Old Time American Methods of Transportation. gound 7Vl one tf C ea £ ue of Pennsylvania. Document No. 13 . A Dissatisfied farmer BY THEO. C. KNAUFF. Author of “ The Silver Question in a Nutshell," etc. The Sound Money League of Pennsylvania, The Bourse, Philadelphia Copyright 1896 fl Dissatisfied Farmer BV Theo. C. Knaukf. Not long ago an estimable and well-to-do farmer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania made the statement that the cause of free silver was a dead issue with the farmers of that State. Judging from the tenor of his conversation, it was supposed that he was a convert to what we call Sound Money. As it was in his power to render it, appli¬ cation for certain advice and assistance to that cause, not pecuniary, was made to him. In reply, a refusal to render such services was received, accompanied by the following reasons THE FARMER’S LETTER. “ The farmers are generally for sound money and plenty of it. They feel that they are grievously wronged by the Act of 1873 in demonetizing silver and contracting the currency. “Their debts and mortgages were doubled by that Act, as it cut the prices of their products in two, while their debts remained unchanged. I know this from personal experience, as I bought my farm in Pennsylvania about this time, or a little before it, for $12,000. I could readily pay about $700 a year on the indebtedness, and had about $7,000 paid when the squeezing effect of the Act of 1873 came. Since then I have not been able to do better than keep the interest paid during the same period. “ What I have lost by this Act of Congress the banks have gained, and still they do not appear to be satisfied. It appears to me, if they want my help, they ought to make good this loss to me; at least, explain to me how I am to be benefited as a farmer by giving my influence to make the present condition of affairs permanent. “ Lift my mortgages as a farmer and I will be most happy, without wanting any more of the riches of the world ; but I ought to be convinced before I am justified in helping you people more.” THE REPLY. In answer to this we make the following reply : It has been the fashion for sometime for free-silver people, on the strength of mere unsupported statement, to say that there is reason enough for hard times in the so-called demonetization of silver without hunting around for other reasons, though the connection is not clearly shown. But it may be that there are many good self-evident causes without going back more than twenty years to hunt for such cause in that so-called demoneti¬ zation, which connection was not even suspected until certain interested parties made the discovery many years after the event. ASIDE FROM SILVER. But it is not likely that you will agree with us on this point, so we will lay aside the silver question for the present. We take it for granted that your farm is, or can be used, say, for wheat raising, and that other farms in your neighborhood are partially, at least, wheat¬ growing farms, so that their prospective value IO would be rated by the ability to other things at a profit. raise wheat with Now, outside of any connection with silver do you not think it would make a difference in the value of your land that certain Western States which, not a great while ago raised no wheat are now raising great quantities of it. Let us look at the figures for a moment. THE WHEAT CROPS OF 1876 AND 1894. In 1876, about the time you bought your farm the total wheat crop of the United States was in round numbers 289,000,000 bushels. The total wheat crop of the United States in 1894 was in round numbers 460,000,000 bushels. y4 Of the wheat crop of 1876, what were then re¬ ported as the Territories, including what are now Oklahoma, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota’ South Dakota and Washington, produced in round Nev!ida berS .3,8oo,ooo bushels. 0re g° n .4,675,000 “ .8,865,000 “ Or about one thirty-second (&) of the total crop of the United States. HOW PRODUCED. Now, how was the much larger production of 1894 produced? We leave out of the question entirely special mention of the great grain States of Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska and California in both years (1876 and 1894), as their production averages the same in both years. Judging by the census returns of population, we would naturally suppose that there would be only a proportionate increase of production in these fields, or that the State in which your farm is situated would at least be able to hold its own against them. COMPARED WITH POPULATION. The total population of the country in 1870 was 38,000,000 ; in 1880, 50,000,000 ; in 1890, 62,000,000 of which Pennsylvania got its proportionate in¬ crease, gaining about one million inhabitants every ten years. But the increased crops do not show proportion¬ ate figures. In the same fields the crop of 1894 was distributed as follows :— Those rated as Territories in 1876 produced.. 68,386,000 bushels. Divided as follows : Oklahoma . . 2,000,000 bushels. Idaho .... 1,500,000 “ Utah .... 2,300,000 “ Arizona . . . 187,000 “ New Mexico. 700,000 “ Colorado . . 2,000,000 “ Wyoming . . 99,000 “ Montana . . 1,000,000 NorthDakota 33,600,000 “ SouthDakota 16,000,000 Washington . 9,000,000 “ -68,386,000 bushels. Oregon.10,000,000 Nevada. 112,000 “ Total.78,498,000 “ which was in round numbers not merely one thirty- second, but more than one-sixth of the entire crop. Loading Grain for Europe on Pacific Coast at Tacoma State of Washington. 1894. 14 The total crop of 1894 was . . 460,000,000 bushels. “ 1876 “ . . 289,000,000 Difference.171,000,000 Production of the few States above mentioned (1894) . . 78,000,000 so that those few States produced an amount equal to nearly one-half of the difference between the two crops. THE WESTERN FARMER SUFFERS ALSO. But you say you, as a farmer, are not alone in this trouble, that the farmers in the States pien- tioned, who have been doing so much better than you, are also suffering, and perhaps to a greater extent than yourself, at least they make more fuss over it, so that this reasoning proves nothing. But do you not understand that their increased production not only affects you, but your production affects them, the total production resulting in a price lower than will pay either of you. The fact that he is more distant from certain markets than yourself does not count very much in these days of increased tranportation facilities at decreased cost. Perhaps to offset it he has additional facili¬ ties provided, in consideration of his larger quan¬ tity, which are denied you. These additional facilities, coupled with the in¬ creased use of improved machinery, which have caused a decreased cost of production, and a great increase of the amount of product in these great new fields, are producing changed conditions to which all must adjust themselves. It has always been so in the world’s history. Some great inven¬ tion which has increased some product, and thrown 16 out of employment many producers, has in the end, after the changed conditions have been under¬ stood and provided for, resulted in the employment of many more in the same industry than were formerly thrown out of employment. We are aware that you claim that “overproduction” i s the hackneyed reason given for all ills the country may now be suffering. It may be that the term is hackneyed. But none the less the fact is true. And it is undoubtedly true that there have been many people suffering for food at the very time when there is an overproduction of the very food needed. But unfortunately those who own that food do not care to part with any great amount of it even to feed the hungry, unless enough money is received in return to pay the cost of production and most people prefer a slight margin of profit in addition. And we must emphatically deny that the depreciation of our money standard or currency, or a lowering of wages, so that the cost of produc¬ tion will be less, by which means the producer can more readily compete with countries in which cost is less and wages lower than with us, will result in less starvation throughout this country. OTHER CROPS. But you say your farm is not a wheat farm. That may be, and yet the ability to grow wheat may be a factor in its prospective value in connection with the value of wheat. But for what is your farm valuable? What do you or can you grow ? Is your product largely that universal habitant of the whole United States, maize or Indian corn? The figures in that department are even more alarming to you than those of wheat. Do you fall back upon that other universal stand¬ ard and usually well-paying crop, hay ? This is one of the products, just at the present time, that helps to prove that the cause of the prevailing depression is not the one thing, demonetization of silver, which should affect everything alike. This product, in certain parts of the country at least, has not been so much affected as wheat, which fact would infer that the figures were the result of ordinary laws of supply and demand. Even in this department great improvement in the methods of packing by compression, as in the case of cotton, has greatly increased the distance within which hay can be car¬ ried to market profitably. Do you raise oats, bar¬ ley, rye or potatoes, the case is the same. Is fruit your stand-by? The extreme extent of the Continent, from Southern California to Maine, is not now too great to market the great crops of the Western end profitably in the East. Even in truck¬ ing, should you happen to be exceptionally situ¬ ated for a limited product near some great city, you are interfered with to some extent by new con¬ ditions. Are you dairying, the market for milk is limited, and the distance in which it can be han¬ dled is limited also. But there must be some dif¬ ference in the value of dairy farms when, leaving cheese altogether out of the question, New York, which not long ago was depending for its supply of butter on near-by producers, can now obtain fresh butter direct from dairy farms at least as far west as Nebraska brought to its doors not 20 only quickly, but in good condition, by means of refrigeration, even when delayed in transit. The same methods bring poultry from a great distance and also food products from cattle. Dressed meats, from which all useless bulk and material are elimi¬ nated, are sent to that market in most compact form, after having passed, dressed and undressed, diagonally across the Continent, and are even ex¬ ported to three times that distance. This is the case with dressed beef, pork, mutton, hams and lard. In the matter of cattle, Eastern raisers have hardly any show at all. Even as short a time ago as in 1884, 28 per cent, of all the cattle of the United States were from Texas alone, while at the present time the total Western product shows a still greater pro¬ portion. The vast herds of cattle, including sheep, which roam wild on the Western plains, grazing on the public domain, not by express permission of the Federal authority, but by sufferance, requiring no attention but what they give themselves, no food but what they themselves gather, and no shelter, must necessarily, in cost of production, outbid the Eastern article. The total number of beef cattle received in Chicago alone in 1872 was 684,000 against 2,974,000 in 1894. Chicago received 3,252,000 hogs in 1872, and in 1894, 7,543,000, with a corre¬ sponding increase in the number of sheep. CANADIAN COMPETITION. But more unfortunately still it is not only our own country which is helping to pile up this in¬ creased production. Unfortunately we feel the effects of a large increase of production in regions over which we have no political-control. There is esling, North DaVo 22 r the great Northwest for instance, Manitoba, etc. Ttie British possessions in North America, which but a short time ago produced none whatever are now pouring at least fifty millions of bushels of wheat annually into the lap of the world. ARGENTINA. But that is not all, we have other competitors at greater distance. We have a sister Republic in South America, Argentina, that in its way is as wonderful in resources and sudden growth as our own land. We formerly did considerable exporting to that country, now she exports to us and to our customers. It has been her aim for years to successfully compete with us in supplying food products to the world. She has a soil of excessive fertility and physical conditions highly favorable to agriculture. She has had a rush of population to till the soil. She is now using modern appliances and methods, and has facilities for shipment and transhipment. She has over seven hundred and fifteen millions of acres of domain, and the portions not available for cultivation by reason of lack of rain and the ab¬ sence of facilities for irrigation, or from saline properties of the soil, are comparatively insignifi¬ cant. Wheat, maize, barley, rye, and oats, may be grown in all departments of the Republic, from Patagonia to Bolivia. Maize, which was a native product, is planted from September to January, and may readily be followed by a second crop. Before 1870 La Plata imported wheat for its con¬ sumption. From 1870 to 1878 its production was sufficient for the home demand. The surplus above its own requirements grew from 200 tons in 1877 to ioo,ooo tons in 1885. In maize the exports in- creased from 10,000 tons in 1877 to 230,000 tons in 1886. In 1893 it exported of wool .... 155,000 tons. Meat .... 90,000 “ \\ heat . . 490,000 “ Maize .... 450,000 “ In 1893 its total grain crop was 55,440,000 bushels, and in the next year, 1894, the product was 68,- 000,000 bushels. In 1889 we sent $9,393 worth of corn and corn meal to Argentina, and none in 189c or later. Of wheat flour we sent them $5,365 worth in 1881 14,000 “ 1883 740 “ 1888 and none since. In 1892 there were in the city of Buenos Ayres alone twenty-three steam flour mills, with all modern and improved machinery. In other breadstuff's and food products we sent them the following values in the years named 1887.$8,756 .4.553 *89°.1,344 109 1 . 204 If we go farther from home we may notice the Australian wheat crop producing annually from 42,000,000 to 47,000,000 of bushels, and in excess of its own consumption. RUSSIA AND INDIA. Even the Russian grain crop is to be considered. Omitting Russian Poland, which about consumes what it raises, the rest of Russia raised of wheat Thebes, Upper Egypt- 26 155,00°, 000 bushels in 1886 269,500,000 “ 1887 285,500,000 “ 1888 In 1893 the crop ran down to some 343,000,000 bushels during years of poor crops, which was at least 25 per cent, less than what the crop should have been. A recovery to the normal figures is now confidentially expected. In the interval covered by these figures there was no increase of population, but rather a decrease. Then there is India. In 1887 India raised 238,- 500,000 bushels of wheat, of which 29,594, ooobushels were exported. In 1893 the crop was 266,896,000 bushels, of which a larger proportion was ex¬ ported, the home consumption remaining about the same. THE CAUSE. Avoiding the obnoxious word “overproduction,”* said to be hackneyed by people who insist upon the old worn-out statement that all the ills that flesh is heir to have come from the so-called demone¬ tization of silver, we ask has not some cause been shown why your farm might not be so valuable as it was for the purposes for which it was purchased ? Do not these figures make it look as if the cause * If any other argument is needed in support of the theory of overproduction, consider for a moment t ie difference in the number of farms, say ii. 1850, with, in round numbers, one mil¬ lion farms against four million farms in 1890, with a sufficient increase in population to work them, and with improved machinery and methods. All of these farms, in 1890, had a much larger acreage than in 1850, and a much larger propor¬ tion of improved land. The lands comprised in this increase have nearly all been bought for, say, $1.25 per acre, and they are just as good or better for the purpose than the much more expensive lands comprised in many of the farms of the earlier period. 28 lay in overproduction and not in the higher price of money. Do not the figures make it appear that increased production, improved methods, etc. have affected the farmer at least equally if not more than the manufacturer, contrary to com¬ mon belief? If so, may not the greater deprecia¬ tion in farm products over manufactured products be accounted for? You will admit that sometimes, at least, deprecia¬ tion does occur through overproduction. Perhaps this may be one of the times. When such depreciation does occur through overproduction, granting that things may right themselves in time by reason of the lower prices which drive producers out of certain lines of pro¬ duction with the ultimate result of higher prices again, you will admit that during the period of readjustment there is more or less suffering. Per¬ haps this is one of those periods of readjustment. Perhaps now some farmers are being driven out of the industry in order that higher prices may result for the benefit of those who remain. This may be poor comfort to give a man who is suffering, but it may be better to face the facts manfully and act accordingly. UNCERTAINTY A CAUSE. Now more particularly as to the cause of the present depression in agriculture. You say demone¬ tization of silver. We say overproduction, com¬ petition, increased facilities for transportation, changed conditions, etc. Now are these all ? You 3° must remember that during at least a part of the time of which you complain, and just previous to and during the period of greatest distress, there was an uncertainty, a tinkering with important laws, an interference with normal conditions with still more proposed, which has created widespread distrust. The very agitation of the question, the mere suggestions of the changes you favor, has clogged the wheels of trade everywhere, and helped to bring on the very trouble which you were thus trying to avoid. We are now suffering for our past sins, and in addition for the sins of selfish politicians who had their pockets to fill, f f The Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and Director of Farmers’ Institutes of Pennsylvania says in effect: “ Some of the conditions which are the cause of the depressed condition of agriculture are the natural outcome of advancing civiliza¬ tion. One of these is the necessity of supplying to our soil its lost fertility. Our fathers sold off large quantities of the natural fertility of our lands, without testoring to th:m the elements of plant food that growing crops require. The cost, therefore, to the farmers of the fertilizers which they now must buy is an enormous sum. The development ol the cheap vir¬ gin soils of the far West, through the recent great extension of railroad and water transportation, has brought th.se vast re¬ gions into competition with our Eastern farmers. Along with this development in our country there have been similar con¬ ditions in foreign lands. The growth of cities, together with the development of manufacturing and other industries, has also brought about a rise in the price of labor upon which agri¬ culture is dependent. I here is also the uncertainty of climate occasioned by the clearing off of our forests. Hillsides are washed and valleys flooded, thereby shortening crops and caus¬ ing great expense to repair the damages. “There has also grown up a more fastidious taste on the part of the consumers which the great mass of fai mers do not as yet know how to meet. Great combinations of capital have also arisen, which now control entire products. ‘ 1 Thus far our farmers, as a general thing, have not been able to change their practice so as to meet these new conditions, but are going on in much the same old way, and consequently many are in great distress, suffering from lack of knowledge." 32 A WRONG STATEMENT. But there is one statement in your letter re¬ quiring special notice. You say, “What I have lost by this Act of Congress the banks have gained.” Now, as matter of fact, have the banks gained ? If you have lost money, did the banks find it ? The mortgages held by banks for loans do not represent any more than they ever did. If the farmers have lost money and the banks have not got it, where is it? No one else will admit ownership. It must have gone out of existence. But did you lose this money by reason of this Act of Congress? The advocates of free coinage have indeed told us that the relative diminution of the supply of silver legal tender is the cause of the depression in trade and the fall of prices in late years here and elsewhere, and of all trouble in manufactures, farming and commerce. It is such unsupported statements that have drawn the farmer and many workingmen to the side of the silver man. But how about the fact that different articles have been affected differently and some not at all. No mention of this is made, and of course no reasons are given. Nor do such advocates say anything about the fact that there has been no simultaneous corres¬ ponding fall in the purchasing power of wages, but rather a very surprising advance, which their theo¬ ries cannot explain, inasmuch as the laws governing the value of labor do not differ from those govern¬ ing the value of commodities. 34 FACTS DO NOT SUPPORT THEORIES. But at the present time existing conditions everywhere are at direct variance with these theo¬ ries. With no change in the position of silver, the industrial situation is improving. During the past year labor has been put to work at higher wages. The prices of our products, whether agri¬ cultural or mineral, have advanced, and in spite of uncertainties in finances at home or in connection with other nations. India has been singled out as an example of the ruin of commerce, credit, bank¬ ing and agriculture, caused by discrimination against silver. But Lord Brassey, who has lately visited that country to ascertain facts, reports most hopeful conditions there. He says that public credit in India stands high; land, revenue and railway returns show more elasticity than at any former time; both imports and exports have in¬ creased ; the cultivators of the soil, though still needing improvment, are better ofT than their fathers were, being better fed, better clothed, bet¬ ter housed ; in short, the general position is good, although there has been a great strain upon the treasury. IS CHEAP MONEY THE BEST? You undoubtedly claim that the banks want you to pay the balance on your farm in the dearest kind of money. Well, suppose for the moment that we allow the claim. Do you always buy the cheapest machinery for farming? Is such a purchase always a bargain? Does not the cheapest machine usually cost more in the end by reason of the nec¬ essary repairs and damages than it would have 3* cost had you bought a higher-priced article in the beginning ? So with money. You may pay in money so cheap that there will be the very deuce to pay in the end, and you as well as all of us will have to pay it. OTHER INDUSTRIES AFFECTED. You are greatly mistaken if you think that you, as a farmer, are alone in having been affected by hard times. We could point you to many men in many walks of life besides farming who have bought property, and in the same years you mention, who could not keep up payments on the mortgages. We could instance the actual case of a man who supposed that he was a pros¬ perous city merchant. About the same time you bought your farm, he bought a house for £16,000, paying $8,000 cash, and carrying$8,oooon mortgage. To-day his house is sold for the mortgage, his cash capital of $8,000 is wiped out, and the man has nothing. It might be well to put our shoulders to the wheel together to mutually improve our con¬ dition.* WHO ARE INTERESTED. You may claim that bankers are interested parties, and that their advice is not to be valued. •The United States Assistant Secretary of Agriculture is quoted as saying “ There is depression in agriculture because there is depiession in every other business. The farmer is no worse off than other workers. The farmer is in a vety pros¬ perous condition, considering his investment. The 44 per cent, who are farmers, feed the 56 per cent, who are not, and have some £400,000,000 worth to export. The poorest of deserted farms would give a living if rightly managed. The American must change his way of doing business, and put more brains into his work. He has robbed nature's bank of natural fertility, and must go slow while building the account up. Fortunately 38 A banker is an interested party, but so are you. He will not lose more than you will by the ruin of the country. Perhaps he will he better able to stand it. Unfortunately many crazes like this one have started with the idea that bankers and capi¬ talists who may have something to lose are neces¬ sarily against the people. The fact is that many of them are with the poorer people, because they know that they have something to lose whenever the poorer people are losing. The banker and the politician who has his pockets to fill are not neces¬ sarily one and the same. But there is one very interested party whose advice surely should be looked upon doubtfully, and he is the very one with whom you have allied yourself in the past, which fact has cast distrust on your motives. Your motives were honest, his, possi¬ bly, were not. That party is the man who has silver to sell, be he a producer of that metal or only a man who is speculating in it. He is the man who has told you that your distress has come because the article he wishes to sell has been discriminated against. In point of fact there has been no discrimination against the article, only against its owner who wishes, for an abnormal profit, at the expense of he has nature to help him. No other business has the same help. I made a comparison of the producer of the crude material, as grain and the manufacturer of it into beef and pork and butter, and found it was the manufacturer that made the money. Farmers need to become manufacturer*.” The importance of a successful solution of agricultural difficulties cannot be overestimated. The effects arc not < on- fined to the farmers. Where the ag icultmal interests have not prospered, it has only been a question of time when the decay of cities has followed The interests of the entire population of the country are involved. Trucking, New Jersey. 40 everyone else, to dispose of a much larger quantity than the country needs or is calling for. This immense quantity would be sold, not only to his great personal profit with no advantage to the country at large, but on the contrary to its most everlasting injury. If it were not for this man, whom the country at large has begun to distrust, this silver question might long ago have been settled and to your advantage, at least, by reason of the absence of uncertainty. You say, in effect, you will not be used by the banker to pull his chestnuts out of the fire, but is it a whit better to be used by this speculator, who so obligingly keeps his needs in the background, and, out of pure philanthropic motives, feels so sorry for you, and keeps on telling you how much it would benefit you to rehabilitate silver, of course with no profit to himself? He has nothing to gain. O ! no! He says nothing about his being one of a comparative few who will be enriched at the expense of the depreciation of the money now in the hands of an enormous number, not only of farmers but of every one. A NEW ALLIANCE NECESSARY. But suppose you try a new scheme. Suppose you cast off this alliance with the silver man en¬ tirely and make a new one. If you will not join hands with the banker, suppose you join hands with the great mass of the American people, whose sense of justice and right is proverbial. You think this is a contest between the producer and con¬ sumer. You say that what the farmer buys costs 42 more than what he sells brings him. Is that a fact ? If so, all you should have to do is to prove it, but prove it in your own right. Do not let any interested silver merchant edge his way in and put in a word to help you whenever he can, or pos¬ sibly monopolize the whole conversation in your behalf, letting you stand by idle, without so much as saying a word for yourself, just as if you had nothing at stake, and did not care particularly one way or the other. WHY CROWD THE FARMER? Most of the American people have sense enough to see that if the farmer suffers we all suffer. The farmer certainly suffers when the rest of the coun¬ try does, and there is nothing to show that that action is not reciprocal. We are all members of one body, and what hurts one hurts all. You are the fingers, say, and suppose we call the bankers the heart that pumps the blood (money) to you so that you can do your work. If we cut off even one finger, and leave the wound unstaunched, the heart will soon come to a standstill because it can no longer sup¬ ply enough blood. You make out a case of gross injustice such as it would be if you were expected to work for nothing and live on nothing, paying for all you buy at the highest rate, and getting little or nothing for what you raise and sell, and see how quickly the American people will help you. They will not tolerate such a thing. Who is it that wants to push the farmer to the wall ? But to be believed you must have no suspicious backing. Let the silver miner make money by all means. (The speculator it is not necessary to consider.) 44 His industry is an important one. But by no means let him make his own private gain, and to an enormous amount, at the expense of every one else and under false pretences. Do not be deceived by the cry that your banker friend wants to contract the currency and to throw silver out of use. Your banker friend is the best friend that silver has. He wants such legislation as will keep it in use, and at as near a stable value as it is possible to keep it He wants as much silver as the country can use legitimately, or the people (not silver merchants) really demand. He does not want to contract the volume of money either by throwing out of use necessary silver or Government money, even though there may be grave objection to it on ac¬ count of having to pay for it many times over, unless something equally good, or better, is pro¬ vided in its place. Your silver friend wants you to have only silver, with Government obligations resting on it, based on half its present value. Do you care to be the holder of this money while it is depreciating in your hands ? This depreciation will be shown, of course, in the increased prices of what money will buy, not in the money itself.* But is it a whit more honest to in¬ crease the prices of your products in that way than it would be to pay at fifty cents on the dollar ? Is * Even workingmen are not all of the opinion that chean monev with hi^h pnces is better than dear money with low prices. A carnage painter, who is not under the control of bankers but who had reasoned tor himself, said recently «I am an expert workman and I am getting now only $2 a day but I am better off, I am living better, am saving more money and that money saved is worth more, it buys more, than when 1 got I4.50 and $5 a day, and it cost me more than that to live ” 45 ot really the same thing? And, after all, are you '^better off in the end ? 3 Kow let us see if we cannot all join hands and go , r d to find a remedy for your troubles, though f f Wa a re not yours only. Let us see what we can ndo to push the country to the highest state of 3 sperity. Let all hard feelings engendered by pr ° g lale troubles with the pocket-book, which, with most men, is a tender spot.be done away. T t us see if we cannot find a way to help you pay ( T your farm, even under the new conditions, which have affected its value. There must be a remedy- Let us find U - The remedy is the preservation and maintenance r a financial system under which the farmer will obtain the price of his products and the laborer -ill be paid his wages in standard money of stable value and of full purchasing power. The Sound Money League of Pennsylvania Orcanizbd May a8, 1895. To combat the Free Cotaparf Silver at the arbitrary ratio Pret't, John H. Converse. VPn,'!s Wm. Wood, Sam’l. R. Shipley. Wm. D. Winsok. r ’* * ' . _, \17«. T? Tiirvtrn p Thomas Wm. R. Tucker, Ch«fflut B andV.hh Sts., Phila. The&urse, Room e<8, Phiia. Executive Committee. c. Stuart Patterson, Chairman, John P. Green, Iambs V. Watson, N. Parker Shortridgb, Charles H. Banes, Chas. Emory Smith, George H. McFadubn, John H. Michbnbk, j. Levering Jones, Eugene Delano, Joseph Wharton, K. F. Cullinan, William Potter, Wm. M. Singbrly, Pemberton S. Hutchinson, John C. Bullitt, "B. Dale Benson, H. Rushton. Ci'Kerrlntions are solicited for the work of the league, and •§ SSm££ by the Treasurer Mr. George C-Thomas, Chlstnut wd Fifth Streets, Philadelphia. No. a. PUBLICATIONS. Vo. 1. Proceedings of the Sound Money Meeting, Philadel- Address M of y Hon^~^c P R Edmunds, and the Rcao- AdS' o| R Cw~“l.°T~ 1 .<. 1 o. Reprinted Address^"of*Hon. Michael D. Harter. Reprinted No. 5 . Address* of Hon. Charles Emory Smith. Reprinted Gold”Silver and Money by Samuel R. ShipW. The Action of The Umon League of Ph^arfel No. No. The* Action offhe Union League ofPhiiarfelphia. Sneeches of C. Stuart Patterson, Esq., Hon. Wm. Potter an d Hon .Chas. F. Warwick Hon.^MarnouBrosius to the Farmers. An Argu- No. ». Th*e C^ost^^Bad Money,' byRdward AtkiMon. No. \\ Th^Futu S re e prKrSilver, by Ellis CWk, Mining Engineer, No. No. No.