been considered visionary, 
 their predictions regarded as contemptibly 
 absurd; their authors the most disingenious 
 of men, and their theories and systems treated 
 with persecution and ridicule. 
 
 The day is past for men to be forced to drink 
 the juice of the hemlock for having peculiar 
 notions of Deity, and sent in chains to the 
 gallows, or imprisoned in gloomy dungeons 
 for announcing scientific discoveries. Galileo 
 was condemned by the inquisition of Rome for 
 teach ins^ the doctrine of the earth's re vol u- 
 
CONCLUSION. 13i 
 
 Uons. Galileo was right, and the world 
 moves. 
 
 Science has many things to achieve in agri- 
 calture, manufacture, mining, and commerce. 
 The science of price cydes is yet in the cradle 
 of its infancy, but waiting its time to mature 
 full development, to unfold its principles, and 
 declare its oracles to all mankind, and to 
 demonstrate that the causes and the laws of 
 nature in production are not past finding out ; 
 and that man in his onward path of progress, 
 with the aid of electric science, will ulti- 
 mately grasp the future, and make plain all 
 the ways of God; which, when accomplished 
 in this world, will be the acme of human 
 knowledge, the consummation of human per- 
 fection, and the end of human destiny. 
 
ADDENDA, 1884. 
 
 To comply with an urgent demand from 
 many business men for a new edition of these 
 Prophecies, with tables brought down to date, 
 the author has consented to make some addi- 
 tions, and add a chapter on Railroad Stocks. 
 The old edition is left as it was originally pub- 
 lished in 1876. 
 
 While it has been an accepted saying, that 
 history repeats itself, it has never been at- 
 tempted heretofore to show how, and say when, 
 it was systematically done, so as to extend it 
 into the future — until the writer, in 1876, intro- 
 duced to the public this little book, showing, by 
 cycles made in the ups and downs in prices and 
 in general business, how and when the times 
 would repeat themselves in the future, which by 
 the te^t of the past eight years, is pronounced, 
 by intelligent and thinking business men, to be 
 one of the most remarkable commercial discov- 
 eries of this country. 
 
 This book has been read by many able men 
 and they are puzzled at the results, as showing 
 powerfully what they did not believe existed, 
 
ADDENDA, 1884. 133 
 
 and 80 at variance with received opinions, they 
 seem willing, from choice, to disbelieve it,' if it 
 were possible, but seeing the predictions and re- 
 petitions justified by events, are disposed to give 
 the author great glorj'. 
 
 The discovery of this so-called law of repeti- 
 tion, pertaining to business life, one would say 
 can not be, for how the times change from war 
 and other causes. The answer is : that the law 
 has acted for fifty years, or as long as we have 
 had any reliable statistics to test it; and this ac- 
 tion has been going on through the introduction 
 of. railroads, steamships, the electric telegraph 
 and cable, the panics of 1837, 1857 and 1873; 
 also, through the Mexican war and our own 
 civil war, and all else that has occurred to op- 
 pose such regularity. And what more can a 
 reasonable person ask to prevent its action? 
 And yet it rides triumphant over all, and asserts 
 itself up to the present time in a wonderful 
 manner. 
 
 In the commodity of Iron, the author takes 
 the best tables this country affords, and with 
 the formation of which he has nothing to do, 
 viz.: those compiled by the American Iron and 
 Steel Association of Philadelphia, and from 
 these prices, for the past fifty years, are shown 
 the highest and lowest years, which are system- 
 
134 benner's prophecies. 
 
 atically apart, formin<^ cj'cles which repeat 
 themselves at certain fixed periods. These are 
 facts, and if facts, they are true, whether they 
 are believed or not. 
 
 Iron is the strongest element of general busi- 
 ness ; and when the price of iron is advancing 
 and high, general business is always prosperous, 
 and labor finds steady and remunerative em- 
 ployment. On the contrary, when iron is de- 
 declining and low, general business languishes 
 and labor suffers its worst. This fact has been 
 invariably the case during the whole history of 
 the United States; and it is the great desider- 
 atum of the age to discover the operation of a 
 repetition in this commodity, and place it intel- 
 ligently before the public, so that business 
 men can shape their affairs in accordance 
 with it. 
 
 The uncertainty heretofore of all manufac- 
 turing business, for a want of the knowledge of 
 how long good trade or poor trade would con- 
 tinue, of which it seems our sharpest and most 
 experienced men have made serious and fatal 
 mistakes, will now, by this knowledge of repe- 
 tition, be enabled to forecast the run of future 
 business, and give them more confidence by 
 knowing when to contract or expand their op- 
 erations. 
 
PROPHECIES VERIFIED. 135 
 
 Many a chance for a fortune is lost through 
 over caution ; and many a fortune is lost 
 through being over sanguine, without a sure 
 guide gained by the known laws of the opera- 
 tions of the past. The height and culmination 
 of a speculative era is the best time for sinking 
 capital beyond the hope of recovery, and com- 
 mercial depression affords the best opportunity 
 for profitable investment, as these pages show 
 under the head of Iron and Panic. 
 
 PEOPUECIES VERIFIED. 
 
 The author predicted, in 1875, that there 
 would be a continuation of the depression in 
 iron and general business to extend through 
 1876 and 1877 — which prophecies were fulfilled. 
 
 The further prediction then, was that prices 
 would commence to advance in 1878 — which 
 tliey did. The advance in iron commenced in 
 the latter part of 1878, while railroad stocks 
 liad reached th.-ir lowest limit of dt-cline in 
 1877. These years— 1877 and 1878— were the 
 end of the great commercial depression foreseen 
 and predicted by the writer. 
 
 The remarkable part of this prediction was in 
 forecasting a turn in business affairs, and higher 
 prices to follow, in spite of resumption of spe- 
 
136 benner's prophecies. 
 
 eie payments. The general opinion at that * 
 time, was that resumption meant contraction 
 and lower prices. 
 
 During 1879 and 1880, the times improved 
 and prices advanced, just as predicted. All 
 trades and industries were active through these 
 years. Iron reached its highest price in 1880, 
 and stocks in 1881. 
 
 The prediction also was that after 1881 prices 
 would decline and the times grow worse, which 
 prediction has been verified down to this date. 
 
 The two important points, one of depression 
 in 1877, and the commencement of better times 
 in 1878, and to follow, and the other of great 
 business activity and culmination in 1881, and 
 the commencement of dull and poor trade, and 
 to follow after that year, have been substantially 
 verified. 
 
 On page 49, of this book, there is said, " that 
 the years 1882, '83, '84, '85, '86, '87 and '88, will 
 be years of decline in the price of pig-iron, and 
 years of depression in this business." Now, let 
 us see what the secretary of the Iron and Steel 
 Association says in his report made in 1883 : 
 " In our last annual report, in June, 1882, the 
 fact was noted, that the extraordinary activity 
 in our iron and steel industries, which had com- 
 menced in 1879, had culminated earlj^ in 1882, 
 
PROPHECIES VERIFIED. 137 
 
 when the wants of consumers became less ur- 
 gent and prices generally began to decline. 
 This reaction was not sadden nor violent, but 
 was, indeed, so gradual and tranquil that it not 
 only, for some time, excited no apprehension of 
 impending stringency, but was actually imper- 
 ceptible to many manufacturers whose books 
 still continued to receive liberal orders at satis- 
 factory prices. After the resumption of activity 
 in the rolling mills, the price of rolled iron and 
 pig-iron declined until the close of the year, 
 and in November and December the market for 
 these products was greatly depressed. Steel 
 rails, which were the first of all iron and steel 
 products to weaken in price — quotations having 
 slightly receded as early as December, 1881 — 
 steadily declined in price throughout the whole 
 year, the sharpest decline occurring in Novem- 
 ber and December, when the demand for future 
 delivery almost came to an end. At the begin- 
 ning of December, 1881, the average price of 
 steel rails, at the mills, was $60 a ton ; but in 
 December, 1882, the average price was only $39. 
 In all the fluctuations of prices of iron and steel 
 that have taken place in this country, we know 
 of none so sweeping as this decline in the price 
 of steel rails, if we except the fluctuations of 
 1879 and 1880, and many of these wore entirely 
 
138 benner's prophecies. 
 
 speculative. The causes which contributed to 
 the serious, but in no sense disastrous, reaction 
 in our iron and steel industries, in 1882, were 
 many and various." 
 
 The lowest limit for pig-iron being touched a 
 few months later, and the highest daily price 
 earlier than the specified limitations and culmi- 
 nations in predictions made for the years 1877 
 and 1881, do not affect the verification of the 
 repetitions, as there were very important causes 
 why these limits were prolonged and hastened 
 a few months. In whatever can not be as ex- 
 act as two and two are four, is no reason why 
 'tis false and should be abandoned. 
 
 Let the thinking mind of any far-seeing busi- 
 ness man call into action all his mental energies 
 — gird himself to the herculean task; let him 
 put forth his proudest thought, grasp the sub- 
 ject with a giant arm, and endeavor to forecast 
 the future ups and downs of iron and general 
 business in this country for the next ten years, 
 without the help of cycles and this law of repe- 
 tition, as the author has set forth in these 
 pages, and see how wide he will miss the mark. 
 
 A prominent grain merchant, when ques- 
 tions in regard to the probable affect of a Earo- 
 pean war upon the market for American bread 
 stuffs, replied that definite predictions could be 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 139 
 
 obtained only from merchants who had been 
 but a short time in the business ; the older he 
 grew the more ignorant he became concerning 
 the future. 
 
 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 The price of iron has steadily fallen through 
 the year 1883. 
 
 That the times are dull, can not be disputed. 
 We have now the anamoly of an easy money 
 market and hard times. From month to 
 month, since 1881, commodities have fallen in 
 price, wages have been cut down, manufactories 
 closed, workmen thrown out of employment, 
 and at the present time the cities fairly swarm 
 with a grand army of the unemployed. There 
 has not been for years a greater scarcity of 
 trade bills, so little demand for the deposits that 
 banks and discount houses hold. Unsound 
 firms and mismanaged corporations are failing 
 daily, a series of commercial failures larger 
 than ever in this country. A merchant con- 
 templating an opening up of a new department 
 in trade, postpones it; a manufacturer needing 
 new machinery, puts off the purchase of it ; a 
 man intending to build a new house, waits. All 
 these indicate poor trade and great prostration 
 
140 benner's prophecies. 
 
 in business. And this state of affairs in this 
 country, which wo are compelled to describe as 
 it actually exists, is likely to continue until we 
 have a turn in iron for great activity, which can 
 not come until 1888, as pointed out by the repe- 
 titions of the past. 
 
 All persons who are interested in pig-iron 
 and railroad and other securities, are anxiously 
 inquiring into the probabilities of iron declining 
 more. With over one-third of the blast furnaces 
 in this country standing idle, and the greater 
 number of those in blast struggling to pay ex- 
 penses, this inquiry is one of great and ex- 
 ceeding interest. 
 
 The writer now proceeds to outline the future 
 condition of trade, from this time to the close of 
 this century. 
 
 1884. 
 
 Presidential year. The absorbing topic. 
 What party is going to administer the Grovern- 
 ment for the next four years to be decided in 
 the election this fall, will be a disturbing ele- 
 ment in business, and will have the effect of 
 casting its withering shadow before it, clogging 
 the wheels of commerce and manufacture; 
 hence, dull trade. Iron will continue to droop, 
 with lower prices. 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. lU 
 
 1885. 
 This year will show some resumption in the 
 business of the country, the election being 
 over and out of the way. There will be a little 
 higher average for iron for this year, and this 
 year only, with railroad stocks higher than in 
 i884. 
 
 1886. 
 
 A renewal of depression in the iron and gen- 
 eral business, and a lower average for iron. 
 Free-trade agitation and legislation by Con- 
 gress. The low duty tariffs have been shameful 
 failures in this country, reducing the Govern- 
 ment and people to a deplorable condition. 
 The low-tariff era, from 1857 to 1861, was one 
 of the darkest periods ever seen by the labor- 
 ing people of America. Stocks lower. 
 
 1887. 
 Continuation of the same dull trade of 1886, 
 with no hope for iron this year. 
 
 1888. 
 
 Presidential year; all business prostrated 
 
 and exhausted. A general complaint of hard 
 
 times all over the country. Banks failing and 
 
 stocks to their lowest point. Iron and stocks 
 
142 BENNlihi's PROPHECIES. 
 
 will touch their lowest limit in this decline, and 
 turn upward in this year, 
 
 1889. 
 A great speculative era opening up. Hurrah, 
 for business ! Iron advances. Now for a 
 Boom. 
 
 1890. 
 G-reat activity in general business. Iron and 
 stocks advancing and bounding upward, from 
 the beginning to the ending of this year. A rep- 
 etition of the year 1879. 
 
 1891. 
 This era of speculation and great prosperity 
 comes to a close thi§ year with a Panic. A 
 commercial revulsion and general reaction in 
 all business after this year, and down goes trade 
 for a series of years. 
 
 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897. 
 Dull years and poor trade. 
 
 1898, 1899. 
 
 Good trade and an active business in all in- 
 dustries, winding up this 19th century in the 
 i'ieight of a specula^zT^e era. 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 143 
 
 It will be noticed that there are to be only 
 iwo period of j^ears, from this time until 1900 
 when we will have great activity in general 
 business, and these are given below in the fu- 
 ture. 
 
 The former prominent active business periods 
 t>f advances in iron were from 
 
 1834 to 1837. 
 1843 to 1845. 
 1850 to 1854. 
 1861 to 1864. 
 1870 to 1872. 
 1878 to 1880. 
 
 FUTURE. 
 
 1888 to 1891. 
 1897 to 1899. 
 
 It seems from the above that the advance and 
 activity in iron is but a few months at a time 
 while the periods of decline are numbered by 
 years and of long duration. However, it 
 should not be a subject of too much complaint 
 when we think of the locust — only a week's 
 song in every seventeen years. 
 
144 
 
 BENNER S PROPHECIES. 
 
 AYERAGE YEARLY PEICES FOR PIQ- 
 
 IRON. 
 
 VEAES. 
 
 PRICE. 
 
 TONS 
 
 YEARS. 
 
 PRICE. 
 
 TONS. 
 
 1844 
 
 25| 
 
 , 
 
 1863 
 
 35i 
 
 947,604 
 
 1845 
 
 29i 
 
 
 1864 
 
 59i 
 
 1,135,996 
 
 1846 
 
 27| 
 
 , 
 
 1865 
 
 46i 
 
 931 582 
 
 1847 
 
 301 ^ 
 
 , 
 
 1866 
 
 46| 
 
 1,350,3-13 
 
 1848 
 
 26i 
 
 , , 
 
 1867 
 
 44i 
 
 1,461,626 
 
 1849 
 
 22| 
 
 , 
 
 1868 
 
 391 
 
 1,603,00ft 
 
 1850 
 
 20| 
 
 , 
 
 1869 
 
 40 1 
 
 1,916,641 
 
 1851 
 
 21f 
 
 
 1870 
 
 33:- 
 
 1,865,000 
 
 1852 
 
 22f 
 
 . , 
 
 1871 
 
 85;- 
 
 1,911,608 
 
 1853 
 
 36i 
 
 , 
 
 1872 
 
 48| 
 
 2,854,558 
 
 1854 
 
 36| 7 
 
 36,21( 
 
 ^ 187H' 
 
 42f 
 
 2,868 278 
 
 1855 
 
 27f "i 
 
 '84,17 
 
 B 1874 
 
 301 
 
 2,689,413 
 
 1856 
 
 27i g 
 
 83;18 
 
 J 1875 
 
 251 
 
 2,266,581 
 
 1857 
 
 26f ^ 
 
 98,15 
 
 7 1876 
 
 22i 
 
 2,093,236 
 
 1858 
 
 22i 7 
 
 05,09^ 
 
 4 1877 
 
 m 
 
 2,314.585 
 
 1859 
 
 23f 8 
 
 40,62' 
 
 r 1878 
 
 m 
 
 2,577,361 
 
 1860 
 
 22f £ 
 
 119,77 
 
 3 1879 
 
 211 
 
 3,070,875 
 
 1861 
 
 20i 7 
 
 31,54^ 
 
 L 1880 
 
 '281 
 
 4,295,414 
 
 1862 
 
 23| 7 
 
 87,66^ 
 
 2 1881 
 
 251 
 
 4,641,564 
 
 
 
 
 1882 
 
 25| 
 
 5,178,122 
 
 
 
 FAILURES. 
 
 
 
 Aa compiled by R. G-. Dun & Co., of New 
 York City, for the year 1883, there were over 
 nine thousand traders failed in business; and, 
 with the exception cif the year 1878, there were 
 more failures in number in 1883 than in any 
 year in the history of this country. 
 
FAILURES. 145 
 
 To quote from their circular of January, 1884 : 
 " Under such circumstancess the inquiry is a 
 most anxious one, as to what is the actual busi- 
 ness outlook for the opening year. If, with all 
 that has happened in the past of a favorable 
 character, disasters of such magnitude have 
 occured, what is to be expected with the loss of 
 confidence which these calamities have caused, 
 with the restricted credit accomodation, lessened 
 business, and the steady depreciation in values, 
 which seem to be the daily experience." 
 
 Now, the writer undertakes to state, that the ca- 
 pacity of this country to overproduce is out of all 
 proportion to the power and ability to consume. 
 
 This fact was very plainly exemplified in the 
 iron business during 1879. Just so soon as the 
 people saw that iron had started upward, every 
 old furnace trap in this country, that had been 
 idle for years, was repaired and put to work, 
 and run to its full capacity. All the ore, coal 
 and timber lands were optioned, and every body 
 seemed to be going into the iron business; and, 
 in the spring of 1880, it was plainly to be seen, 
 that there was ta be an enormous production of 
 pig-iron. 
 
 The fact of the business was, that there were 
 a million of tons more iron made in 1880 than 
 in 1879, and the consequence was, that the up- 
 
146 benner's prophecies. 
 
 ward march in the price had to halt in that year 
 — and this very over production has mined the 
 iron trade, and brought about unprofitable gen- 
 eral business to this day. 
 
 Take any trade or industry in this country, 
 whore the people are free to engage in it, and 
 not hampered by any restrictive laws, and the 
 moment that prices rise in any product or com- 
 modity, it seems that every body — like a flock 
 of sheep — goes in that direction, and we soon 
 have an over production, and down goes the 
 price for a number of years. What can be said 
 of any one production in this respect can be 
 applied to general business; and no matter if 
 the country in itself is sound, and the ability of 
 consumers to absorb and pay for their wants 
 and luxuries, large emigration and great 
 growth, the startling fact present itself that 
 business can and does stagnate and becomes 
 very much depressed in these repetitions of the 
 long terms of decline in iron. 
 f Better times can not come for general busi- 
 ness, until the price of iron shows that it is in 
 -demand in the industries of this country. And 
 to answer the above inquiry, the record of the 
 number of failures is here given, and the ups 
 and downs in iron in the past and extended in- 
 to the future, showing how Jong these numerous 
 failures must continue- 
 
FAILURES. 
 
 147 
 
 :n"o. of :f^\.ilxjres 
 
 1854 
 
 
 1855 
 
 
 1856 
 
 
 1857 
 
 4,932 
 
 1858 
 
 4,225 
 
 1859 
 
 3,913 
 
 18(30 
 
 3,676 
 
 1861 
 
 6,993 
 
 1862 
 
 1,652 
 
 1863 
 
 495 
 
 1864 
 
 520 
 
 1865 
 
 530 
 
 1866 
 
 1,505 
 
 1867 
 
 2,780 
 
 1868 
 
 2,608 
 
 1869 
 
 2,799 
 
 1870 
 
 3,546 
 
 1871 
 
 2,915 
 
 1872 
 
 4,069 
 
 1873 
 
 5,183 
 
 1874 
 
 5,830 
 
 1875 
 
 7,740 
 
 1876 
 
 9,092 
 
 1877 
 
 8,872 
 
 1878 
 
 10,478 
 
 1879 
 
 6,658 
 
 1880 
 
 4,735 
 
 1881 
 
 5,582 
 
 1882 
 
 6,738 
 
 1883 
 
 9,184 
 
 1884 
 
 
 1885 
 
 
 1886 
 
 
 1887 
 
 
 1888 
 
 
 Iron high. 
 
148 benner's prophecies. 
 
 It can be seen, by the foregoing diagram, that 
 whenever iron is high there is a less number of 
 failures, and as iron declines in price, and is 
 low, the failures increase, and reach their great- 
 est number when iron is at its lowest point. 
 
 This showing indicates that there will be an 
 increased number of failures, over and above 
 the numl)er for 1883, before we get a turn in 
 business affiairs, as we have not reached the 
 lowest limit for iron in this decline. 
 
 EAILEOAD STOCKS. 
 
 The magnitude of the railroad interest of this 
 country, has given it the position of the great 
 leading element for speculation and invest- 
 ment. 
 
 This business has grown so extensively in the 
 United States, in the past twenty years, that it 
 excites admiration and wonder. 
 
 In 1860 there were only 30,635 miles of fin- 
 ished road, and about 250 members of the New 
 York Stock Exchange. In this year there is 
 over 120,000 miles of road, with over 1,000 mem- 
 bers of the New York Exchange. 
 
 This great activity in railroad building and 
 Stock operations have been the result of the 
 greenback era. With the rapid settlement of the 
 
RAILROAD STOCKS. 149 
 
 Western States under land grants, homestead 
 laws and agricultural machinery began to in- 
 crease immensely, since the war, the East and 
 West railroad traffic— there having been built 
 within the last three years more miles of rail- 
 road than was built altogether before the war. 
 The railroad system being now almost practi- 
 cally completed east of the Mississippi river, 
 we can reasonably expect to see the excitement, 
 pertaining to so many new projected lines pass 
 away, and the price for railroad stocks to take 
 their legitmate place in the~market, along with 
 iron, and rise and fall in their value, as iron goes 
 up and down, in the markets of our country. 
 
 The time is past now for any great excite- 
 ment in the activity and advance in stocks, and, 
 for a fiDw years following, we may look for con- 
 tinued lower prices, with the exceptions of some 
 upheavals that may be engineered and prO' 
 duced by combinations and manipulations. 
 
 The speculator who may attempt to bull the 
 stock market, or the investor who may confide 
 his means in these securities, thinking the turn 
 has come for another boom in the stock marketi 
 will find, in the long run, that the market will 
 gradually and surely go away from him— like 
 the sand from under the feet of the fishermais» 
 While standing in a stream of running water. 
 
150 benner's prophecies. 
 
 There is a saying in Wall Street that there is 
 one certain way to make money in stocks : 
 *'Buy when they are cheap, and sell when they 
 are dear."' This is the simplest kind of a rule, 
 and it is a perpetual wonder that so many fail 
 in getting the hang of it. 
 
 In Wall Street, it is the operator who forms a 
 correct theory as to the course of prices who 
 makes the most money in the long run — mere 
 traders are sure to get swamped. It is those 
 who see furthest ahead^ ^nd have the courage 
 to act upon their convictions, that secure the 
 great prizes in the stock market. 
 
 In the year 1860, some of the leading stocks 
 at that time were very low — Erie, 8 ; New York 
 and Harlem, 8; Michigan Southern, 5; Cleve- 
 land and Pittsburgh, 5. 
 
 In 1877, some low prices attain — Brie, 5; 
 Hannibal & St. Joe^ 7; Ohio and Mississippi, 
 2^; Wabash, |. 
 
 There were two periods, one before the war 
 :and the other afterward, when stocks were very 
 low, and those were the times to make invest- 
 ments. The same opportunity for investors to 
 catch stocks so low as in these two years will not, 
 in opinion of the author, come around again until 
 a^fter the next panic, as described in this book ; 
 as these two low periods were the effects of the 
 
RAILROAD STOCKS. 151 
 
 revulsions in business caused by the panics of 
 1857 and 1873. 
 
 In the declines of 1865, 1867, and 1870, we 
 did not have as low prices as after the panic of 
 1873, when prices for stocks seem to almost 
 vanish out of sight. 
 
 In the present decline, from 1881 to 1884, we 
 have something similar to the declines into 1867 
 and 1870, and some lower points made this year 
 than in 1865, 1867 or 1870, and, reasoning from 
 what we know, stocks have been low enough in 
 this year for this decline so far, and, therefore, 
 we should not have lower points until after 
 next year, the year 1885 being a steady and 
 slightly up year for iron. In the years 1886 
 and 1887 there will be lower stocks, running 
 into 1888, when the turn comes again for ac- 
 tivity in iron stocks and all business. 
 
152 
 
 RAILROAD STOCKS. 
 
 OS 
 CO 
 
 •73 
 
 CO -d 
 o 
 
 
 
 CD 
 
 CO 
 
 
 H 
 
 1— 1 
 
 
 (C 
 
 O 
 
 
 P^ 
 
 "m 
 
 
 
 
 CO 
 
 s3 
 
 
 P^ 
 
 
 
 % 
 
 ■4J 
 
 to 
 
 
 < 
 
 
 
 fi 
 
 w 
 
 
 (i) 
 
 -d 
 
 
 <^ 
 
 c 
 
 03 
 
 
 H 
 
 n 
 
 -1-3 
 CO 
 
 c 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 to 
 
 
 bf) 
 
 !c 
 
 
 c 
 
 CO 
 
 
 
 .M 
 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 O 
 
 
 ^ . 
 
 t» 
 
 
 OD 
 
 .~ 
 
MILES OF RAILROAD IN U. S. 
 
 153 
 
 MILES OJ' EAILEOAD IN U. S. 
 
 rEAE. 
 
 MILES TN 
 
 ANNUAL 
 
 
 OPERATION. 
 
 INCREASE. 
 
 1820 . . 
 
 23 . . 
 
 
 1831 . . 
 
 95 . . 
 
 72 
 
 1832 . . 
 
 229 . . 
 
 134 
 
 1833 . . 
 
 .380 . . 
 
 151 
 
 1834 . . 
 
 633 . . 
 
 253 
 
 1835 . . 
 
 1,098 . . 
 
 465 
 
 1836 . . 
 
 1,273 . . 
 
 175 
 
 1837 . . 
 
 1,497 . . 
 
 224 
 
 1838 . . 
 
 1,913 . . 
 
 416 
 
 1839 . . 
 
 2,302 . . 
 
 389 
 
 1840 . . 
 
 2,818 . . 
 
 516 
 
 1841 . . 
 
 3,535 . . 
 
 717 
 
 1842 . . 
 
 4,026 . . 
 
 491 
 
 1843 . . 
 
 4,185 . . . 
 
 159 
 
 1844 . . 
 
 4,377 . . . 
 
 192 
 
 1845 . . 
 
 4,633 . . . 
 
 256 
 
 1846 . . 
 
 4.930 . . . 
 
 297 
 
 1847 . . 
 
 5,598 . . . 
 
 668 
 
 1848 . . 
 
 5,996 . . . 
 
 398 
 
 1849 . . 
 
 7,365 . . . 
 
 1,369 
 
 1850 . . 
 
 9,021 . . . 
 
 1,656 
 
 1851 . . 
 
 10,982 . . . 
 
 1,961 
 
 1852 . . 
 
 12,908 . . . 
 
 1,926 
 
 1853 . . 
 
 15,360 . . . 
 
 2,452 
 
 1854 . . 
 
 16,720 . . . 
 
 1,360 
 
 1855 . . 
 
 18,374 . . . 
 
 1,654 
 
 1856 . . 
 
 22,016 . . . 
 
 3.647 
 
 1857 , . 
 
 24,503 . . . 
 
 2,647 
 
 1858 . . 
 
 26,968 . . . 
 
 2,465 
 
154 
 
 benner's prophecies. 
 
 YEAR. 
 
 3£ILES TN 
 OPERATION. 
 
 ANNUAL 
 INCREASE. 
 
 1859 . , 
 
 28,789 . . 
 
 1,821 
 
 1860 . . 
 
 30,635 . . 
 
 1,846 
 
 1861 . . 
 
 31,286 . . , 
 
 651 
 
 1862 . . 
 
 32,120 . . 
 
 834 
 
 1863 . . 
 
 33,170 . . . 
 
 1,050 
 
 1864 . . 
 
 33,908 . . 
 
 738 
 
 1865 . . 
 
 35,085 . . . 
 
 1,177 
 
 1866 . . 
 
 36,801 . . . 
 
 1,742 
 
 1867 . . 
 
 39,250 . . . 
 
 2,449 
 
 1868 . . 
 
 42,229 . . 
 
 2,979 
 
 1869 . . 
 
 46,844 . . . 
 
 4,615 
 
 1870 . . 
 
 52,914 . . 
 
 6,070 
 
 1871 . . 
 
 , 60,283 . . , 
 
 7,379 
 
 1872 . . 
 
 66,171 . . 
 
 5,878 
 
 1873 . . , 
 
 70,278 . . 
 
 4,107 
 
 1874 . . 
 
 72,383 . . . 
 
 2.105 
 
 1875 . . 
 
 74,096 . . . 
 
 1,712 
 
 1876 . . 
 
 76,808 . . . 
 
 2,712 
 
 1877 . . 
 
 79,089 . . , 
 
 2,281 
 
 1878 . . 
 
 81,776 . . , 
 
 2,687 
 
 1879 . . ' 
 
 86,497 . . . 
 
 4,721 
 
 1880 . . 
 
 91,944 . . . 
 
 7,174 
 
 1881 . . 
 
 . 101,733 . . , 
 
 9,789 
 
 1882 . . , 
 
 113,329 . . , 
 
 11,591 
 
WINTER PACKING OF HOGS. 155 
 
 ^NTER 
 
 PACKING- OF HOGS— 
 
 NET ANJ> 
 
 
 GROSS 
 
 COST. 
 
 
 
 SEASON. 
 
 NO. PACKED. 
 
 COST. 
 
 COST. 
 
 
 
 NET. 
 
 GEOSS 
 
 1842-43 
 
 675,000 
 
 
 
 
 1843-44 
 
 1,245,000 
 
 
 
 
 1844-^5 
 
 790,000 
 
 $ 3 30 
 
 $ 2 65 
 
 1845-46 
 
 900,000 
 
 4 
 
 85 
 
 3 90 
 
 184(1-47 
 
 800,000 
 
 3 
 
 55 
 
 2 85 
 
 1847-48 
 
 1,710,000 
 
 3 
 
 25 
 
 2 60 
 
 1848-49 
 
 1,560,000 
 
 4 
 
 70 
 
 3 75 
 
 1849-50 
 
 1,652,220 
 
 2 
 
 Q6 
 
 2 13 
 
 1850-51 
 
 1,332,867 
 
 3 
 
 75 
 
 3 00 
 
 1851-52 
 
 1,182,846 
 
 4 
 
 45 
 
 3 56 
 
 1852-53 
 
 2,201,110 
 
 6 
 
 01 
 
 4 81 
 
 1853-54 
 
 2,534,770 
 
 4 
 
 19 
 
 3 35 
 
 1854-55 
 
 2,124,404 
 
 4 
 
 21 
 
 3 37 
 
 1855-56 
 
 2,489,502 
 
 5 
 
 75 
 
 4 60 
 
 1856-57 
 
 1,818,468 
 
 5 
 
 94 
 
 4 75 
 
 1857-58 
 
 2,210,778 
 
 4 
 
 86 
 
 3 89 
 
 1858-59 
 
 2,465,552 
 
 6 
 
 28 
 
 5 02 
 
 1859-60 
 
 2,350,822 
 
 5 
 
 91 
 
 4 73 
 
 1860-61 
 
 2,155,702 
 
 5 
 
 67 
 
 4 57 
 
 1861-62 
 
 2,893,666 
 
 3 
 
 03 
 
 2 42 
 
 1862-63 
 
 4,069,520 
 
 4 
 
 20 
 
 3 36 
 
 1863-64 
 
 3,261,105 
 
 6 
 
 70 
 
 5 36 
 
 1864-65 
 
 2,442,779 
 
 14 
 
 32 
 
 11 46 
 
 1865-66 
 
 1,785,955 
 
 11 
 
 67 
 
 9 34 
 
 1866-67 
 
 2,490.791 
 
 7 
 
 22 
 
 5 78 
 
 1867-68 
 
 2,781,084 
 
 7 
 
 95 
 
 6 36 
 
 1868-69 
 
 2,499,873 
 
 10 
 
 22 
 
 8 18 
 
 1869-70 
 
 2,635,312 
 
 11 
 
 53 
 
 9 22 
 
156 
 
 6 
 
 BENNER 3 PROPHECIES. 
 
 
 SEASON. 
 
 NO. PACKED. 
 
 COST. 
 
 COST. 
 
 
 
 NET. 
 
 GEOSS. 
 
 1870-71 
 
 3,695,251 
 
 6 58 
 
 5 26 
 
 1871-72 
 
 4,831,558 
 
 5 15 
 
 4 12 
 
 1872-73 
 
 5,410,314 
 
 4 66 
 
 3 73 
 
 1873-74 
 
 5,466,200 
 
 5 43 
 
 4 34 
 
 1874 75 
 
 5,566,226 
 
 8 33 
 
 6 60 
 
 1875-76 
 
 4,880,135 
 
 8 82 
 
 7 05 
 
 1876-77 
 
 5,101,308 
 
 7 18 
 
 5 74 
 
 1877-78 
 
 6,505,446 
 
 4 99 
 
 3 99 
 
 1878-79 
 
 7,480,648 
 
 3 56 
 
 2 85 
 
 1879-80 
 
 6,950,451 
 
 5 22 
 
 4 18 
 
 1880-81 
 
 6,919,456 
 
 5 80 
 
 4 64 
 
 1881-82 
 
 5,747,760 
 
 7 58 
 
 6 06 
 
 1882-83 
 
 6,132,212 
 
 7 85 
 
 6 28 
 
CORN. 
 
 157 
 
 YEAR. 
 
 1840 
 1850 
 1860 
 
 1862 
 
 1863 
 
 1864 
 
 1865 
 
 1866 
 
 1867 
 
 1868 
 
 1869 
 
 1870 
 
 1871 
 
 1872 
 
 1873 
 
 1874 
 
 1875 
 
 1876 
 
 1877 
 
 1878 
 
 1879 
 
 1880 
 
 1881 
 
 1882 
 
 1883 
 
 COKN. 
 
 PRODUCTION. 
 
 377,000,000 
 592,000,000 
 838,000,000 
 533,387,230 
 397,839,212 
 530,451,403 
 ^ 704,427,853 
 867,946,295 
 768,420,000 
 906,527,000 
 874.320,000 
 1,094,255,000 
 991,898.000 
 1,092,719,000 
 932,274,000 
 850,148,500 
 1,321,069,000 
 1,283,827,500 
 1,342,558,000 
 1,388,218,750 
 1,547,901,790 
 1,717,434,543 
 1,194,916,000 
 1,617,025,100 
 1,500,000,000 
 
 AVERAGE 
 VALUE PER BU, 
 
 34 
 
 69 
 
 99 
 
 46 
 
 68 
 
 80 
 
 62 
 
 75 
 
 54 
 
 48 
 
 39 
 
 48 
 
 64 
 
 42 
 
 37 
 
 35 
 
 31 
 
 37 
 
 39 
 
 63 
 
 48 
 
158 benner's prophecies. 
 
 ( 
 
 V 
 
 THE WEATHER 
 
 The author does not claim to be a weather 
 prophet, as the weather seems to be one of the 
 most fickle of all things under the sun. However, 
 a chart is here given to show when the scorching 
 /'heats and droughts, the great floods and pro- 
 longed cold winters, have appeared at certain 
 periods in this country, that seem to repeat the 
 order of their return in about every eight years. 
 This order is extended into the future, showing 
 the probabilities of the recurrence of these ex- 
 tremes in the seasons, varying the crops, and 
 affecting the price of corn and hogs. 
 
 The extremes of rain-fall and great floods re- 
 cur at regular periods of about eight years in 
 the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. 
 
 The periods of drought and extreme low 
 water occur regularly at almost equal intervals 
 between those of high water. 
 
 The repetition of long, cold and stormy win- 
 ters coincide nearly with those of drought in 
 recurrence and duration. 
 
THE WEATHER. 159 
 
 WEATHER CHART. 
 
 
 YEARS 
 
 YEARS 
 
 
 
 
 WET. 
 
 DRY. 
 
 
 
 
 1850 
 
 
 
 
 Flood. 
 
 1851 
 1852 
 1853 
 
 1854 
 
 
 
 
 
 1855 
 
 Drought- 
 
 -Low Water, 
 
 
 
 1856 
 1857 
 
 Drought- 
 
 -Low Water. 
 
 
 1858 
 
 
 
 Flood. 
 
 1859 
 1860 
 1861 
 
 1862 
 
 
 
 
 
 1863 
 
 Drought- 
 
 -Low Water. 
 
 
 
 1864 
 
 Drought- 
 
 -Low Water. 
 
 
 
 1865 
 
 
 
 
 1866 
 
 
 
 
 Flood. 
 
 1867 
 1868 
 1869 , 
 
 1870 
 
 
 
 
 
 1871 
 
 Drought- 
 
 -Low Water. 
 
 
 
 1872 
 
 Drought— 
 
 -Low Water. 
 
 
 
 1873 
 
 
 
 
 1874 
 
 
 
 
 Flood. 
 
 1875 
 1876 
 1877 
 
 
 
 
 1878 
 
 1879 Drought— Low Water. 
 
 1880 
 
 1881 Drought—Low Water. 
 
i .'0 benner's prophecies. 
 
 1882 
 
 Flood. 1883 
 
 1884 
 
 1885 
 
 1886 
 
 1887 Drought— Low Water. 
 
 1888 Drought— Low Water. 
 1889 
 
 1890 
 
 Flood. 1891 
 
 1892 
 
 1893 
 
 The weather chart is designed to show, first, 
 on the right, the group of four years of extreme 
 heat and extreme cold; and second, on the left, 
 four years of heavy rain-falls and great floods. 
 
 The author does not claim that all the years 
 in the groups on the right of the chart will be 
 years of drought and heat and cold winters; 
 neither will all those years on the left be years 
 of excessive rain-fall. 
 
 It is onl}^ asserted that there will be two of 
 these years on the right of extreme heat and 
 cold winters, and on the left at least one regu- 
 larly returning year, in which there will be a 
 great flood, as pointed out on the chart. 
 
 On the right, in the first group of four years, 
 there were extensive droughts in 1855 and 1856 ; 
 and the winters of 1855-56 and 1856-57 were 
 extremely cold. 
 
 In the fiecond group, there were extensive 
 
THE WEATHER. 161 
 
 di'oughts.in 1863 and 1864, and the winters of 
 1863-64 and 1864-65 were extremely cold. 
 
 In the third group there were extensive 
 droughts in 1871 and 1872; and the winters of 
 1871-72 and 1872-73 were extremely cold. 
 
 In the fourth group there were extensive 
 droughts in 1879 and 1881, and the winters of 
 1878-9 and 1880-81 were extremely cold. 
 
 On the left, in the first group of four years, 
 there was a great flood in 1851. 
 
 In the second group there was a great flood 
 in 1859. In the third group there was a great 
 flood in 1867. 
 
 In the fourth group there was a great flood in 
 1875. In the fifth group there was a great flood 
 in 1883. 
 
 From these records of the past thirty years, 
 without going back to hunt down far-fetched 
 data, the conclusions and probabilities are, that 
 there will not be any very great floods in our 
 rivers from this time till after 1889, with the ex- 
 ception of the year 1886 (when heretofore there 
 has been high waters the first year of these 
 groups of dry years), and, after passing the 
 Spring of 1886, the river population can be 
 assured of no extraordinary floods of high 
 water till 1890 and 1891. 
 
 Also, that there will not be any general 
 
fS2 benner's prophecies. 
 
 droughts extending all over this country, with 
 extreme heat, till after 1886; and that there 
 will not beany excessive, prolonged cold winters 
 until 1887. 
 
 , For the next two years, average seasons of 
 rain-fall, gradually decreasing till 1887 and 
 1888, when in these years there will be general 
 droughts and low water in the rivers. 
 
 The winters of 1887-88 and 1888-89, will be 
 extreme prolonged cold winters, with storms of 
 snow. 
 
 After 1888, the rain -fall will gradually in- 
 crease till 1891, when there will be a great 
 flood in the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. 
 
 The year 1889 will be grasshopper year for 
 the States and Territories West of the Missis 
 sippi river. 
 
 STAGES OP THE OHIO RIVER AT CINCINNATI, 
 OHIO. 
 
 [From the Report of the Chamber of Commerce. ] 
 
 YEAR. 
 
 HIGHEST. 
 
 LOWEST. 
 
 A VEBAGE 
 
 
 Ft. In. 
 
 Ft. In. 
 
 Ft. In. 
 
 1832 
 
 64. 3 
 
 
 
 1847 
 
 63. 7 
 
 
 
 1858 
 
 43.10 
 
 2. 5 
 
 12.10 
 
 1859 
 
 55. 5 
 
 3. 3 
 
 17. 7 
 
 i860 
 
 49. 2 
 
 5. 4 
 
 16. 
 
 1861 
 
 49. 5 
 
 5. 1 
 
 19. 1 
 
 1862 
 
 57. 4 
 
 2. 4 
 
 17. 5 
 
 1863 
 
 42. 9 
 
 2. 6 
 
 15. 
 
 1864 
 
 45. 1 
 
 3. 1 
 
 16. 8 
 
CORN AND HOGS. 163 
 
 1865 
 
 56. 3 
 
 5. 8 
 
 21.10 
 
 1866 
 
 42. 6 
 
 4. 9 
 
 19. 2 
 
 1867 
 
 55. 8 
 
 3. 
 
 17. 
 
 1868 
 
 • 48. 3 
 
 5. 1 
 
 18. 8 
 
 1869 
 
 48. 9 
 
 5. 4 
 
 19. 8 
 
 1870 
 
 55. 3 
 
 3.10 
 
 17.10 
 
 1871 
 
 40. 6 
 
 2. 8 
 
 11.10 
 
 1872 
 
 41. 9 
 
 3. 
 
 11. 8 
 
 1873 
 
 44. 5 
 
 3. 8 
 
 18. 5 
 
 1874 
 
 47.11 
 
 2. 4 
 
 15. 8 
 
 ]875 
 
 55. 4 
 
 4. 3 
 
 18. 9 
 
 1876 
 
 51. 9 
 
 6. 2 
 
 18. 2 
 
 1877 
 
 53. 9 
 
 3. 3 
 
 15. 
 
 1878 
 
 41. 4 
 
 4. 4 
 
 16. 9 
 
 1879 
 
 42. 9 
 
 2. 6 
 
 14. 6 
 
 1880 
 
 53. 2 
 
 3. 9 
 
 17. 
 
 1881 
 
 50. 7 
 
 1.11 
 
 16.11 
 
 1882 
 
 58. 7 
 
 6. 1 
 
 22. li- 
 
 1883 
 
 66. 4 
 
 3. 7 
 
 19. 5^ 
 
 1884 
 
 71. Of 
 
 
 
 CORN AND HOGS. 
 
 The price of corn and hogs is moved up and 
 down more quickly in their repetitions, by the 
 changes in the weather and seasons, than the 
 price of some manufactured commodities ; for 
 instance iron, which takes a longer term of 
 years to bring about a large or small supply, as 
 the cycle in hogs is only from five to six years, 
 while iron a much longer term of years. 
 
 In the repetitions of the ups and downs as 
 given in this book, the low price for 1877 was 
 continued into 1878, by the dread of resumption 
 of specie payments, which resulted in keeping 
 
164 benner's prophecies. 
 
 prices down into 1878 for bogs, iron, and other 
 commodities. 
 
 Tho last high year for hogs was fixed for 
 1880. Now to assign a reason why the price 
 continued to advance, after that year to 1882, 
 for corn and hogs. 
 
 Tt can only be charged to the great drought of 
 1881 not coming in the year 1880, its proper 
 place. 
 
 The former reguhirly returning droughts, as 
 shown in the weather chart (which is introduced 
 here for this purpose), were in the years 1855- 
 56, 1863-64, 1871-72, 1879, skipping 1880, the 
 high priced year in the cycle, and giving us 
 the drought in 1881, which was an excessive 
 dry summer, partially destroying the corn crop. 
 
 This delayed disastrous drought being pre- 
 ceded by the extraordinary long continued cold 
 of the winter of 1880-81, which had already 
 thinned out a great number of hogs, was the 
 direct cause of the high prices being continued 
 longer than the cycle denoted. 
 
 The low point for corn and hogs is for this 
 winter ; that is, for the j^acking season of 1883- 
 84, which no doubt will show a lower average 
 price than for the packing season of 1882-'83. 
 
 The further prophecies are for a higher 
 
CORN AND HOGS. 165 
 
 average after this winter, till the packing sea- 
 son of 1886-87. 
 
 Now, to nQaintain prices about the present 
 level, or to have a higher average for the next 
 three years, there must be some failures in the 
 corn or hog crops; and reasoning from what 
 we know, that during the cold January of this 
 winter the young hogs have died in considerable 
 numbers. And in accordance with that which 
 our weather chart indicates, the summer seasons 
 for a couple of years, will be w^et, with low tem- 
 perature, and not favorable for large yields of 
 merchantable sound corn. And the further in- 
 dications are, that we will not have good corn 
 crops until the dry weather of 1887 and 1888, 
 when the price of corn and hogs will decline to 
 a lower average, as they did during the dry 
 weather of 1871 and 1872. 
 
166 
 
 benner's prophecies. 
 
 HIGHEST AND LOWEST PRICES IN NEW YORK FOR 
 MIDDLING UPLAND COTTON AND THE CROPS: 
 
 YEAR. 
 
 HIGHEST. 
 
 LOWEST. 
 
 BALES. 
 
 1S'>fi 
 
 14- 
 
 Q 
 
 
 J O-jO 
 
 1827 
 1828 
 1829 
 1830 
 1831 
 
 12 
 13 
 11 
 13 
 11 
 
 o 
 
 8 
 9 
 8 
 8 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 987,477 
 
 1832 
 
 12 
 
 7 
 
 1,070,438 
 
 1833 
 
 17 
 
 9 
 
 1,205,394 
 
 1834 
 
 16 
 
 10 
 
 1,254,328 
 
 1835 
 
 20 
 
 15 
 
 1,360,7^5 
 
 1836 
 
 20 
 
 12 
 
 1,425,575 
 
 1837 
 
 17 
 
 7 
 
 1,804,797 
 
 1838 
 
 12 
 
 9 
 
 1,363,403 
 
 1839 
 
 16 
 
 11 
 
 2.181,749 
 
 1840 
 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 1,639,353 
 
 1841 
 
 11 
 
 9 
 
 1,688,675 
 
 1842 
 
 9 
 
 7 
 
 2,394,203 
 
 1843 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 2,108,579 
 
 1844 
 
 9 
 
 5 
 
 2,484,662 
 
 1845 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 2,170,537 
 
 1846 
 
 9 
 
 6 
 
 1,860,479 
 
 1847 
 
 12 
 
 7 
 
 2,424,113 
 
 1848 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 2,808,596 
 
 1849 
 
 11 
 
 6 
 
 2,171,706 
 
COTTON AND CROPS. 167 
 
 1850 
 
 14 
 
 11 
 
 2,415,257 
 
 1851 
 
 14 
 
 8 
 
 3,090,029 
 
 1852 
 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 3,352,882 
 
 1853 
 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 3,035,027 
 
 1854 
 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 2,932,339 
 
 1855 • 
 
 11 
 
 7 
 
 3,645,345 
 
 1856 
 
 12 
 
 9 
 
 3,056.519 
 
 1857 
 
 15 
 
 13 
 
 3,238,902 
 
 1858 
 
 13 
 
 9 
 
 3,994,481 
 
 1859 
 
 12 
 
 11 
 
 4,823,770 
 
 1860 
 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 3,826,086 
 
 1861 
 
 28 
 
 11 
 
 
 * ^_J W X 
 
 1862 
 
 68 
 
 J. X 
 
 20 
 
 
 1 Oli^ 
 
 186*^ 
 
 \JkD 
 
 88 
 
 54 
 
 
 1864 
 
 1 90 
 
 72 
 33 
 
 
 1865 
 
 Xi tJ\J 
 
 1.22 
 
 2,228,987 
 
 1866 
 
 52 
 
 32 
 
 2,059,271 
 
 1867 
 
 36 
 
 154 
 
 2,498,895 
 
 1868 
 
 33 
 
 16 
 
 2,439,039 
 
 1869 
 
 35 
 
 25 
 
 3,154,946 
 
 1870 
 
 25f 
 
 15 
 
 4,352,317 
 
 1871 
 
 211 
 
 14f 
 
 2,974,351 
 
 1872 
 
 27J 
 
 18f 
 
 3,930,508 
 
 1873 
 
 21f 
 
 1-4 
 
 4,170,388 
 
 1874 
 
 18| 
 
 14| 
 
 3,832,991 
 
 1875 
 
 17J 
 
 I'VrT 
 
 4,669,288 
 
 1876 
 
 13f 
 
 10| 
 
 4,485,423 
 
 1877 
 
 1Q 5 
 
 lOJ-^ 
 
 16 
 
 4,773,865 
 
 1878 
 
 12-3- 
 
 10 
 
 m 
 
 5,074,155 
 
 !879 
 
 13f 
 
 H 
 
 5,761,252 
 
 1880 
 
 l:-^J 
 
 lo+f 
 
 6,605,750 
 
 1881 
 
 13 
 
 lOA, 
 
 5,456,048 
 
 1882 
 
 13A 
 
 lOi 
 
 
 
168 
 
 BENNER S PROPHECIES, 
 
 
 WHEAT. 
 
 
 YEAE. 
 
 PRODUCTION. 
 
 AVERAGE 
 
 
 VALUE PEE BU 
 
 1862 . . 
 
 , 177,957,172 . . 
 
 . $ 93 
 
 1863 . . 
 
 173,677,928 . . 
 
 1 14 
 
 1864 . . 
 
 160,695,823 . . 
 
 1 83 
 
 1865 . . 
 
 148,522.827 . . 
 
 1 46 
 
 1866 . . 
 
 151,999.906 . . 
 
 2 19 
 
 1867 o „ 
 
 212,441,400 . . 
 
 . 1 98 
 
 1868 o . 
 
 224,036,600 . . 
 
 1 42 
 
 1869 . . 
 
 260,146,900 . . 
 
 94 
 
 1870 , . 
 
 235,884,700 . . 
 
 1 04 
 
 1871 . . 
 
 . 230,722,400 . . 
 
 . 1 25 
 
 1872 . . 
 
 249,997,100 . . . 
 
 1 24 
 
 1873 . . 
 
 . 281,254,700 . ". 
 
 1 15 
 
 1874 . . 
 
 . 309,102,700 . . 
 
 94 
 
 1875 . . 
 
 292,1^6,000 . . 
 
 1 00 
 
 1876 . . 
 
 289,356,500 . . . 
 
 1 03 
 
 1877 . . 
 
 364,194,146 . . 
 
 1 08 
 
 1878 . . 
 
 . 420,122,400 . . 
 
 77 
 
 1879 . . . 
 
 448,756,630 . . 
 
 1 10 
 
 1880 . . 
 
 . 498,549,868 . . 
 
 95 
 
 1881 . . 
 
 380,280,090 . . 
 
 1 19 
 
 1882 . . . 
 
 . 504,185,470 . . . 
 
 88 
 
 1883 . . 
 
 . 420,000,000 
 
 
WHEAT. 169 
 
 The total production and average value per 
 bushel of the wheat crops since 1862, are here 
 given as compiled by the Department of Agri- 
 culture. 
 
 The author has never been enabled to form 
 any cycles in the price of this cereal that would 
 show any repetition of high or low prices that 
 could be extended into the future. 
 
 To judge of the surrounding conditions and 
 circumstances, such as large visible supplies in 
 this country and Europe, and the known large 
 quantities in farmers' granaries, and good pros- 
 pects for a large yield of the growing winter 
 wheat — with a greatly lessened demand from 
 foreign countries compared with the past few 
 years — and the existing depression in general 
 business in this country. These prospective 
 supplies and probable demand indicate, that 
 this country will have cheap bread for this year, 
 1884. 
 
 February 2^th, 1884. 
 
FORECAST FOR 1887. 
 
 (published JANUARY 8tH, 1887, IN THE "RECORD AND 
 GUIDE.") 
 
 My estimate at the present time of the future 
 business situation for 1887 depends upon certain 
 conditions and combinations in and out of Con- 
 gress. 
 
 It is a well-established fact that the failure of 
 Congress last session to act on the tariff and silver 
 questions aided powerfully to bring about this 
 fall an improvement in the stock market, and in 
 some other lines of industry. 
 
 The depression in business during the spring 
 and summer of this year was principally caused 
 by a dread of what Congress might do under the 
 new administration. 
 
 When Congress adjourned last summer, leaving 
 the tariff and silver laws unchanged, which was a 
 surprise, business men at once saw that they were 
 safe until the next Congress convened, and, with 
 the assurance at that time of good crops, partial 
 confidence returned in general business, especially 
 in the railroad industry, as it was apparent that 
 the railroads would have plenty to do during the 
 fall mouths. Speculation centered in railroad 
 
 (171) 
 
 L 
 
172 benner's prophecies. 
 
 stocks, which gave them an active market ; this 
 influence also extended to the iron market. 
 
 Yet, nevertheless, while there has been an up- 
 ward movement in stocks, iron, and some other 
 manufactured commodities, the products of the 
 land have not entered into this commotion. The 
 farmers do not realize that they are benefited by 
 the improvement in the stock market and com- 
 mercial situation. What they have to buy is at 
 enhanced prices, while that which they have ta 
 sell remains near the lowest prices for years. 
 
 If the improvement which was manifested in 
 business this fall is an indication of continued 
 better times it seems to be one-sided. The scales 
 were up on one side and down on the other. 
 
 The advance in railroad stocks, and the better 
 feeling in business was based with a temporary 
 foundation upon what did not happen, which was 
 the failure of Congress to reduce the tariff, to stop 
 the coinage of silver, and the failure of the 
 crops. 
 
 Business improved because the calamities did 
 not happen, and it was well for the country that 
 they did not. 
 
 The fear of what Congress may do is again upon 
 the minds of the people, as demonstrated when 
 Congress convened by a general tumble and col- 
 
k 
 
 FORECAST FOR 1887. 173 
 
 iapse of the stock market, putting prices back in 
 ten days where they were four mouths ago. 
 
 N0W5 I undertake to say — and say it with em- 
 phasis—that if the Congress of this winter, or 
 during an extra session the coming spring, should 
 reduce the tariff or stop the coinage of silver, or 
 should we have a general drought during the next 
 spring and summer to damage the crops severely, 
 then, in either case, prices for railroad stocks, iron, 
 and the products of other industries which have 
 l)een stimulated this year will decline to a lower 
 level, and the improvements vfill fade out of 
 sight. 
 
 Aside from all the economic theories as to the 
 Tvorking of a low tariff in the long run, there is 
 no denying the fact that the immediate effects of 
 a reduction of duties would be depressed business 
 in all our industries. 
 
 This government should not allow such a dismal 
 calamity as the prostration of our industries in 
 this way for the sake of reducing its revenue. 
 
 Congress should abolish the internal revenue taxes, 
 which will cut down the surplus receipts to a fair 
 limit, and the reduction in this way will not injure 
 general business, and will avoid a growing stringency 
 in the money markets, which is imminent by the con- 
 tinued accumulation and locking up in the treasury of 
 such a large share of the currency. 
 
174 benner's peophecies. 
 
 To stop the coinage of silver in this country, 
 would throw our silver production on English 
 markets at greatly reduced prices, enabling the 
 English merchants to buy their wheat and cotton 
 of India at prices which would bankrupt American 
 farmers. It would stop the improvement in bus- 
 iness, cause lower prices to rule for every thing, 
 and produce general distress in all our industries. 
 
 The year 1887 is the time for the periodical re- 
 turn of a general drought in this country. We 
 have noticed its encroachments this year all along 
 our Western border ; long-continued dry weather 
 prevailed from Texas to Dakota. 
 
 Should the drought return in 1887, it no doubt 
 will extend eastward, covering the great wheat 
 and corn-growing sections of our country, and if 
 it should continue a sufficient length of time to 
 damage the crops it will have the effect of curtail- 
 ing grain freights East, and merchandise freights 
 West, moving the scales the other way — stocks 
 down and wheat up. Eastern merchants and 
 manufacturers will become concerned about their 
 goods, while on the other hand creating a lively 
 speculation in breadstuffs and provisions. 
 
 The bright side of the future is plain. If Con* 
 gress does not disturb the tariff and the silver 
 laws, and there should be no damage by drought 
 to the crops, then we will have a repetition of the 
 
FORECAST FOR 1887. 175 
 
 excitement in stocks during the fall of 188''; to 
 last until the next session of Congress, (Vhea, 
 again, we can expect to see a collapse in specaia- 
 tion and a sudden decline in prices. 
 
 And if there should not be an extra session in 
 the spring, there will be a better feeling in bus- 
 iuess quarters during the spring months, to con- 
 tinue until the crops are determined, the outcome 
 of which will decide as to good or bad fall trade. 
 
 This is a great and growing country ; it is in a 
 splendid condition for unbounded development in 
 all our industries. Plenty of good money — ^gold, 
 silver, and paper; wonderful railroad facilities; a 
 Western world on this continent to populate, and 
 with the threat of lower duties abandoned, and a 
 thorough high protective tariff enacted and con- 
 tinued, with favorable monetary laws, our pros- 
 perity and advance in our numerous industries 
 will excel any thing recorded in all history. 
 
 SAMUEL BENNER 
 DuNDAS, Ohio, December 25, 1886. 
 
 I 
 
176 benner's prophecies. 
 
 FORECAST FOR 1888. 
 
 This year, 1888, being Presidential year, coming 
 a.s it does at the end of the cycle for low prices, 
 will not be a good year for profitable business ; 
 prices for iron and railroad stocks will be lower 
 than in 1887. 
 
 Since the assassination of Garfield, in 1881, 
 business has been on the down grade; and during 
 these six years of declining prices there has not 
 appeared any great or important event to make a 
 turning point for the better in general business. 
 
 The outcome of the election in 1884, and the 
 change of administration, has had the effect to 
 continue low prices for iron, railroad stocks and 
 manufactured commodities. 
 
 The drought of 1887, which cut the crops short, 
 has changed the direction of prices for grain and 
 provisions. 
 
 Now, what is there to happen in this year, 
 1888, of sufficient importance to change the tide 
 for higher prices and for commercial prosperity ? 
 
 The most important future event in sight is the 
 election in November. 
 
 The commercial history of this country is noted 
 for its speoulative eras and depressions. Com- 
 merce and finance move in cycles ; and when the 
 cycles of low prices have completed themselves 
 
FORECAST FOR 1888. 177 
 
 we may rely, with the utmost certainty, that they 
 will be followed by cycles of high prices. 
 
 In speculative eras we have large advances in 
 the prices of commodities, while the years of de- 
 pressions are characterized by extensive declines 
 and stagnation in business. 
 
 The cycles are distinguished for a variation in 
 the price of pig iron of at least $30 per ton. We 
 have not realized this advance since 1881. 
 
 Now, to have an advance from the lowest in 
 this depression of $30 per ton in the price of pig 
 iron and to have general prosperity during the 
 years 1889, 1890, and 1891 to make and complete 
 a high-price cycle, in accordance with the iron 
 ^ycle as made in my "Prophecies," there must be 
 a good and prominent cause for it. 
 
 It can not be brought about or accomplished 
 within this cycle by a reduction of the tariif, as 
 now threatened. 
 
 It now may be accepted as an axiom, that the 
 immediate effect of a low duty' tariff would be 
 lower prices; to be followed afterward in a term 
 of years by higher prices, to the benefit of foreign 
 manufacturers. 
 
 Also, that the immediate effect of the passage 
 of a high protective tariff would be higher prices; 
 to be followed afterward in a few years by lower 
 prices, to the benefit of the consumers. 
 
178 benner's prophecies. 
 
 Whenever we have had high prices for iron and 
 merchandise under a low tariff, since the low duty 
 of 1816, it was after our home manufactures were 
 in ruin, and when foreigners had possession of our 
 markets. 
 
 Under the present extent and stability of our 
 manufacturing industries it would require several 
 years, after the passage of a low duty tariff, to 
 prostrate the business of this country, and after- 
 ward to advance our market to exorbitant figures 
 on foreign imports. 
 
 Under the low duty tariff of 1816 our home 
 manufactures were but few, and as a consequence 
 British manufactures held possession of our mar- 
 kets, and high prices ruled for all imported man- 
 ufactured commodities, while our agricultural 
 products and labor were at low prices. 
 
 Under the low tariff of 1833, when our manu- 
 factories were infant industries, it required two 
 years to stop our mills and furnaces, and then two 
 years afterward to advance our market to the 
 highest prices on foreign goods. 
 
 Under the exclusive ad valorem low tariff of 
 1846 (which is the most unfair tariff scheme that 
 can be devised for the interests of this country 
 and most desired by foreigners), it required a 
 longer time to depress our domestic industries four 
 
b 
 
 FORECAST FOR 1888. 179 
 
 years of declining prices and four years of ad- 
 vancing markets to reach the highest, which was 
 to the benefit of British manufacturers. 
 
 Now, if a low duty tariff bill should be enacted 
 by Congress this winter, and to be continued, 
 either specific or ad valorem, it would require a 
 number of years before our manufactories would 
 be in a state of ruin, and then before prices for 
 foreign products could be advanced to a high 
 figure. 
 
 Therefore, to reduce the tariff duties this win- 
 ter would not accomplish this end in time for our 
 cycle, and consequently we can not consider the 
 enactment of a low tariff as a cause for a turning 
 point in this year. In the past fifty years, during 
 the low duty Democratic administrations of Van 
 Buren, Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan, iron and all 
 manufactured commodities declined and remained 
 at a low price, with depressed business in our in- 
 dustries at the close of each of these administra- 
 tions. And when these administrations were suc- 
 ceeded by the opposing party, which favored the 
 protective policy, prices advanced to a high rauge 
 and trade became prosperous. 
 
 The Cleveland administration at the close of 
 this year, like its predecessors, will have fulfilled 
 its mission by continuing low prices. 
 
 Reasoning from analogy observable in these 
 
180 benner's prophecies. 
 
 cycles, it ij very evident that the coming three 
 years, after 1888, will be unusually prosperous- 
 
 Therefore it is a necessity of the situation, 
 cyclically speaking, and a sign of the times, that 
 the low tariff party must give way to the party 
 which protects our industries and assures at once 
 general prosperity. 
 
 The Republican party must and will be success- 
 ful in the election this fall to produce this result. 
 This event I predict, which will be cause and 
 major question of the times to make a turning 
 point this year from commercial depression to 
 great speculative activity. 
 
 The Republican party can and will solve the 
 surplus problem — satisfactory to this country and 
 without a sweeping reduction of duties on im- 
 ports^ — and will restore prosperity by repealing 
 any unfavorable laws that may be passed by 
 Congress under Cleveland. 
 
 This year, 1888, being the closing year in this 
 £jc\e of low prices — seven years from 1881 — is 
 the golden opportunity to commence the founda- 
 tion for a busines.'^- If there is any benefit to be 
 derived from a knowledge of these cycles in trade, 
 it will be in taking advantage of them. 
 
 Young men who are about to commence their 
 business career should embrace the present oppor- 
 tunity. There are but few of these chances in an 
 
FORECAST FOR 1888. 181 
 
 ordinary life. It requires about ten years to com* 
 plete an up and down in general trade. 
 
 When the depressions which follow commercial 
 crises reach their lowest limit, as determined by 
 these price cycles, they afford the best opportunity 
 for investment, and the height of speculative eras 
 are the most dangerous periods to make a com- 
 mencement in any enterprise. 
 
 This year is the opportunity for investors to 
 open a mine, to build a furnace, to erect a mill, to 
 build a ship, to equip a railroad, and to make in- 
 vestments in agricultural, commercial, and indus- 
 trial operations. 
 
 George Peabody laid the foundation for his for- 
 tune by buying American securities in one of our 
 commercial depressions. 
 
 According to the weather diagram in my 
 prophecies, the summer of 18§8 will be dry and 
 hot, affecting the crops, and probably causing 
 more damage than the heat of 1887. This will 
 have a depressive influence on railroad securities, 
 making the coming fall— September, October, 
 and November — a good time to buy stocks cheap, 
 for an investment to run a few years. We have 
 passed the low point for grain and provisions, and 
 prices for these products will take a higher range 
 for several years to come. 
 
 SAMUEL BENNER. 
 DuNDAS, Ohio, Jar'uarv 2, 1888. 
 
FOBECAST FOR 1889, 1890, AND 1891e 183 
 
 FORECAST FOR 1889, 1890, AND 1891. 
 
 My forecasts at present are not only for the year 
 1889, but also include 1890 and 1891. 
 
 It is a great desideratum to know when good 
 times will commence, and it is also very important 
 to know how long they will continue, and when 
 we may expect the next panic and reaction in 
 general business. 
 
 The business men of this country do not desire 
 a boom of short duration so much as they do a 
 steady advance in prices, and in the developments 
 of trade— continuing for a number of years. 
 
 However much they may desire this condition 
 for future business, the records of commercial and 
 financial history do not warrant us in making this 
 kind of prophecy. 
 
 Since 1825 this country has not experienced a 
 continuous advance in the price of iron beyond 
 four years. 
 
 The resumption of specie payment by the gov- 
 ernment in 1879 was the occasion for the boom ia 
 business following that event. 
 
 Now we have a decision by the people that pro- 
 tection will continue to be the policy of the gov- 
 ernment, making the occasion for the turning of 
 the tide from depression to activity in all business. 
 The depression in trade for 1888 was predicted 
 
184 benner's prophecies. 
 
 thirteen years ago, and the prediction was also 
 made at that time that the tide would turn, giv- 
 ing us an era of business activity during the years 
 1889, 1890, and 1891. 
 
 The persistence of the repetition of these trade 
 cycles is becoming a commercial wonder ; they 
 ride triumphant over all events which have oc- 
 curred during the past sixty years to oppose such 
 regularity. 
 
 These cycles have been verifying themselves 
 through the introduction of railroads, steamboats, 
 the electric telegraph, the suspension of specie 
 payments in 1837 and 1857, the panic of 1873, 
 through the Mexican war, our civil war, through 
 all our Presidential terms since the administration 
 of Jackson, and up to the present time override 
 and defeat the aims of the present administration, 
 while using the whole machinery of the govern- 
 ment for re-election, with the avowed policy of a 
 low tariff, which would depress our industries. 
 
 What else can a reasonable person ask to pre- 
 vent their repetition? Better times and higher 
 prices will prevail for the next three years, and no 
 happening or opposition can prevent them. 
 
 The outcome of the Presidential election has 
 laid a broad basis for a general recovery of confi- 
 dence ; an element that has been wanting for the 
 past four years, which we have observed by the 
 
FORECAST FOR 1889, 1890, AND 1891. 185 
 
 many idle furnaces, mills, and factories, and the 
 lowest price for nails, steel rails, and pig-iron for a 
 number of years. 
 
 The year 1889 opens with cheerful hopes. Our 
 crops during the past year have been abundant; 
 the prospects of an increased foreign demand for 
 our surplus grain and provisions at advanced 
 prices gives the farmers renewed energy. We 
 must look forward to a hot and dry summer this 
 year, as we are not yet beyond the period for a 
 general drought ; however, with fair early crops, 
 business and prices will show considerable im- 
 provement in the spring months. 
 
 We are at the beginning of a prosperous period, 
 and the butlook is for a decided improvement and 
 advance in the prices of iron, railroad stocks, and 
 in all manufactured commodities. Whenever our 
 manufacturers are prosperous every industrial 
 class is prosperous. 
 
 1 predict that the price of iron will advance, 
 and the average price for the year 1889 will be 
 higher than the average for 1888; and I also pre- 
 dict that there will be a wonderful advance in 
 prices for iron stocks, and all products and com- 
 modities in 1890; all business will be prosperous, 
 and it will be a year of good crops, and the boom 
 year in this period of activity. 
 
 In the beginning of the year 1891 speculat**«» 
 
186 benner's prophecies. 
 
 will be at its height — a great business inflation—* 
 pig-iron fifty dollars per ton in the markets of our 
 country. 
 
 I predict that there will be a panic in the year 
 1891. The overtrading and general inflation of 
 business and expansion of credit and confidence, 
 will produce this result. The panic probably will 
 be brought about by the effects of heavy rainfalls 
 and floods, or by the collapse of some large finan- 
 cial business firm. 
 
 This panic will be a commercial and financial 
 revulsion, and will be followed by a long down 
 sweep of prices. Samuel Benner. 
 
 DuNDAS, O., January 1, 1889. 
 
FOEECAST FOR 1890. 187 
 
 FORECAST FOR 1890. 
 
 I predict that prices for irou and railroad stocks 
 will advance and be considerably higher in 1890 
 than in 1889, and that 1890 will be the most pros- 
 perous year for the iron trade, railroads, and for 
 general business since 1881. 
 
 Iron is the most useful of all metals— it is the 
 monarch of business, the barometer of commerce; 
 it is the great Jupiter of trade, and when the iron 
 industry is prosperous, so is the general business 
 of this country. 
 
 I am well aware that my prediction, made last 
 January, of the upward tendency of iron and 
 better business for the year 1889, was considered 
 by many persons as premature and would be a 
 failure. The continued low prices had made them 
 discouraged. Yet we have seen the prediction 
 verified — iron has steadily advanced since the 
 middle of February. 
 
 The cause and major question which made the 
 turning point from commercial depression to ac- 
 tivity in trade was the outcome of the election in 
 1888, which turned the tide in the minds of a 
 majority of business men at that time, although 
 the turn in business affairs was not apparent until 
 some time later. However, it was scarcely a 
 month after the inauguration of General Harrison 
 
188 FORECAST FOR 1890. 
 
 when the decline in iron ceased, a decline that 
 had brought about a widespread stagnation in the 
 iron world. 
 
 A restoration of confidence in the future has 
 resulted in enlarged trade and in an increase of 
 the industries of our country, making a lively con- 
 tinued demand for iron. A revival in general 
 business stimulates the iron trade, and a rising 
 iron market is the best evidence of it and that ii; 
 will continue. 
 
 The aggregate grain and cotton crops of the 
 past year are the largest in the history of this 
 country, which is an important factor for pro- 
 moting profitable and voluminous trade, and no 
 doubt was the foundation for the extensive busi- 
 ness done during the closing mouths of 1889. 
 Yet the advance in iron had commenced several 
 months before. the extent and outcome of the crops 
 were known. 
 
 The only adverse contingency that the most 
 chronic pessimist can argue against the bright 
 future business outlook is tight money — yet money 
 is plenty every-where for legitimate purposes; the 
 banks in Ohio are overflowing with funds, some 
 of them refuse to pay interest on long time de- 
 posits. 
 
 As we look to the general government for our 
 supply of currency, to increase its volume is plain 
 
FORECAST FOR 1890. 189 
 
 saiTmg. Congress should direct the Secretary of 
 the Treasury to issue cuiu certificates in payment 
 for silver bullion as fast as business expands. 
 Should the Congress of this winter fail to repeal 
 the internal revenue laws, then it ought to pass 
 an act to pension all the soldiers at once, which 
 will relieve the treasury of a part of the surplus, 
 and place the money in circulation this year and 
 next, while the revival of prosperity and increas- 
 ing business will need and demand it in the 
 channels of trade. 
 
 I predict that in five years from this time nearly 
 all the soldiers then living will be pensioned by 
 reason of the disability laws which have been and 
 will be passed by Congress. 
 
 The business outlook for 1890 is buoyant for a 
 general revival of trade. We may look in any 
 direction and behold — granaries bursting with the 
 products of the land, factories employed to their 
 fullest capacity, the hum of industry is now heard 
 where a year ago all was as silent as the tomb. 
 
 Railroads were nevermore prosperous; they are 
 unifying and consolidating their lines with im- 
 mense traffic, and reaching out in all directions 
 with new roads to accommodate the increasing 
 business. There will be a boom in railroad stocks 
 this year. 
 
 The mining industry will feel tlie favorable m- 
 
190 FORECAST FOR 1890. 
 
 fluence the coming spriug; the increased demand 
 ifor coal, ore, and other minerals, with the revival 
 and activity in general trade, will employ the full 
 capacity of the labor of this country; the demand 
 for labor will increase, making wages higher. 
 
 The growdug winter wheat has a favorable start, 
 which is an indication of a large crop of wheat 
 fche coming summer. 
 
 The crops of foreign countries are short and 
 below an average, which will make a demand for 
 aiir surplus grain and provisions. 
 
 The balance of trade is in our favor. 
 
 We observe, as a result of the brilliant outlook, 
 that there is a universal scramble for property. 
 British syndicates are sending their money to this 
 country by the millions to buy our breweries, dis- 
 tilleries, imii mills, flour mills, cotton and woolen 
 factories, oil, ore, and coal lands, furnaces, eleva- 
 tors, and all else they can invest in where there 
 is a prospect of a reasonable profit. 
 
 All Europe is excited about the scarcity of iron, 
 and where the supply is to come from to meet the 
 requirements of railway extension and military 
 operations in the old countries. Prices have 
 been advancing in England more rapidly than in 
 this country. 
 
 We are now in an era of commercial activity 
 ^nequaled in the annals of trade. 
 
FORECAST FOR 1890. 191 
 
 A production of ten million of tons of pig iron 
 will not supply the demand for 1890. No, 1 pig 
 iron will be low at $30 per ton. The price will 
 advance above that figure this year. 
 
 The growth of the United States is remarkable. 
 
 Sixty^five millions of people. 
 
 Four hundred million acres of improved and 
 cultivated land. 
 
 Two hundred thousand miles of railway. 
 
 A billion and a half of good money in circula- 
 tion. 
 
 A net- work of electric wires from ocean to ocean, 
 and a profusion of all the elements of wealth. 
 
 The progress and improvements in commerce, 
 manufacture, and agriculture surpass any thing 
 known in the world's history. 
 
 Samuel Benner. 
 
 DuNDAS, Ohio, January 1, 1890. 
 
192 benner's prophecies. 
 
 FORECAST FOR 1891. 
 
 The brilliant outlook at the beginning of 1.890 
 for higher prices for iron and stocks was blighted 
 during the past summer and fall by the persistent 
 necessities of London capitalists realizing on our 
 securities in consequence of the collapse of specu- 
 lation in South America, producing a continued 
 depression in our stock market, ending in a finan- 
 cial panic. 
 
 There is a wide difference between a yearly panic 
 in money and a periodical panic in trade. 
 
 One is the alarm of tight money raised nearly 
 every spring and fall in New York City, while 
 the other is cyclical, and is the inevitable result 
 after a period of wild speculation and inflation in 
 business. 
 
 The panic of November, 1890, was a financial 
 disturbance — premature — to fulfill the predicted 
 panic for 1891, and will soon subside. 
 
 An inflated basis for pig iron, railroad stocks, 
 wild speculation in trade, and over expansion of 
 credits are essential conditions to precede a panic 
 that would result in a reaction of trade. These 
 elements were lacking prior to the la»te financial 
 flurry. 
 
FORECAST FOR 1891„ 198 
 
 Now, what is the business outlook for the open- 
 ing year? 
 
 There is no good reason why a financial dis- 
 turbance at home or abroad should produce a re- 
 vulsion in trade in this country at this time, and 
 when no adverse national legislation is in sight 
 for a year at least. 
 
 The McKiuley Tariff, the Silver Bill, and the 
 enormous Treasury disbursements forbid! 
 
 The McKinley tariff is the mainstay to the in- 
 dustrial interests of this country for the present to 
 create and revive general business. It will give 
 confidence in trade for the coming year. 
 
 The greenback — a wonderful money — is as good 
 as gold to-day anywhere in this country, 
 
 No paper money has broken now — as it did in 
 the panic of 1837 — when suddenly two-thirds of 
 it were extinguished by breaking — and when the 
 expansion of bank credits and tenfold expan- 
 sion of private credits were suddenly converted 
 into specie demands. Farmers for years after- 
 ward were required to dig the ground to pay 
 debts in specie, which were contracted in a wild 
 money inflation. 
 
 No reduction of the tariff now, as in the year 
 1857, which was immediately followed by a panic 
 and general suspension of the banks, and nearly 
 
194 benner's prophecies. 
 
 all paper money at a discount, which entailed 
 heavy losses upon the public. 
 
 No reduction of the tariff now, as in 1870 and 
 1872, which aided and created the commercial 
 crash of 1873. 
 
 Had iron and stock reached a high-price basis 
 during the past year, and had Congress adopted a 
 low tariff instead of the McKinley bill, this severe 
 financial crisis would have been a deplorable dis- 
 aster resulting in a revolution of trade at once, with 
 a sudden shrinkage in prices and general collapse 
 in business throughout this country. 
 
 The business situation is in a prosperous condi- 
 tion, trade is upon a sound basis ; the circulating 
 money was never better ; there is good money in 
 any required amounts to move the crops, and to 
 produce any manufactured commodity that is 
 wanted ; agricultural products of all kinds bring 
 good prices ; the foreign market will take all we 
 can spare. 
 
 In view of the favorable outlook and the phe- 
 nomenal expansion and speculation in our South- 
 ern and Western States, with the promise of an 
 abundant crop the coming year, and the reorgan- 
 ization of financial affairs in Europe, and combi- 
 nations in our extended railway system, we must 
 look forward to a speculative boom in iron and 
 
FORECAST FOR 1891. 195 
 
 stocks before we can enter upon the coming pe- 
 riodical revulsion in trade. 
 
 I predict that the stringency in money and credits 
 will cease this winter, and that husiyiess and prices 
 will improve and recover under the working of the 
 McKinley tariff, when in full operation, stimulating 
 trade in many branches of industry all over this country 
 especially in the South where all manner of enterprise 
 has become a wonder, giving us a short boom in this 
 year 1891. 
 
 I predict that the season of 1891 will be an excep- 
 tionally good one for the provision trade; corn and porh 
 will advance materially to high figures by October 
 next. 
 
 I predict that this period of inflation and activity 
 in the iron industry will culminate in the fall of this 
 year during the usual autumn stringency, and contrac- 
 tion in general business will follow with drooping 
 prices. 
 
 The political complications changing the com- 
 plexion of the next Congress, which will be 
 unfriendly to the continuance of the policy of protec- 
 tion to home industry, and the tumult of presi- 
 dential making in 1892, with third party confusion, 
 will cast their shadows before them, creating 
 doubt as to the future, unfavorably affecting gen- 
 eral business. 
 
 This reaction in trade will not be sudden and 
 
196 ^ benner's prophecies. 
 
 violent, but gradual, giving us a fairly prosperous 
 period during the operation of the present tariff, 
 to continue until Congress passes an act reducing 
 duties. Then will follow a panic and sudden de- 
 pression in all our industries, extending to a num- 
 ber of years prior to a satisfactory business situ- 
 ation. Samuel Benn^r. 
 DuNDAs, 0., Janwmj 1, 1891 o 
 
FOEECAST FOR 1892„ 197 
 
 FOKECAST FOR 1892. 
 
 For the past three years, 1889, 1890, and 1891, 
 I have predicted a revival of speculation, good 
 trade and high prices. 
 
 I now predict that the channels of trade will 
 become stagnant — general business will languish 
 and low prices will prevail for the next six years. 
 
 The cycle for high prices has passed, the op- 
 portunity is gone for a general revival of busi- 
 ness, and during the past three years we have not 
 experienced great speculation in this country. 
 
 Why is this so ? 
 
 What was the " reason why ?" 
 
 It could not be charged to resumption of specie 
 payments. " Booms" appeared under the specie 
 basis before the late resumption. 
 
 It was not for the want of the balance of for- 
 eign trade being in our favor ; the balance of 
 trade had been in our favor continuously ^rom 
 1876 to 1888, sixteen hundred million of dollars. 
 
 It was not for the want of good crops at the 
 beginning of this cycle in 1889; the production 
 of wheat and corn in that year aggregated more 
 bushels than in any year before in the history of 
 this country. 
 
198 benner's prophecies. 
 
 It was not for the want of a protective tariff; 
 our tariff has been protective for a number of 
 years. 
 
 My answer to this question is this : There was 
 not sufficient expansion and prospective inflation 
 of the currency to produce and stimulate great 
 speculation. 
 
 Prior to the War of the Rebellion a material 
 rise in prices followed the rapid increase in the 
 number of banks, and in the volume of paper 
 money, and in periods of great speculation the 
 country was flooded with a depreciated currency 
 based on hard money. The notes of banks could 
 not be signed fast enough for the public ; banks 
 of issue under the old state bank system could 
 then inflate the currency to any desired amount 
 to stimulate trade. 
 
 Now we have a banking system which is not 
 adequate to furnish a sufficient volume of cur- 
 rency to meet the wants of all the people and to 
 produce and stimulate great speculation, and the 
 people know it. 
 
 The restrictions of the national currency laws — 
 confining circulation to bonds deposited — and the 
 provision which requires the keeping of a certain 
 amount of money as a reserve against liabilities, 
 not only prevents inflation of the currency, but 
 
FORECAST FOR 1892. 199 
 
 also hinders banks from extending accommoda- 
 tions to legitimate business interests. 
 
 The output of silver certificates in excess of the 
 contraction of national bank notes and displace- 
 ment of gold is a slow process, and is not suffi- 
 cient for the increasing needs of this growing 
 country. 
 
 I can fix no other "honest reason why" there 
 was no great speculation in 1889, 1890, and 1891, 
 than the lack of sufficient expansion of the cur- 
 rency. 
 
 One good reason for a thing is sufficient, with- 
 out collaterals. 
 
 Why do I predict poor trade and low prices for 
 the next six years? 
 
 One reason is that the cycle denotes it. 
 
 One cause will be the contraction of national 
 bank currency. 
 
 There has been during the past nine years a 
 contraction of national bank notes to the amount 
 of 190 millions of dollars — and what is to be ex- 
 pected when the corporate existence of ninety-six 
 national banks expire in this year 1892? 
 
 What will be the controlling cause? Answer: 
 Discarding silver as a money metal by our gov- 
 ernment and other nations. 
 
 This controlling cause has been constantly ope- 
 rating to depress values and to restrain the ex- 
 
200 bennek's prophecies. 
 
 pansive force of our industries — it has discouraged 
 speculation early in the late high-price cycle, and 
 will have a distressing and disastrous effect in the 
 coming low-price cycle. 
 
 The coinage act of 1873, which abolished the 
 silver dollar, was a monstrous wrong against labor 
 and the industrial interests of this country. 
 
 The gold basis as a sole unit of value is a curse 
 to the great majority of the human race. Gold 
 alone is too scarce a metal to be the standard as 
 the only measure and basis of all values ; and as 
 the commercial nations of the earth are drifting 
 to the single standard, and in consequence of the 
 growing scarcity of gold, it will continue to ap- 
 preciate, which will be apparent in the decline of 
 prices and depression in trade. 
 
 We are now approaching a low-price cycle. 
 
 What is to be expected when the demonetiza- 
 tion of silver hangs over the financial heavens as 
 a dark and threatening cloud ? 
 
 The whole civilized world is suffering from the 
 effects of a silver panic ; prices are leveling down 
 the world over, and in spite of our protective 
 tariff prices here are adjusting themselves to the 
 1 'wer plane of value in foreign countries. 
 
 To realize the full measure of the present fin an" 
 cial drift, and wiiat a low cycle means, it will only 
 be necessary to give the golden screw a few more 
 
FORECAST FOR 1892. 201 
 
 twists by fresh demonetization of silver in some 
 other countries, increasing the impoverishment 
 and gloom of Europe, stop the purchase of silver 
 by our own government, without provision for 
 placing more money at once in the channels of 
 trade — national bank currency continually de- 
 creasing—and then cap the climax by the adop- 
 tion of a ''revenue tariff only," under the single 
 standard, which is and will be a new element in 
 tariff history for depression, and the inevitable re- 
 sult will be that the industrial and productive in- 
 terests of this country will be struck with the 
 mildew of stagnation. 
 
 Since the silver legislation and financial crisis 
 of 1873, the most remarkable increase in business 
 activity and high prices for iron were in the high 
 cycles of 1879 and 1889 in a decreasing ratio. 
 
 In 1879, resumption set free many millions of 
 greenbacks, which started a wave of prosperity — 
 the highest prices for iron were lower than in the 
 former high cycle of 1872. 
 
 In 1889 there was no inflation of the currency 
 to give rise to extraordinary movements in trade. 
 The contraction of national bank notes exceedeof 
 the amount of silver certificates issued in that 
 year. The highest prices for iron were lower thaii 
 the highest in 1879. 
 
202 benner's prophecies. 
 
 Why is it that the periods of speculation are 
 becoming weaker? And why was it that after 
 1879 and 1889 the advance in the price of iron 
 ceased, and large enterprises of production be- 
 came discouraged before the years of the high 
 cycle had expired ? 
 
 The cause of the whole trouble is to be found 
 in — money. 
 
 Under the present system of national banks and 
 the gold unit of value, periods of great specula- 
 tion will be out of the question. 
 
 The upward movements in trade will be of 
 short duration, with only ordinary advance in 
 prices. 
 
 While on the other hand we can look forward 
 to nothing else but long periods of depression, 
 with increasing distress and prostration of all 
 forms of industry, with lower prices for many 
 products and commodities than ever known in the 
 country. 
 
 The outlook for the growing winter wheat is 
 unfavorable — the fall and winter pastures the 
 worst for many years. The people are excited 
 about our bountiful crops. Yet the crops of 1891 
 will melt away as did the big crop of 1889, with- 
 out much stimulation in prices for iron and stocks, 
 and should the crop condition in the coming 
 spring have no better outlook than at present. 
 
FORECAST FOR 1892. 203 
 
 then the financial influenoe will be dominant, 
 trade and traffic will decrease, and general busi- 
 ness go into depression, to continue for a number 
 of years. Samuel BenneRo 
 
 DuNDAs, O., January 1, 1892. 
 
FORECAST FOR 1894. 205 
 
 FOKECAST t^OK 1894. 
 
 It is somewhat against the desires of the writer 
 to predict calamity in the future business of this 
 country ; yet, however, I yield to the urgent de- 
 mand from business men for my views. 
 
 We are now in the down cycle in trade and 
 prices, as explained in this book. 
 
 In the forecast for 1892 it was remarked that 
 general business would languish and low prices 
 would prevail for the next six years. 
 
 After such disasters as have occurred in 1893, 
 the inquiry is a most anxious one : What is the 
 business outlook for 1894? My prediction is, 
 that hard times, poor trade, continued lower prices, 
 and general stagnation in our industries will pre- 
 vail all over this country throughout this year. 
 
 There will be a new and extraordinary business 
 situation — a combination of adverse legislative 
 enactments never before experienced in this 
 country. 
 
 The repeal of the silver purchasing law leaves 
 us squarely on the deadly gold basis. 
 
 There is no doubt of the Wilson tariff bill pass- 
 ing Congress and becoming a law, with some un- 
 important changes. 
 
 Gold basis with low tariff will be something 
 
20G benner's prophecies. 
 
 new in trade conditions, and its effects will be to 
 paralyze the whole country. It will mean the 
 lowest depths of depression in all our industries. 
 
 Speculative booms in business are out of the 
 question — no use to look for them. The discard- 
 ing of the silver dollar as a money unit has killed 
 all speculation. The price of silver bullion will 
 eventually decline in the world's market, dragging 
 down wheat, wool, cotton, and all agricultural 
 products. 
 
 It will be some satisfaction in these troublesome 
 times to know that the greenback will save us 
 from so great a calamity as the bursting of the 
 Jackson paper money in 1837. 
 
 The hard times following that disaster spread a 
 pall of bankruptcy over the whole land. Taxes 
 could not be paid, and the greater part of the 
 debts were settled by bankruptcy. 
 
 The greenback was our mainstay in the long 
 downsweep of prices after the panic of 1873, 
 after the Baring panic of 1890, and also after the 
 late panic in 1893. We can rely on it after the 
 coming commercial panic which is certain to follow 
 the adoption of a low tariff. 
 
 No political party should ever be voted into 
 power that would advocate the retirement of the 
 greenback. 
 
 Now at this time we have no fears in regard tx> 
 
FORECAST FOR 1894. "20? 
 
 the soundness of our paper money ; yet Vve are in 
 a deplorable financial condition. 
 
 The demonetization of silver in 1873 continues 
 to hang over the business outlook as a dark and 
 threatening cloud. 
 
 This stealthy act was a crime against God and 
 man. It was an unpardonable sin, and no atone- 
 ment can ever be made for it; it has occasioned 
 more loss to the agricultural, mining and indus- 
 trial interests of this country than the costs of all 
 the wars that have ever been waged on this con- 
 tinent ; it has occasioned more grief, sorrow, and 
 gloom than all other crimes ; it has been the real 
 cause of declining prices in lands, grain, wool, 
 cotton, iron and all else, to lower figures than 
 ever known ; it is the main reason why that stag- 
 nation prevails in our industries to-day ; it is the 
 monster that has thrown an army of laborers out 
 of employment — filled our cities with starving 
 men — because there is no work for them to do. 
 
 It is evident that the money problem is pre- 
 dominant for depression in our business afl^irs ; 
 and it is a sad and doleful commentary upon the 
 times that in this free and enlightened country- 
 rich in all the bountiesi of nature, inexhaustible 
 mines of coal, iron, gold and silver, boimdless ag- 
 ricultural resources — that such disasters in busi- 
 
208 benner's prophecies. 
 
 ness should have occurred as described, and all 
 this under a high protective tariff. 
 
 If, with all that has happened in the past, when 
 in possession of so favorable agricultural, manu* 
 facturing, and mining advantages, with protec- 
 tion, what is to be expected as a result of the 
 adoption of a free trade and ad valorem low duty 
 tariff at this time, with silver demonetized ? 
 
 The low duty tariffs have been shameful failures 
 in this country. Whenever we have had a low 
 tariff, the general government became involved in 
 debt, manufacturers were crippled, the people 
 were impoverished, and labor was thrown out of 
 work. 
 
 A low duty tariff will cause declining prices for 
 labor and its productions, resulting in a lessened 
 ability to pay debts. The gold we have will soon 
 fly off to Europe to pay for goods we should man- 
 ufacture ourselves. 
 
 When we had the low tariff of 1833, so empty 
 was the treasury that the president could not 
 draw his salary. The tariff was reduced in 1857. 
 In the following year there was a deficiency in the 
 revenue, and the government was compelled to 
 borrow twenty millions of dollars. 
 
 The low tariff era from 1857 to 1861 was a 
 dismal period in tariff history. The industries of 
 this country were prostrated ; the people were poor 
 
FORECAST FOR 1894. 209 
 
 and in debt. These four years of low tariff bank- 
 rupted more iron furnaces and factories, caused 
 more failures in business, and reduced the laboring 
 man to greater hardships and privations than ever 
 before known. 
 
 With low tariff, on a gold basis, we can look 
 forward to nothing else but an adjustment of 
 prices to the low plane of foreign countries. The 
 labor of this country will be forced down to the 
 impoverished condition of labor in Europe. 
 
 What else can be expected but continued em- 
 barrassed business, bankrupted manufacturers, 
 unemployed labor, and ruined farmers. 
 
 We sound the note of warning. Hard times 
 are coming, the sting of which will come to every 
 man's home. Samuel Benner. 
 
 DuNDAS, 0., January 1, 1894. ; 
 
FORECAST FOR 1895. 2il 
 
 FORECAST FOR 1895. 
 
 What are the "Signs of the Times?" 
 
 The answer to this question is contained in one 
 word 
 
 Prices. 
 
 Wheat, 54 cents a bushel at Chicago. 
 
 Cotton, 5^ cents a pound at Cincinnati. 
 
 Pig iron, 10 dollars a ton at Pittsburgh. 
 
 Wheat, cotton, and iron are the leading factors 
 in general business. Collectively, they are the 
 barometer of trade. Low prices for these products 
 indicate depression and stagnation in business. 
 
 Present prices for wheat and cotton means im- 
 poverishment for the farmers and cotton planters. 
 Ten dollar pig iron is bankruptcy for the furnace 
 man. 
 
 What is the Business Outlook for 1895? 
 
 There is no promise or sign of better times for 
 the coming year. 
 
 We may look in vain for any permanent im- 
 provement in general business. 
 
 The increase last year of one hundred millions 
 of dollars in the bonded debt of this jr(.ve)"?im'».''it 
 
212 benner's prophecies. 
 
 does not signify that this is or will be a prosperous 
 country, and that the people will be contented, 
 keeping out of debt and making money. 
 
 Our immense war debt has been and is now a 
 national misfortune. It was one of the instru- 
 mentalities which instigated the money power of 
 the world to establish the single gold standard in 
 this country. 
 
 Ever since 1873, when this crime was committed, 
 values in lands, products, and commodities have 
 been shrinking in consequence of this act, and no 
 one can fathom or predict the depths to which 
 prices will fall. 
 
 Many newspapers joined in the chorus after the 
 adoption of a lower tariff last August, that things 
 were now settled. The tide had turned ; business 
 was improving. Yet, notwithstanding all news- 
 paper wisdom, there was a silent and constantly 
 operating cause for depression that overrides all 
 things. Prices did not advance, but continued on 
 the downward grade. Pig iron, lately, 9^ dollars 
 a ton at Pittsburgh, is the wonder of the age. 
 
 The outcome of the late election is not a factor 
 in the business situation. 
 
 It did not give us more gold. 
 
 It did not give us more corn. 
 
 It did not give us a protective tariff. 
 
 It did not stop the outflow of gold. 
 
FORECAST FOE 1895. 213 
 
 It did not increase the revenue. 
 
 It did not remonetize silver. 
 
 It did not relieve us from the blighting, wither- 
 ing curse of the single gold standard. Although 
 a wonderful success for the Kepublican party, it 
 was a dismal failure in improving business and in 
 establishing higher prices. 
 
 Currency reform is now the sensation in Con- 
 gress. This reform is not at this time impera- 
 tively needed ; our currency is safe and sound ; 
 no noteholder has ever lost a penny by a broken 
 national bank ; every dollar of United States cur- 
 rency is as good as gold. 
 
 In my forecast for 1892, attention was directed 
 to the restrictions of the national banking system 
 by our currency laws, and that there was a lack 
 of sufficient expansion of the currency to produce 
 great speculation in 1889, 1890 and 1891. How- 
 ever, any plan of reform to make the currency 
 more elastic will be only to juggle with the cur- 
 rency, and will not now, in this crisis of the 
 government, stop the outflow of gold from the 
 treasury. 
 
 What is absolutely required is abundant revenue 
 to enable the government to pay its daily ex- 
 penses, and to reform silver so that the vast hoard 
 
214 brjsnner's prophecies. 
 
 in the treasury can be utilized in paying gold 
 gamblers who present currency for redemption. 
 
 These results can only be obtained by the free 
 coinage of silver first, and a thoroughly protective 
 tariff to follow, which is the best for revenue and 
 best for the people. 
 
 If the proposed currency reform is for the pur- 
 pose of creating a boom in business for 1895 and 
 1896 it will be a flat failure. 
 
 Before the war of rebellion, when we had the 
 specie basis banking system, whenever the tariff 
 was reduced prices declined and hard times fol- 
 lowed ; to get their notes in circulation the banks 
 had to resort to every ingenuity and cunning de- 
 vice so as to prevent their sudden return for 
 redemption in hard money. They then could not 
 inflate the currency and start a boom in business 
 by their money alone. 
 
 It was only after a protective policy had been 
 adopted and business was improving, that specie- 
 paying banks flourished ; then they could issue 
 any quantity of their currency, which stimulated 
 business and made high prices. 
 
 Now we have a low tariff, distressed business, 
 and declining prices. Any system of state banks 
 that would issue currency based on gold or any 
 thing else could not get large quantities of their 
 
FORECAST FOR 1895. 215 
 
 notes out in the channels of trade, and therefore 
 the attempt would be a failure to boom business. 
 
 A query : If more money is required at this 
 time to create better business, why is there now 
 a surplus over legal, requirements of thirty mill- 
 ion dollars of idle money in the banks ? 
 
 There is an anxious inquiry as to the proper 
 time to invest money. 
 
 It is one of the facts of trade, that when the 
 depressions which follow commercial panics reach 
 their lowest limit they afford the best opportunity 
 for safe and profitable investment. 
 
 Is there any evidence anywhere that we are at 
 the lowest in this depression ? 
 
 Is there any property which is not depreciating 
 in value, except gold ? 
 
 I answer none. 
 
 Are prices so low they can not go lower ? Does 
 the lower tariff, Republican success in the elec- 
 tion, and failure in the corn crop indicate a turn 
 in the tide of depression for the year 1895 ? 
 
 I answer no. 
 
 There is not in view a single prospective hap- 
 pening that would advance prices, except very 
 short crops of grain and cotton in 1895. How- 
 ever, in that event, railroads and general trada 
 would be adversely affected. 
 
 There can not be prosperity in the future witl»« 
 
211) benner's prophecies. 
 
 out advancing prices in general all along the lines 
 of production and manufacture. 
 
 An average crop of grain in this country this 
 year, with fair crops abroad, prices at Chicago for 
 wheat after next harvest will go down to 40 cents 
 a bushel ; prices for corn next fall will decline to 
 25 cents a bushel ; fat hogs three dollars a hun- 
 dred pounds gross next winter's packing season. 
 Prices for wool, cotton, iron, cattle, and horses will 
 be on the down grade during the present year. 
 Common sheep after the wool is taken off next 
 spring will sell for what the pelt will then bring 
 in the markets, 25 cents. 
 
 To the anxious inquirer : The year 1895 will 
 not be the proper time to make investments in 
 property, or to engage extensively in business en- 
 terprise. 
 
 We have not yet seen or felt the depths of the 
 depressive effects of the gold basis with low tariff 
 in connection with our growing national debt. 
 
 Samuel Benner. 
 
 DuNDAS, O., January 1, 1895. 
 
FORECAST FOR 1897. 217 
 
 FORECAST FOR 1897. 
 
 [Copyrighted.] 
 
 I predict a revival in busiuess and higher prices 
 next spring and summer ; also predict that 1898 
 will be a prosperous year, and that moderately 
 good times will prevail until July, 1899. 
 
 By the 4th of March next, the dark clouds of 
 the cycle of hard times will have rolled by. The 
 sunshine of prosperity will then cover the land. 
 The outcome of the election has changed the cur- 
 rent of business thought. After the 4th of March 
 next we enter a new cycle for better times. 
 
 The writer heretofore has been somewhat san- 
 guine on the approach of cycles for good times, 
 and has predicted higher prices for iron and great 
 activity in general trade. 
 
 Now, judging the future by the past, and to 
 reason from what we know, the future does not 
 promise great prosperity. 
 
 The late election decided that the existing gold 
 standard must be preserved until international 
 free silver is secured. 
 
 International free silver is a delusion. To coin 
 silver free at the commercial ratio, or any ratio 
 other than 16 to 1, is out of the question. The 
 
218 benner's prophecies. 
 
 people of this country will not consent to change 
 our silver dollars until the bonds are paid. United 
 States bonds are payable in silver dollars of the 
 existing weight and fineness. 
 
 The delay occasioned by an international money 
 conference to agree to coin silver free at the ratio 
 of 16 to 1 would consume many months of valu- 
 able time, and pending a decision by Congress the 
 gold press would sound the note of alarm — fifty- 
 cent dollars, repudiation, degradation, and desola- 
 tion. 
 
 No cycle for good times could withstand the 
 agony of 1896. 
 
 The single gold standard may possibly be main- 
 tained through the next four years, which will 
 constantly operate to press down prices to the 
 level of foreign countries. 
 
 The gold basis has been a hindrance to continu- 
 ous improvement. Its effects are to override high 
 and low tariffs, currencies, and all else, for de- 
 pression. It has been the only cause for depress- 
 ing and shortening all of our business revivals 
 since 1872, in which year we had $50 pig iron. 
 
 The people of this country have not had an op- 
 portunity in these business revivals to enjoy more 
 than a glimpse of prosperity. 
 
 The single gold standard will fail to restore con- 
 
FORECAST FOR 1897. 219 
 
 fldence in our financial system or in our securities 
 at home or abroad so long as we are compelled to 
 'issue bonds to get gold — to keep vast sums of 
 paper currency and silver dollars on a parity with 
 ^old. 
 
 The people of this country made a mistake in 
 voting down free silver. The Democratic Party 
 made a mistake in coupling free silver with re- 
 pugnant isms. Nine-tenths of the voters in the 
 United States are opposed to the gold standard. 
 Many men were buncoed and scared out of their 
 votes for free silver. 
 
 Bimetalism is the only salvation for our de- 
 pressed debtor country. 
 
 The writer in his book of Prophecies, when 
 first published in 1876, predicted that resumption 
 of specie payments in 1879 would be a success, 
 that it would give confidence in business and 
 higher prices. 
 
 In the year 1878, the business of this country 
 was in the throes of depression. There were 
 calamity howlers then. We were told that re- 
 sumption of specie payments would be contrac- 
 tion, that the gold in the treasury would be 
 drawn out in a day, and that there would be a 
 smashing panic in all business. 
 
 The result was that the first day of January, 
 
220 benner's prophesies. 
 
 1879, was financially as pleasant as May — no 
 panic for gold — confidence was restored at once. 
 Gold, silver and greenbacks came out into circular- 
 tion, and in less than twenty days pork advanced 
 two dollars on the barrel. 
 
 Query : If the resumption of specie payments 
 in gold alone did not create a panic. 
 
 Why should the restoration of silver to the 
 money basis cause a panic ? 
 
 Especially when it would make resumption 
 what it means — gold and silver. 
 
 We have been told during the late political ex- 
 citement that free coinage of silver would be con- 
 traction — drive out gold, create a panic, and in- 
 flict upon trade and commerce a deadly blow. The 
 writer was ready to predict when free coinage of 
 silver was assured that the price of silver bullion 
 would advance, and when made a law, silver 
 would command in the markets $1.29 an ounce. 
 Silver then could be coined at the ratio of 16 to 1, 
 making the silver in the silver dollar worth one 
 hundred cents, and that the result would be a busi- 
 ness boom around the world throughout this cen- 
 tury, verifying the prophecy made many years 
 ago that the 19th century would close in the 
 height of a speculative era. 
 
 The managers of the Kepublican party maniv 
 fested ability in conducting the late political cam' 
 
FORECAST FOR 1897. 221 
 
 paign. It remains to be known whether they can 
 manage the coming trade cycle for continuous 
 prosperity, upon which depends the success or de- 
 feat of the Republican party in 1900. 
 
 The Republican party promise a protective tar- 
 iff as a remedy for hard times. 
 
 A high tariff may increase the revenues of the 
 government, yet we have no assurance that it 
 would give high prices and continued prosperity 
 in general trade. 
 
 Congress may revise and re-revise the tariff, and 
 it will remain unsatisfactory. Protection will not 
 protect. The trouble is deeper and wider than 
 tariffs and currencies. 
 
 The President-elect remembers that the high 
 tariff which was made to take effect October, 6, 1890, 
 was the idol of his mind ; that it had cost him 
 the best thought in his life, and he had a patriotic 
 hope that it would bring on an era of unbounded 
 prosperity in this country. 
 
 What was the result ? We will let the barom- 
 eter of trade testify. 
 
 The records of the Iron and Steel Association, 
 of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, show that in the 
 last cycle for good times, from 1888 to 1891, the 
 highest monthly average price for No. 1 pig iron 
 was $19.90 a ton in the month of January, 1890. 
 From that date the price of iron steadily declined 
 
222 benner's prophecies. 
 
 through 1890, 1891, 1892, 1893, and 1894, when 
 the McKinley tariff was repealed, with the lowest 
 yearly average price for pig iron ever known, 
 $12.66 a ton. 
 
 In a few months after the McKinley tariff be- 
 came a law, there followed, by reason of reductioa 
 in wages, the most extensive labor strikes in the 
 coal and iron trades in the history of this country, 
 and this tariff was in operation only two years and 
 one month when the Kepublicon party was disas- 
 trously defeated in the presidential election of 
 1892 by a tariff reform party. 
 
 In view of the above, we may look in vain for 
 continuous prosperity as a result of a protective 
 tariff alone. 
 
 It is unfortunate that the expenses of the gov- 
 ernment exceed its income, requiring a revision 
 of the tariff at the beginning instead of near the 
 end of the coming cycle for good trade. The im- 
 provement in business and higher prices to follow 
 the adoption of a protective tariff will only con- 
 tinue a few months after a new bill would become 
 a law. i- 
 
 The adoption of a new tariff in 1897 or in 1898 
 would stimulate general trade only until the sum- 
 mer of 1899, after which a reaction will set in, 
 with declining prices, contraction in business, re- 
 duction in the wages of labor, closing of manu- 
 
FORECAST FOR 1897. 223 
 
 factories, and another period of poor trade in the 
 last half of 1899 and bad times all through 1900. 
 
 In all of our business revivals prior to the de- 
 monetization of silver — advancing prices and good 
 times of long duration — were produced by pro- 
 tective tariffs and the expansion of the currency. 
 Since demonetization of silver, these agencies for 
 business activity have been growing weaker and 
 weaker, which can be observed by the failure of 
 the McKinley tariff" to maintain prices, when aided 
 by an issue of one hundred and fifty-six million 
 dollars in treasury notes. 
 
 Should any reader of this forecast have roseate 
 views of the future — consoling himself that we 
 are in the flow for a great boom in general trade, 
 and contemplating going into debt for money to 
 expand his business — let him consider the drift 
 of the times and prices in past business revivals 
 and depressions as here given recorded by the 
 Iron and Steel Association and Dunn's Commer- 
 cial Agency. 
 
 Yearly average price per ton for No. 1 pig iron 
 in 1872, $48J; in 1880, $284; in 1^90, $184. 
 These figures show that we are coming down 
 rapidly from the top level. 
 
 The following will show that we are sinking 
 lower at the bottom : The Iron and Steel Asso- 
 ciation report that the average price for pig iron 
 
224 benner's prophecies. 
 
 in February and April, 1895, was $12 a ton, the 
 lowest average monthly price for No. 1 pig iron 
 on record. 
 
 R. G. Dunn & Co., who are faithful chroniclers 
 of trade events, have in their commercial report 
 of May 1, 1896, stated that the average price for 
 all commodities was then the lowest ever known. 
 
 Can it be possible that the downward drift at 
 the top and bottom will continue ? It is probable. 
 
 Bimetalism is the only remedy. 
 
 There is no prospective legislation for an ex- 
 pansion of the currency by an increase of new 
 money for circulation. 
 
 Gold evolution forbids. 
 
 Any financial legislation to contract the cur- 
 rency which the gold basis demands, especially to 
 retire the greenbacks, would destroy confidence 
 in trade, stop the improvement in business, and 
 inflict a deadly blow on all of our industries. 
 
 Our money muss has become the most wondrous 
 financial jumble of modern times. It is proper 
 for every person to govern their temper in all 
 things. Yet if I had the authority, using the 
 language of General Jackson, by the eternal I 
 would send every congressman to the penitentiary 
 who votes for the retirement of the greenbacks. 
 
 SAMUEL BENNER. 
 
 DuNDAS, O., January 1, 1897. 
 
FORECAST FOR 1899. 225 
 
 FORECAST FOR 1899. 
 
 [Copyrighted.] 
 
 I predict : That this revival in business will end 
 in this year, 1899, and that after the month of 
 July general trade will languish, prices will grad- 
 ually decline, and the times grow worse until after 
 the election in 1904. 
 
 The writer will not attempt to explain why a 
 turn will occur in this year from prosperity to ad- 
 versity in the business world, other than that the 
 price cycle denotes it. 
 
 The remarks in this forecast will be confined to 
 the trade situation, condition of prices, effects of . 
 the gold standard, and advice to the reader- 
 
 In view of the fact that the regular Congress 
 will not be in session during the coming summer 
 to disturb business, we should expect trade to im- 
 prove, with decided higher prices, as it did in the 
 absence of a summer session of Congress in 1895. 
 
 Yet the parallel will not exist. Trade condi- 
 tions will not be the same. In 1893 we had a 
 panic, and in 1894 severe depression in general 
 business. Many manufacturers closed their shops 
 in that year. The result was that stocks of mer- 
 
226 benner's prophecies. 
 
 chandise and commodities were run down to a low 
 limit. 
 
 The temporary improvement in 1895 was a 
 filling up process. 
 
 In this year (1899) store-houses will be full of 
 unsold goods, which have been manufactured in 
 the hope of a great revival of business, with a 
 big advance in prices to follow the adoption of a 
 protective tariff. 
 
 These goods will be thrown on the market the 
 first opportunity, as no prudent merchant or man- 
 ufacturer would hold stocks of goods for the future, 
 in view of the gloomy outlook for the trade situa- 
 tion in the year 1900, and when the capacity to 
 manufacture more commodities is beyond all con- 
 sumption in this country. Therefore we can not 
 predict much higher prices, if any, for this year 
 (1899). 
 
 Should there be an extra session of Congress 
 the coming spring and summer, to reform the cur- 
 rency, it will cast a shadow over the business out- 
 look, which will be followed at once by depressiop 
 and contraction in the volume of trade. 
 
 Has there been a revival in general business 
 during 1897 and 1898? 
 
 Opinions and facts are various. 
 
 It is well known that prices for railroad stocks 
 and agricultural products commenced to advance 
 
FORECAST FOR 1899. 227 
 
 on the 20th day of April, 1897, from the low 
 prices of the late depression, and continued to 
 advance into the summer of 1897 ; and also it is 
 well known that the price of wheat had a phe- 
 nomenal rise in the spring of 1898. 
 
 A president of a national bank told the writer 
 last summer that he employed a good deal of his 
 time in patching worn out paper money, as the 
 revival in business was wearing out money faster 
 than usual. 
 
 Bradstreet's, in their weekly review of trade, 
 September 10, 1898, says : ''That the general level 
 of prices of staples is the highest reached in five 
 years." 
 
 R G. Dunn & Co., in their weekly review of 
 trade, September 2, 1898, say : " That it is strictly 
 true that business is larger than in the very best 
 of all past years." Again, November 25, 1898 : 
 " The general prosperity is attested by the largest 
 volume of business ever recorded." 
 
 In view of the voluminous prosperity in this 
 cycle, and also of the tremendous vitality of the 
 United States, as shown in the war with Spain, 
 we are moved to rejoice in the fulfillment of the 
 prediction made for better times, and exclaim' 
 Great is America I The United States leads the 
 world, not only in the output of pig-iron, in the 
 expansion of commerce, in bank clearings, in rail- 
 
228 benner's prophecies. 
 
 road earnings, in wheat production, in a mighty 
 foreign trade balance, but also in the immensity 
 of the volume in trade. 
 
 YET, READER, HALT. 
 
 Let us for a moment take another view. The 
 improvement in business has been more in the 
 volume of trade than in the rise of prices. 
 
 It is well known that the rise in the average of 
 prices can only be very small. 
 
 Bradstreet's Review of October 7, 1898, informs 
 us: "That the complaints of narrow margin of 
 profit are well nigh unanimous." 
 , R. G. Dunn & Co.'s Review of September 30, 
 1898, reports " cotton at the lowest price for fifty 
 years;" and again, October 7, 1898, ** the lowest 
 quotation ever known." 
 
 Other parties state that the woolen mills have 
 had one of the most depressing summers in their 
 history. 
 
 Farmers are complaining of the low prices of 
 wheat, corn, and hogs. 
 
 The coal industry is demoralized by low prices 
 for coal and depreciation in the value of mining 
 property. 
 
 The price of pig-iron is now only one dollar a 
 ton above the lowest price in the history of the 
 trade. 
 
FORECAST FOR 1899. 229 
 
 And these extreme low prices in a business re- 
 vival, with a new protective tariff. 
 
 In the past, protective tariffs made high prices 
 in general, good times, and great speculation in 
 products, commodities, and lands. 
 
 WHAT IS THE TROUBLE NOW? 
 
 The immense volume of trade can be accounted 
 for by the astonishing growth of this country, 
 wonderful increase in population, and extraordi- 
 nary foreign demand for our products. 
 
 Yet why are prices for agricultural products 
 and manufactured commodities so low, and almost 
 a unanimous complaint of narrow margin of profit 
 in this periodical return of a business revival? 
 
 It is said that money is easy to get, and that 
 there is plenty of it. 
 
 We have a big gold reserve in the United States 
 treasury. 
 
 We have whipped Spain and destroyed her 
 navy. 
 
 We have made Cuba free. 
 
 We have islands in the sea. 
 
 We defy the powers of this earth to touch us. 
 
 We have a high protective tariff. 
 
 We have big crops. 
 
 We have war taxes. 
 
 We have the gold standard. 
 
230 benner's prophecies. 
 
 And to produce good times with high prices, 
 
 WHAT MORE DO WE WANT? 
 
 In the 1897 forecast it was said that: "The 
 future does not promise great prosperity." It was 
 known then that the Dingley protective tariflf, 
 when enacted, would be a failure to make high 
 prices. It now requires the aid of war taxes to 
 procure sufficient revenue. It was known then 
 that there was lacking a sufficient amount of 
 money in this country to induce great speculation. 
 In proof, the banks have repeatedly called in 
 loans, by reason of their exhausted reserves. 
 
 It was known then that there was something 
 fundamentally wrong in the financial world, and 
 that there was a cause constantly operating to hold 
 down prices. 
 
 It is now proclaimed by some newspapers and 
 persons that we have good prices in this country, 
 and that there will be unparalleled prosperity. 
 Let us mention some of these prices and predict ; 
 
 Ten dollar pig-iron will in time break every 
 furnace in Ohio and Pennsylvania. 
 
 Four cent cotton will bankrupt the cotton 
 planter. 
 
 Sixty cent wheat will ultimately impoverish 
 the farmer. 
 
FORECAST FOR 1899. 23l 
 
 Five cent coal will force the miner to tramp the 
 public highways. 
 
 In conversation with a bimetalist friend, he re- 
 marked : " That high prices can only come when 
 we have a cessation of the pressure of the gold 
 standard." 
 
 Every hard-headed trading man is well aware 
 that the business of this country has received 
 many gold standard shocks, and that their effects 
 have lasted several months, and that these shocks 
 have followed each other so closely that we have 
 not had a cessation of the gold standard pressure. 
 
 The repeal of the silver purchasing law in 1893 
 gave business confidence a shock that nearly broke 
 the whole country. We will never recover en- 
 tirely from its dreadful effects. 
 
 The President's message to Congress in July, 
 1897, indorsing the Indianapolis Gold Commission, 
 thereby aiming to strike a deadly blow to interna- 
 tional free silver, gave this revival in business a 
 shock, that the improvement in prices promised 
 by the Dingley protective tariff could not with- 
 stand ; hence a small rise in the average of prices 
 and an insignificant advance in the price of pig- 
 iron, instead of a rise of twenty dollars or more 
 on the ton. 
 
 The outcome of the 1898 election promises no 
 escape or relief from financial shocks of gold 
 
232 benner's prophecies. 
 
 standard legislation — promises no restoration of 
 confidence in the stability of prices. 
 
 We are now being taught by financial seers 
 that low prices are a blessing — that they are a 
 burst of new sunlight for prosperity, and have 
 come to stay— a condition to which all merchants 
 and persons must conform. 
 
 The present governmental policy of open door 
 imperialism is a ray of ih^'s new light. 
 
 Reader, the gold standard is marching on, alive 
 and busy wrecking industries and impoverishing 
 a great majority of mankind. 
 
 We are now in a period of years when we 
 should have speculation in the products of the 
 farm, the mine, and the factory. Yet we have 
 the lowest prices for some commodities in all 
 history. 
 
 The cyclical reactions in general business, which 
 we have named down cycles, have occurred prior 
 to the demonetization of silver, and are therefore 
 independent of the gold standard for their period- 
 ical return. 
 
 Yet it is something new to have extraordinary 
 low prices in an up cycle or business revival. 
 
 What has caused these extreme low prices for 
 some important products in this up cycle? 
 
 Answer : The defeat of bimetalism in the late 
 presidential contest. 
 
FORECAST FOR 1899. 233 
 
 Wiy is it that business revivals are growing 
 weaker, that the tides of speculation are held back ? 
 And why do not all branches of business flourish ? 
 
 It needs no scholar or magi to discern that it is 
 caused by the far-reaching effects of " the most 
 gigantic crime of this or any other age." 
 
 And should the gold standard be more thor- 
 oughly established in the future, by the further 
 demonetization of silver, and especially by the de- 
 struction of the greenbacks, it will "produce 
 widespread disaster in and throughout the com- 
 mercial world." 
 
 In view of the business of this country receiv- 
 ing this threatening shock, which portends nothing 
 but business confusion, it will be fortunate for all 
 readers of this forecast who will have converted 
 their property beforehand into first-class securities 
 and then remain close to shore in their speculative 
 ventures. 
 
 And also, in view of the coming cyclical revul- 
 sion in general business, it will be prudent for all 
 persons to keep out of debt, and to contract their 
 trade operations in this year, and be prepared for 
 falling prices, hard times, depression and stagna- 
 tion in business. 
 
 SAMUEL BENNER. 
 
 DuNDAS, O., January 1, 1899. 
 
234 bennek's prophecies. 
 
 FORECAST FOE 1900. 
 
 [Copj'righted,] 
 
 I predict — That prices for pig iron and many 
 other commodities will incline downward in this 
 year 1900. 
 
 The business of this country was at a low ebb, 
 and at the bottom of hard times, in 1896. 
 
 It was some months afterwards that business 
 men realized that there was to be a change for bet- 
 ter times. 
 
 Prices for railroad stocks and agricultural pro- 
 ducts commenced to move upward in April, 1897, 
 followed by a revival in trade in 1898, and the 
 great boom in railroad stocks and pig iron in 
 1899. 
 
 The writer of this forecast takes no delight in 
 predicting declining prices in the future trade of 
 this country, yet by the rule of price cycles and 
 the demands of business men for a forecast, we 
 cannot be blamed for foretelling that which can- 
 not be averted. 
 
 We are now near the top of prosperity for 
 this up cycle. Prices will continue high for some 
 
FORECAST FOR 1900. 235 
 
 months. They do not fall from top to bottom in 
 one, two, or three years. 
 
 The reaction and decline from the late revival 
 will not be sudden or violent, but gradual ; im- 
 perceptible to many manufacturers and others who 
 receive orders at satisfactory prices. Reasonably 
 fair trade will be transacted this year. 
 
 Good and bad times succeed each other in a 
 fixed and certain number of years, as demonstrated 
 in this book. 
 
 We are now approaching a down cycle in prices 
 and in general trade, to continue five years after 
 1899. 
 
 The extent of the depression in business through- 
 out the coming down cycle will depend upon the 
 outcome of the election in November next. 
 
 It is no part of this forecast to decide in advance 
 the results of the election, yet it is not a difficult 
 task to draw conclusions as to the effects that the 
 administration of different political parties will 
 have on future trade. 
 
 The success of the Republican party will pre- 
 vent utter stagnation in business. It will main- 
 tain a protective tariff", which a majority of men 
 in business regard as essential to fair trade and 
 prosperity, notwithstanding the departure of the 
 Republican party from its original financial and 
 expansion policy when it first began to elect Pres- 
 
236 benner's prophecies. 
 
 idents. Its success will not bring oil a widespread 
 panic in business. 
 
 Tiie success of the Democratic party will caiis^ 
 great depression in all the ramifications of trade. 
 Its success means a low tariff. All of our deep 
 depressions in trade, with extreme low prices^ 
 have occurred when we have had low tariffs. 
 
 Free silver is sleeping, and will take along nap. 
 
 Anti-expansion is not now popular. What else 
 
 have the Democracy to rally voters ? Only low 
 
 tarifl' to smash the trusts. 
 
 A political attack on trusts and agitation of this 
 
 question during the coming Presidential campaign 
 
 will have a demoralizing and injurious effect on 
 
 capital and on all business. 
 
 TRUSTS. 
 
 There have been combinations of men and 
 capital in this country for many years doing 
 business in the name of a company, for instance 
 The Eagle Furnace Company, John Smith & Co., 
 Peter Snyder & Co.; this is not anything new, 
 and there has been no complaint. 
 
 But combinations of companies and consolida- 
 tion of corporations in their magnitude have only 
 appeared in late years, especially in 1898 and 
 1899, and now known as Trusts. 
 
 These corporations are considered by many per- 
 
FORECAST FOR 1900. 237 
 
 sons as illegal, and in many ways a dangerous 
 element in the business situation. 
 
 Can the Trusts survive and live in the coming 
 business depression ? 
 
 Notwithstanding their power to raise and hold 
 up prices in good times for their individual bene- 
 fit, they cannot hold up prices in bad times ; the 
 down cycle will override them, as these cycles 
 have done in all things in past depressions. 
 
 When the period arrives for general business to 
 take the down grade, no opposition can prevent 
 prices from declining — high tariffs, inflated cur- 
 rencies, wars, trusts, and all else to oppose, can- 
 not arrest their downward course ; it will be no 
 use to kick against the rocks, prices will go down. 
 
 PIG IRON. 
 
 Continuous industrial and manufacturing ac- 
 tivity is stimulated and also dependent upon 
 rising and high prices for iron ; and high prices 
 for iron is the cause for a turn in the tide of com- 
 mercial prosperity — general business has invari- 
 ably turned downward after the years of extreme 
 high prices for pig iron. 
 
 It is a settled fact that the capacity of this 
 country to overproduce pig iron is out of all pro- 
 portion to the ability to consume. 
 
 Present high prices for pig iron will stop the 
 
238 benner's prophecies. 
 
 foreign demand and curtail home consumption; 
 and just so soon as this condition is observed and 
 known, speculators will throw their iron on the 
 market — a turn in the iron tide will then occur — 
 down will go prices, and the late boom in iron 
 will be only a wonder of the past. 
 
 GOLD. 
 
 The phenomenal rise in prices and voluminous 
 trade in the past two years was not occasioned 
 alone by the Dingley tariff, or by short crops in 
 Europe and Asia or by trust combinations in this 
 country. 
 
 The great change in the financial and industrial 
 conditions in the United States with high prices, 
 was the result chiefly of an extraordinary output 
 of gold from the mines of the world. 
 
 If there had not been any increase to mention 
 in the supply of gold, prices would not have 
 risen more than one-half of that which they did 
 in 1899. 
 
 The Alaska gold excitement having subsided, 
 and the supply of gold from South Africa being 
 cut off by reason of war now in that country, the 
 production of gold from the mines in 1900 will be 
 less than in 1899. It is therefore fair to assume 
 that if the rapid increase of gold caused advanc- 
 ing prices, then a sudden decrease in the produc- 
 
FORECAST FOR 1900. 239 
 
 tion of gold would have an opposite effect — de- 
 clining prices. 
 
 REAL ESTATE. 
 
 It is a mystery to many persons why prices for 
 Aands do not advance in this revival in business. 
 
 One reason is that prices for farm products, es- 
 pecially wheat, corn and provisions, remain low. 
 The most influential cause why prices for lauds do 
 not rise with prices for commodities in our trade 
 revivals, is that the duration of good times is too 
 short to reach lands; prices for lands are the last 
 in the procession to move upward. 
 
 A revival in general business effects manufac- 
 tured commodities first, and if the supply of 
 commodities is insufficient for the demands of 
 trade, prices rise. 
 
 The supply of lands is always abundant, conse- 
 quently the demand for lands is slow. 
 
 It would require at least five years of prosperous 
 times to excite speculation in lands. This country 
 is seldom blessed with more than a few years in 
 succession of continuous rising prices. Farmers 
 do not enjoy more than a glimpse of prosperity in 
 each returning period of good times. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The writer of this forecast has been in poor 
 health for several months — the spirit of prophecy. 
 
240 benner's prophecies. 
 
 Las nearly departed — and by reason of the cycles 
 in trade ending in this year 1900, so far as 
 demonstrated in this book, it is now the desire 
 and wish of the author that some enthusiastic and 
 ambitious person would take up the subject of 
 Benner's Book of Prophecies, bring the tables 
 of prices up to date and extend the cycles into the 
 far future — in fact write a new book on trade 
 cycles and the rise and fall of prices. 
 
 SAMUEL BENNER. 
 DuNDAS, O., January 1, 1900. 
 
FORECAST FOR 1904. 
 
 I predict that prices for pig iron, railroad 
 stocks and many commodities will be lower in 
 1904 than in 1903. 
 
 I predict that the Republican Party will be 
 successful in the election in November, 1904. 
 
 I predict that after the year 1904 there will 
 be a revival in trade, better times, and that 
 higher prices will prevail until the year 1911. 
 
 The present down cycle in prices and in 
 general business ends in 1904 ; and by reason 
 of a protective tariff this country has not had 
 an old-fashioned period of hard times during 
 the past three years. Nevertheless, there has 
 been a stupendous fall in prices and shrink- 
 age in values of railroad and industrial secur- 
 ities, with a severe decline in iron. 
 
 Prices for iron, railroad stocks and many 
 industrial securities will continue to be de- 
 pressed until the future policy of this govern- 
 ment is settled in the coming election for 
 president. 
 
 It is a consolation to know that we had a 
 tariff to protect and maintain our industries 
 so far in this low cycle, especially during the 
 financial panic in Wall Street, New York. 
 
 241 
 
242 BENNER'S PROPHECIES. 
 
 Now, while we have had a disastrous reac- 
 tion in prices for stocks and investment secur- 
 ities, it is t'o be reasonably expected that a 
 further moderate business reaction will follow 
 to the close of this low cycle. 
 
 Therefore, the decline in iron and steely 
 curtailment of orders for railroad materials 
 and manufactured commodities will continue 
 through the year 1904. 
 
 After the year 1904 we enter upon a new 
 up cycle for better times, and to have a period 
 of good times in this country it is essential 
 that we have a protective tariff; and to have a 
 protective tariff it is absolutely necessary for 
 the Republican Party to be successful in the 
 election in the fall of 1904. The business cy- 
 cle and the times demand it. 
 
 General business has invariably become de- 
 moralized in every Democratic administration 
 of this country since General Jackson was 
 president. 
 
 The Democratic Party has failed in every 
 one of its administrations during the past 
 sixty years to continue good times to the 
 close of its presidential terms. 
 
 Therefore that party is not cyclically in de- 
 mand or desired by a majority of the people 
 
LOW TARIFF. 243 
 
 to take possession of the government for the 
 next four years after 1904, especially when 
 a turn will be due for revival in business. 
 
 In the election of 1900 it would have been 
 in accordance with the present down cycle for 
 the Democratic Party to have been successfuL 
 
 Then, with low tariff, the inevitable result 
 would have been a period of low prices, stag- 
 nation in business and impoverished people; 
 no more nor less than what could be expected. 
 
 Low Tariff. 
 
 What is the use for the Democratic Party to 
 advocate free -silver and at the same time to 
 contend for low^ tariff? 
 
 We have had good times and prosperity in 
 the past in this country with free silver, but 
 never with low tariff. 
 
 Low tariff has been the cause of all of our 
 hard times. 
 
 Low tariff is the enemy of the workingman. 
 
 Low tariff has often prostrated our industries 
 and embarrassed our business men. 
 
 Low tariff has repeatedly thrown an army 
 of laborers out of work and caused them to 
 tramp the public highways for something to 
 eat. 
 
244 BENNER'S PROPHECIES. 
 
 Prosperity. 
 
 If there is any benefit to be secured from 
 a knowledge of the cycles in trade, it will be 
 in taking advantage of them. 
 
 The year 1905 will be the beginning year of a 
 new up cycle in pig iron and for long con- 
 tinued prosperity in general business, lasting 
 until the next commercial revulsion, which 
 will be due in 1911. 
 
 When our financial and commercial depres- 
 sions reach their lowest limits, as determined 
 by the cycles in trade, which have been ex- 
 plained and demonstrated in this book, they 
 afford the best opportunities to make profitable 
 investments of money in property, in railroad 
 stocks, in industrial securities, in manufac- 
 tories and in mercantile pursuits. 
 
 The pendulum of speculation in business 
 and in securities vibrates from inflation to con- 
 traction and from contraction to inflation in a 
 certain number of years. The cycle in prices 
 point out these years. 
 
 In the years of inflation prices soar above 
 intrinsic values and in years of contraction 
 descend below real worth. 
 
 Looking forward beyond the year 1904, the 
 cycles indicate six years of national prosperity. 
 
PKOSPERIIY 245 
 
 The coming opportunity to catch business 
 and prices at their lowest limits of depression 
 will not happen again for twenty years. 
 
 The prospects for a bright business future 
 were never better for moderate and continued 
 prosperity, but no great boom in prices similar 
 to earlier times when we had fifty-dollar pig 
 iron. 
 
 There is no probability of the Republican 
 Party failing to maintain a protective tariff 
 and to retain the greenbacks. There is no 
 probability of a total failure of the crops in 
 this country; the latitude and longitude of 
 this temperate climate forbid any such 
 calamity. 
 
 There is no probability of astronomers an- 
 nouncing the conjunction of many planets to 
 cause paroxysms upon the earth. 
 
 There is no probability of extraordinary 
 spots upon the sun to disturb the temperature 
 of our planet, or of some heavenly monster 
 coming into solar system, changing our sea- 
 sons by passing near to the earth on its way 
 to the sun. 
 
 Now, while we have no fears as to any of 
 these probabilities, let us for a moment con- 
 template the possibilities of the future : 
 
246 BENNER'S PROPHECIES. 
 
 It is estimated by finaDcial experts that the 
 shrinkage in values in railroad, mining and 
 various industrial securities during the last 
 two years, amounts to four thousand millions 
 of dollars. 
 
 It is possible that the loss of this vast sum of 
 money can be recovered and a thousand mil- 
 lion dollars more of inflated values added to 
 these securities during the coming six years 
 of prosperity. 
 
 It is possible for our industrial departments 
 to resume again their former activity and 
 capacity, and to exceed in output of commod- 
 ities, in agricultural products and in volumi- 
 nous trade, any nation on the earth. 
 
 Corn. 
 
 The extraordinary and remarkably late 
 spring of 1903, with its cold nights and wide 
 extended western floods, long continued sum- 
 mer drouth in the east, with disastrous floods 
 in the south and early frosts in the north, is 
 the testimony of the seasons as to the weather 
 conditions afiecting the crops. 
 
 It is the opinion of the writer of this fore- 
 cast that the total production of merchantable 
 corn of the crop of 1903 is overestimated by 
 crop reporters many millions of bushels. 
 
CORN. ■ 247 
 
 Yet we have no anxiety as to the abundance 
 of the crop for home consumption. 
 
 The immensity of our corn crops excites the 
 admiration of the world. To possess and en- 
 joy the comforts and blessings of plenty and 
 abundant crops with fertile lands, enterprising 
 and industrial people, is the desirable lot of 
 the inhabitants of the United States of 
 America. 
 
 SAMUEL BENNER. 
 
 Dundas, Ohio. 
 
 November 11, 1908. 
 
248 bennek's prophecies. 
 
 FORECAST FOR 1905. 
 
 [COPYRIGHTED.] 
 
 / predict that prices for pig iron will ad- 
 vance and be higher in 1905 than in 1904. 
 
 I predict that prices for railroad stocks and 
 industrial securities will be higher in 1905 
 than in 1904. 
 
 I predict that there will be a revival in 
 business, and that the volume of trade in 
 1905 will exceed that of 1904 many millions 
 of dollars. 
 
 I predict that there will be moderate good 
 times for the next four years. 
 
 Looking 'backward, from the standpoint of 
 the month of May, 1908, when the wheels 
 of the industries of this country will be 
 whirling with wonderful velocity, when gen- 
 eral business will be plunging ahead with 
 leaps and bounds, when prices for iron, rail- 
 road stocks, industrial securities^ and various 
 products and commodities will be many times 
 higher than they were in the spring of 1904, 
 we then can see and have a clear view of 
 
PIG IRON. 249 
 
 the valley of depression and contraction in 
 business during the first half of the year 
 1904 — when the New York Stock Exchange 
 was a lonesome place. U. S. Steel shares 8% 
 for common and 51^/4 for preferred, when gen- 
 eral business was at a low ebb, when railroads 
 were curtailing expenses, when pig iron war- 
 rants were nine dollars a ton. 
 
 Then again, viewing in a different direc- 
 tion, the turn in prices for stocks and securi- 
 ties in the months of May and June, and the 
 continued expansion in prices by reason of 
 the favorable prospects for crops through 
 truly, August, September, October and No- 
 vember, and the prospective success of the 
 Republican party advancing the price of iron 
 before the election, and then the m'agnificent 
 triumph of the Republican party in 1904. 
 
 This backward view of the commencement 
 of the upturn in the markets, is to record the 
 preliminary stages of the coming good times. 
 
 PIG IRON. 
 
 Pig iron is the barometer of trade — when 
 the iron trade is prosperous, it signifies pros- 
 perity for railroads, for manufactories, for 
 
250 benner's prophecies. 
 
 merchants, for farmers, and for general busi- 
 ness in every department of trade. The trend 
 of general trade in this country follows the 
 pig-iron cycle as persistently as does the 
 magnetic needle point to the poles of the 
 earth. 
 
 It is an accepted saying that ''history re- 
 peats itself." To show how and when it will 
 be systematically done, the reader is here 
 given a long-distance view of the future ups 
 and downs in prices for pig iron. 
 
 The following is a diagram of the cycles 
 in this commodity extended fifty years into 
 the future. These known cycles in iron date 
 from the year 1834 — seventy years ago. 
 
 At the top of this diagram is shown the 
 highest-priced years and good trade. At the 
 bottom the lowest-priced years and poor trade. 
 
 The years, 1911-1927 and 1945, are cyclical 
 years for commercial panics to be followed 
 by general revulsion in all trades. 
 
 "We are now entering into an up-cycle in 
 pig iron extending to the year 1908, indicat- 
 ing a prosperous period for the iron trade, 
 and also indicating prosperity for the many 
 industries of this country. 
 
pia I 
 
 E^m. 
 
 251 
 
252 beknbr's prophecies. 
 
 The productions of the earth have been 
 bountiful during 1904, giving abundance for 
 the sustenance of the people in the way of 
 grain and provisions for the year 1905. 
 
 Who can hesitate now to invest money in 
 property, when in view of the above state- 
 ment, and also in view of the fact that we 
 have lately emerged from a periodical busi- 
 ness depression, and when there is no possi- 
 bility of the occurrence of a commercial panic 
 during the coming four- years to disturb andi 
 distress the people; and again in view of the 
 overwhelming victory of the Republican 
 party in the election last November, assuring 
 the maintenance of a protective tariff? 
 
 In view of these trade conditions and pros- 
 pects, I predict that the price of iron will 
 advance to a higher level during the year 
 1905 than in 1904. 
 
 RAILROAD STOCKS. 
 
 I will briefly state the situation in the stock 
 market, and then give some reasons why 
 prices for stocks and securities should and 
 will continue on the up-grade in 1905 and in 
 the further future. 
 
RAILROAD STOCKS. 253 
 
 In the past few years and including the 
 winter and spring of 1904, there has been a 
 shrinkage in prices for stocks and securities 
 to the amount of over four thousand millions 
 of dollars. This decline had descended below 
 intrinsic values, and there was a complaint 
 that prices were too low. 
 
 In the month of May, 1904, when the buds 
 began to swell on the trees, and the grass to 
 shoot from the ground, stock speculators 
 awoke to the fact that nature was making a 
 turn from winter to spring, and it occurred 
 to them to follow suit; and by reason of the 
 prospects for fair crops, prices were made to 
 take the up-grade, and as the outlook for 
 crops continued favorable, prices advanced 
 through the summer and fall. Some finan- 
 ciers have been calling a halt, saying that the 
 rise in prices has been too rapid. What I 
 wish to remark is that prices have not at this 
 time recovered the full amount of the shrink- 
 age in the late depression. The pendulum of 
 speculation has not vibrated to the full ex- 
 tent that the coming expansion demands. It 
 is a business fact that in the years of infla- 
 tion, prices soar above intrinsic values. 
 
254 benner's prophecies. 
 
 It is within the range of reason that prices; 
 for stocks and securities will not only recover 
 the many millions of dollars lost in the late 
 depression, but will also add at least one 
 thousand million of dollars more of inflated 
 values to these securities in the coming busi- 
 ness revival. The extraordinary trade condi- 
 tions demand it. 
 
 The only contingency that is probable for 
 a reaction in prices, more than ordinary, 
 in the next four years, would be a partial 
 failure of the crops in the summers of 1905, 
 1906, 1907 and 1908. 
 
 The present advance in the stock market 
 and the business revival, as they go marching 
 on, are building upon a firm foundation, laid 
 below -the range of squalls in the money 
 market, of tornadoes in banking, and of the 
 effects of the war in the Orient. It is vain 
 for the conservative or critic to lament over 
 the business outlook. 
 
 The aggregate of crops for 1904 is simply 
 enormous. Wheat, corn and oats combined 
 amounts to nearly four thousand millions of 
 bushels, other grains and minor products 
 
RAILROAD STOCKS. 255 
 
 fill the granaries of farmers with an abund- 
 ance for every demand. 
 
 The volume of money is sufficient for all 
 legitimate requirements. 
 
 We may look in any direction and find 
 business conditions sound — East, West, North 
 and South. The South has prospered as 
 never before, by its enormous profits on last 
 year's cotton crop. 
 
 Who can hesitate to buy pig iron, railroad 
 stocks and industrial securities now to make 
 money ? 
 
 Samuel Benner. 
 
 DuNDAS, 0., Dec. 7, 1904. 
 
256 benner's prophecies. 
 
 FORECAST FOR 1907. 
 [copyrighted.] 
 
 "What is the business outlook for 1907? 
 
 This inquiry is a most anxious one. The 
 speculator, the farmer, the merchant, the 
 banker, the capitalist, the manufacturer and 
 the business man, no matter in what employ- 
 ment, is interested in this inquiry. 
 
 It is one of the fixed facts in the minds of 
 far-seeing business men that good trade and 
 general prosperity depend more upon big 
 crops than on a protective tariff, or anything 
 else. 
 
 During the past three years this country has 
 been . blessed with an abundance of wheat, 
 corn and other grains. 
 
 The results of the big crops of 1904 were a 
 remarkable advance in prices for railroad 
 stocks and industrial securities in that year 
 and all through the year 1905. 
 
 And again the favorable results of the big 
 crops of 1905 has been a steady advance from 
 month to month in 1906 in the price of pig 
 
FORECAST FOR 1907. 257 
 
 iron, stimulating general trade in every di- 
 rection. 
 
 Railroad traffic has been tremendous. 
 The railroads were never before more pros- 
 perous in their transportation business, thus 
 creating a wonderful demand for iron for 
 their requirements. 
 
 The results and effects of the big crops of 
 1906 will be an enormous volume in trade in 
 1907. 
 
 The manufacturing business of this country 
 will be excited and expanded to its full ca- 
 pacity and all industries will be active and 
 prosperous. 
 
 The price of pig iron will be higher in 1907 
 than in 1906. 
 
 This prediction is not only based on the 
 fact of the big crops in 1906, but also on the 
 absence of a future contingency, which is, 
 that a periodical, financial and commercial 
 panic, creating consternation in the minds of 
 the people, and causing general depression 
 to follow in all of our industries, will not be 
 due or happen in the year 1907. 
 
258 BENNER^S PROPHECIES. ^ V" 
 
 By reason of 1907 not^ being a panic year 
 in general business it snrely indicates that the 
 crops for 1907 will be ample for all require- 
 ments. 
 
 The coming year will be the third prosper- 
 ous year since 1904 for a rising iron market, 
 for commercial prosperity, and for general 
 inflation of values. 
 
 This statement is in accordance with the 
 cycle in pig iron as described in my Book of 
 Prophecies. 
 
 Samuel Benner. 
 
 DuNDAS, 0., Dec. 5, 1906. 
 
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