The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10Brann, William Cowper
General
The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
dollars--if he chances to be out of debt. If he is not out of
debt, if he must discharge old scores with these 200-cent
dollars, he is being deprived of his adventitious good fortune
resulting from foreign crop failures. It makes no earthly
difference what the measure of value may be if it is immutable.
The purchasing power of the dollar might be safely increased or
decreased 90 per cent. were the whole business of this country on
a cash basis. Under such conditions we might contract our volume
of money to a million dollars or expand it to five billions, and
harm nobody; but it seems to me that any fool on earth--even the
editor of the Advertiser could comprehend the following
unequivocal facts: (1) that a majority of the American people owe
money; (2) that an enhancement of the purchasing power of the
dollar must work grievous injury to the debtor; (3) that unless
the volume of money keeps pace with the increase in the money
work to be done the unit of value must inevitably appreciate. Let
us state the case in kindergarten language for the benefit of
intellectual infants; while the demand for money is increasing in
a ratio of geometrical progression we have eliminated one great
source of supply--have cast upon gold alone the money work which
from time immemorial had been done by two metals. The gold
product has not kept pace with the growth of the world's
business; the law of supply and demand is irrevocable; ergo, gold
HAS appreciated and the debtor HAS been despoiled. The temporary
rise in price of one or two or a score of American products in
obedience to the laws of trade cannot obscure these
incontrovertible facts. WHILE THE PRICE OF WHEAT HAS ADVANCED THE
PRICE OF LABOR HAS DECLINED. The wage-worker now receives LESS
than formerly, while it costs him MORE to feed his family. And
this is what the Republican press and its mugwump echo call
prosperity! The wheat-growers, numerically unimportant, are
prospering despite the gold standard, just as the placer-miner
who washes out ten dollars each day and gives up five of it
nightly to cut-throat gamblers; but in this prosperity the great
body of the American people have neither lot nor part. Texas is
selling middling cotton at 5 1/2 and paying $3 for flour. Adult
male operatives are working in Massachusetts cotton mills for 50
cents a day, and their families doing without flour. Pennsylvania
miners are braving subterranean dangers for 90 cents a day and
living on potatoes and point. Although this is the busiest season
of the year--the time when the Republican tidal wave of
prosperity is supposed to buss the very clouds--there is scarce a
town or city in the United States where able-bodied men are not
begging for employment. If you don't think so put a 3-line "ad"
in your morning paper that you want to employ a man for any
purpose, and offer ONE-HALF the salary that such service would
have commanded before the demonetization of silver, and see how
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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