The Forgotten Man, and Other EssaysSumner, William Graham
Science
The Forgotten Man, and Other Essays
Sumner, William Graham
Economics; Social sciences
What share, then, would the silver-miners get in the results of the
enterprise? They could get none unless the new silver was bought only
of them, and only bought gradually as they produced it, and bought
at a rising price as the demand of debtors acted upon it. Not one of
these conditions would be fulfilled. The debtors and the silver-miners
really have antagonistic interests at every point. It has been proposed
that only American silver should be accepted at the mint. That plan is
impracticable in any case, but, when the Populists had their victory
in hand, does anybody suppose that they would wait eight or ten years
for the realization of their hopes while the mines were producing new
silver, being certain that that delay would cause all they hoped for to
slip through their fingers? I repeat: The interests of the two factions
are all antagonistic to each other, and one of them is destined
inevitably to be the dupe of the other. That destiny is reserved for
the miners who, besides, are paying all the expenses.
Already, so far as the campaign has proceeded, this antagonism has
begun to manifest itself. Mr. Bryan says that his plan will make silver
worth one dollar and twenty-nine cents per ounce fine. He thus takes
his position with the miners’ faction. Thereupon the organs of the
repudiators’ faction have begun to remonstrate. That is not at all what
they are fighting for. They do not want their scheme to raise silver
at all. But if it does not, the miners gain nothing. If it does, then
again the repudiators take to paper money and the miners win nothing.
The mechanical difficulty of recoining the silver with the necessary
rapidity could probably be overcome. There are machine-shops enough
to do it if there was a party in power which had that reckless
determination to execute its will which these people show. We may,
therefore, go on to consider the rise of prices.
THE RISE OF PRICES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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