“Yes, sir,” says I, “Ive been a drinkin—a drinkin in the sad, hard experience of the last thirty years—a drinkin the dregs of poverty, hardship and trouble caused by low prices and high interest—caused by havin money so good anywhere else in the world that the only way we can git it back when once it gits away is to borrow it back, and put ourselves in bonds to do it. And, Jobe, when I say that the ‘money thats good anywhere in the world’ is the very money that we as a nation dont want to use, I am a talkin sober, hard sense. We want money that will come back to us and buy our wheat and corn and oats and sich, instid of goin to Roosia and Germany and France and India and buyin their stuff. What we want is money that is the best for America, whether it is good for any other part of the world or not.
“As it is now, Jobe, when we pay the $300,000,000 a year interest to Urope, or when our high-toned people buy their Uropean clothes and sich and give our gold and silver for them, them Urope fellers takes that gold and silver and go to Roosia and Germany and France and India and other countries and buy what wheat and flour and oats and corn and meat and cotton and cattle and wool and manufactured goods they need, while our wheat and our cotton and our wool and sich lays in the warehouses along our seashores a waitin a market. And while it lays there a waitin a market our farmers are gittin lower prices and our workinmen lower wages, or goin idle, which is worse.
“Now, if we paid that interest with money that was not good in Roosia and Germany and France; if our rich people had to pay for their fine stuff with common everyday paper money, each dollar of which was of the value of sixty pounds of wheat—money that couldent be melted up and made into Roosian money or French money or Dutch money or Indian money—if them Urope fellers would have to send the money they git from us back here to git its value in breadstuffs or grub or clothes or somethin our workinmen make, dont you think our warehouses would be emptied? And when our warehouses are emptied wouldent it require work to fill them agin? And haint honest work what our people need and ort to have?
“So, Jobe, you can see that if them three hundred million interest money was made out of paper and sent to Urope to pay that interest; if the money spent there by our rich people and all was good greenback paper money, redeemable in wheat and flour and corn and oats and cotton and manufactured goods of all kinds made, raised and produced in the United States, and they had to send it back here to git its value, instid of sendin to Roosia and them other countries to buy their stuff, and them warehouses would be emptied, you would find more demand for the wheat you raise to fill them agin, you would find prices a raisin and times a gittin better.”
Jobe was a thinkin hard.
Says I: “Jobe, can you see the cat?”
Jobe was silent. The wheels in his head was a beginnin to turn and he was a listenin to their moosic. Finally says he:
“Why, Betsy, if each of them dollars was worth sixty pounds of wheat at Chicago and sixty pounds of wheat was worth a dollar, what would our leadin men what make a livin and git rich a speculatin in wheat do? They couldent force it up nor force it down. What would they do?” says he.
Says I: “They would be like lots of fellers who haint leadin citizens are to-day—they would be a huntin a job, and would have to ingage in some honest okepation.”
“Well, Betsy,” says Jobe, “is that Populist argament?”