Betsy’s plan would raise the price of wheat and of all other farm products, and, consequently, would make farming more remunerative. By making farming more profitable it would start more people farming, and thus relieve the overcrowded labor markets of the great cities. The farmers, obtaining better prices for their products, would be able to consume more of the products of the factory. The increased demand for factory products would give work to the unemployed and raise wages in all the industries. Under these conditions, with our money system on a proper basis, and with trusts and monopolies obliterated, as they soon would be, we would need no labor unions to maintain the wage scale. Labor would no longer crouch at the feet of its creature, Wealth, and strikes would be a thing of the barbarous past. On the other hand, the workingman of the city cannot prosper so long as the farmer is not prosperous. Again, if one day’s labor will produce two and one-half or three bushels of wheat, and each bushel is of the value of one dollar, then a day’s labor will be worth $2.50 or $3.00. Then will wages begin to go up, more help will be employed, more products will be consumed, and soon “surplus labor” and “overproduction” will be heard of only in the reminiscences with which we as grandparents will entertain the curious of the next generation. It is a remarkable coincidence that at the time this chapter is being put into type (May, 1897) news comes over the wires that the Russian minister at Washington has submitted a proposition that the governments of the United States and Russia jointly fix the price of wheat.—ED. ----- “Now, Jobe,” says I, “if the law said that the dollar should be of the value of sixty pounds of wheat in the Chicago market, what would be the value of a dollar?” Jobe studied a minit and then looked up sudden like, as if something had broke loose in his mind, and says he: “Why, it would be of the value of sixty pounds of wheat.” “Well, then,” says I, “what would be the value of sixty pounds of wheat in Chicago?” “Why—why,” says he, “it would be worth a dollar.” “What would be the price of wheat west of Chicago?” says I. “A leetle less than a dollar,” says he. “What would be the price of wheat east of Chicago?” says I. “Why, a leetle more than a dollar,” says he. “You are a good scholar,” says I. “You are a larnin.” He tried to git loose agin, but failed. “But—but,” says he, “what good would sich money be in Urope? Would that money be good anywhere in the world?” “There you go agin,” says I. “I haint got to Urope yit. We’ll go to Urope purty soon.” “Yes, but that would be fiat money,” says he. “Yes, sir, it would,” says I, “and the sooner you and your likes git up to that word ‘fiat,’ and touch your nose to it and smell of it—the sooner you pick it up and look at it and examine it, the sooner you will find that instid of bein a curse it will be a blessin to you.”