Where the Expected Gains would Go.
It is said that the farmer would sell his grain and cotton, as now, for gold; that he would exchange the gold for silver; would get the silver coined and would pay his debts with it. Would any individual farmer do this? Would any one man go through the steps of this operation?—see the buyer of his products, handle the gold and silver, go to the mint? Certainly not. All these operations would go on through the commercial and financial machinery. They would be executed by different individuals, in the way of business, through the organization, and every one of them would be lost to view. Every operation would have to be paid for. Every operation would give a new chance for more middlemen and more charges. Would, then, the gains of this grand scheme go to the farmer? Not at all. They would go to the “brokers and speculators of Wall Street.” They would be lost in commissions and charges. The type of operator whom the Populist seems to think of when he talks about “Wall Street sharks,” exists, although his importance in Wall Street is not as great as that of the political farmer in agriculture; but this type of man does not care what the currency legislation is, except that he would like to have a great deal of it, and to have it very mixed. Whatever it is, when it is made and he sees what it is, he will proceed to operate upon it.