242 SALE OF MUNICIPAL BONDS. ful money of the United States" from a gold to a silver basis, the investor who pays gold for these bonds will have to secure 9 per cent interest, instead of 3, to make good the loss in the value of his principal and interest, and to secure a rate of interest the equivalent of 3 per cent in gold. In the light of this fact it behooves the citizens of New Orleans to make it certain that the gold standard shall be maintained beyond a doubt, as the result of the presidential election. With this result United States investors will have an abundance of money to loan to New Orleans or any other southern city of equal standing, at 3 per cent. On the other hand, if the free silver candidate is elected these bonds cannot be sold in the United States or in any other market until the people of this country have had time to pass through the inevitable ordeal of suffering that will follow, and give evidence of returning sanity. No business man can cast a vote for free silver intelligently if his object is to serve his own and his country's welfare. The rates for money in all silver standard countries are double the rates in all gold standard countries. In the face of this fact advocates of free silver pretend that they can make money, plenty and cheap, by adopting their way of helping borrowers by attempting to rob creditors. $90,000,000,000. The aggregate wealth of the United States is now estimated at $90,000,000,000, an average of $1,200 per head of the entire population. The accumulation MILLIONS OF THE MANY. 243 during the ten years ending with 1890 amounted to about II cents per day per inhabitant. This means a daily increment of about $7,000,000. After allowing the full amount represented to have been absorbed by trusts and the millionaires, by the most romantic octopus hater, it will be seen there still remains an enormous amount of wealth distributed among the people, of which they have not been robbed. The largest single item of invested capital is credited to railroads, $1,600,000,000. Against this item there stands to the credit of depositors in savings banks $2,500,000,000. It will be seen that savings bank depositors have the ability to pay spot cash for all the railroads in the country, taken at their full capitalization, and have $900,000,000 left in bank to their credit. These figures show how vastly greater the millions of the many are than the millions of the few, and make all the talk about trusts and the money power reducing the people to a condition of vassalage worse than foolish; it is a positive imposition upon those who are unfortunate enough to have become dependent upon such teachers for their information. THE MILLIONS OF THE MANY. Since 1896 savings banks and commercial deposits have increased from 50 to 120 per cent. Municipalities now borrow money at rates averaging more than one-half of 1 per cent less than in 1896. The city of Lincoln, Neb., in which Mr. Bryan, the calamity pre 244 MILLIONS OF THE MANY. dictor, resides, now sells 4 per cent bonds at a premium, whereas four years ago it had difficulty in floating bonds at 6 per cent. Farm values in many sections have almost doubled; about 50 per cent of the mortgages have been paid off and much of the balance has been renewed at a lower rate of interest, with payment privileges. Twenty-five per cent of the debtor class of 1896 is now lending money in competition with the gold bugs of that date. No change has occurred in the assurance with which the calamity predictors of 1896 now predict several varieties of calamity if they are not permitted to save the country from imperialism, militarism, trustism, gold standardism and prosperity. Some politicians have the courage to declare that the great corporation capitalists are absorbing the money of the country. Look at the following statement and believe them if you can: 1900-Total savings bank deposits....$2,430,561,290 1896 Total savings bank deposits.... 1,907,156,277 Total increase since Bryan's defeat. .$523,405,013 1900-Number of savings bank depositors.6,202,779 1896-Number of savings bank depositors. 5,065,494 Total increase since Bryan's defeat....1,137,285 Bryan is still urging the adoption of the silver standard. To-day every dollar deposited in savings banks can be drawn in gold or in a currency that can be exchanged for gold. If the silver standard is established MILLIONS OF THE MANY. 245 as the result of Bryan's election all of this vast sum can be paid in silver dollars worth, under those conditions, only fifty cents. Instead of being a friend of workingmen, Bryan is their worst enemy. His policy will not only deprive them of the means of saving money, it will rob them of half the value of what they have already saved. A silver dollar and a gold dollar will not have the same purchasing power under a free coinage system, because each will then have no more than its bullion value. A thousand dollars in silver under a free coinage system will have less than half the purchasing power of a thousand dollars now. A silverite can understand this better, perhaps, if he remembers that he desires to halve the dollar in order to double prices. If prices are doubled it will not take depositors in savings banks long to find out that they have in reserve only half the purchasing power they now suppose they have. What a pity it is that the voters among the six millions of savings bank depositors cannot understand these conditions as they really exist and as they will exist if they succeed in electing Mr. Bryan. Then their calamity will surely come. 246 HARD FACTS FOR BRYAN. HARD FACTS FOR SILVER BRYAN. There has been some speculation of late as to just why Mr. Bryan has had so little silver in his voice. Many reasons, all good, have been given, but may not the real reason be found in the ingratitude silver has shown by increasing in value, in sympathy with all other commodities, under the grinding greed of the gold standard? Four years ago the knight of the silver hobby declared with strenuous persistency that: "If McKinley and the Republican party are successful and put in power for the next four years wages will be decreased, hard times will come upon us and over the land, the price of wheat will go down and the price of gold will go up; mortgages on our homes will be foreclosed by the money lenders; shops and factories will close. We will export no goods and we will import from foreign lands all the goods we use; thus will ruin, want and misery be with us." Were these statements made to deceive or were they inspired by ignorance? Let those who profess admiration for Mr. Bryan answer. Here are the facts: Wheat, corn, cotton, animal products, are all selling for higher prices now than in 1896, and payments are made in gold. There are more shops and factories open, more persons are employed for a larger number of days per year and at higher wages than in 1896, and payments are made in gold. |