During the course of Mr. Watson’s speech he had occasion to coin the following epigram: “If the farmers are the backbone of the country, we have a complicated case of spinal trouble.”
The Georgian goes on to say that the farmer of today is in better shape than ever before. If this statement had been made two, or even one, year ago, it could have been overlooked.
To say that the farmer is in good shape now, or words to that effect, is a great deal more misleading than the above epigram. The writer lives in one of the very best and most progressive farming sections of the state. He comes in daily contact with the farmer. Taking the conditions that exist here as an example, we find the farmers as a whole in worse shape than they have been in several years. As a consequence of this those who depend on the farmer, as most everybody does in the small towns, are in worse shape than the farmer. The Georgian gives as a reason for the good condition in which the farmer finds himself, that they are diversifying their crops. Our observation that his failure to diversify is the main cause of his helpless condition now. Too much cotton has broken, in a sense, the backbone of the country, and, as Mr. Watson remarks, it is afflicted with a complicated case of spinal trouble.
The Georgian merely has a pipe dream of what should be, and what would be if the farmer would diversify, and arrives at the conclusion that it already exists.—Royston Record.
THE CURSE OF THE NATION.
The banker organizes a national bank having $100,000 capital, with which he buys $100,000 of United States bonds, “on which he draws interest in advance and pays no tax.” The government engraves, prints, and sends him notes to be used as money, to the face value of the bonds. Nominally these notes cost him $5.00 a thousand. He lends them out at from six to ten per cent on the thousand, or from sixty to one hundred dollars on the thousand. Then by a system of bank credits, which would be incredible if it were not so capable of proof, he multiplies his loans until he draws interest on NINE times more money than he ever put into his business.
To cap the climax, he gets the Government to surrender its revenue to his keeping, lends out these millions also, ... DRAWING ANOTHER INTEREST FROM THE TAX PAYERS WHOSE OWN MONEY HE IS LENDING BACK TO THEM.
What a mockery of equal and exact justice! What do you think of your old party representatives’ business ability, who issue United States bonds at 2, 3, or 4 per cent and turn around and loan it to the bankers at one-half of one per cent? With their twenty-five per cent reserves loaned to other banks and loaned to the gamblers of Wall street, as well as to the ones operating a gambling hell of the like kind in every large city, sending call money to eighty and more per cent. “And at last the chickens come home to roost, ... when the bogus dollars come to the doors of the bank clamoring for recognition and redemption, these silk hat thieves get together, refuse to honor their own notes, refuse to pay depositors, decline to cash checks; issue a nasty Clearing House Certificate, compel the business world to accept it as money, and thus MAKE ANOTHER PROFIT OUT OF THE WRITTEN EVIDENCE OF THEIR OWN DISHONESTY.” The United States bonds are a first liability of the Government. The National Bank notes are a second liability, and these pawnbrokers of a nation’s energy and productiveness propose a third liability based on your deposits and their capital, called for euphony, asset currency (asses’ money). This is the way they want to get the elastic currency (rubber money) whereby the exceeding hard work of the banker is to sign his name to thousand dollar bills and get in exchange your hard labor, inventive ability, and its products. They tell you to “work hard, save your money, and put it in the bank.” Why should your government tax you for their benefit, when you can do it directly without them? “Is it ‘equal and exact justice’ to allow six thousand national bankers to turn your credit into a mint for themselves, at your expense? Is there any defense of a system which turns Government credit and cash over to a favored few?” “They say their issue of money is good,” but your Government issuing money to you direct is “repudiation and national dishonor.” “Money is the life-blood of trade.” Will you leave in the hands of these pawnbrokers the power to cut your business in half, curtail enterprise, reduce the workers’ wages, and diminish thereby the markets of the country?
The Peoples’ Party position on the money question is based on the United States Supreme Court’s decision, in The Legal Tender cases of 1862 and 1863, as well as the Supreme Courts of nineteen Northern States.—Ohio Liberty Bell.