The situation in the United States will not be as unfortunate under the proposed gold monometallism as it will be in the world at large. But the change will be most unwise. The gold in the United States, including bullion in the United States The silver money in the United States was $476,201,341 and The total metallic money was... $1,016,009,857 555,845,062 $1,571,854,919 The total money in circulation, less the gold and silver coins, was.. 1,215,348,972 Leaving a surplus of real money of.. $356,505,947 The situation under gold monometallism would be $1,016,009,857 Gold in the United States, as above estimated We have thus a total of $20,240,000,000 of debt upon $65,000,000,000 of assets, or a proportion of $1 owed to every $3 owned. It is true that the valuation of the wealth of the country, if it were made now, would probably be much more than $65,000,000,000, so that the proportion to it of the above total of debts of $20,240,000,000 would be less than 1 to 3. On the other hand, the debts enumerated in the table do not include those of private corporations other than railroad companies, nor the innumerable little debts owing to individuals for money lent on personal security. Making allowances on both sides of the account, it is, therefore, safe to assume, approximately, that the property of the citizens of this country is incumbered by debts to the amount of one-third of its value, and to that extent does not belong to its owners. How marvelous it would be if, under these conditions, the United States should join Great Britain and Germany in the effort to make the four billions of gold the total real money of the whole world. What a preposterous proposition it is which the gold-standard nations make to the silver nations and the double-standard nations, when they demand the demonetization of the four billions of silver, in order to make the four billions of gold grow more and more valuable for the benefit of the few and the injury of the many. It is true that it is claimed that as we now have what are called good times and prosperity in America, it is apparent that no harm has happened so far to this country from the demonetization of silver, and that all the apprehensions and the predictions of the bimetallists are to be ridiculed. and disregarded. It is, however, easy to understand why we have not been suffering in the United States during the last two years from the effects of demonetization. It is simply because the balance of trade has been so heavily in our favor. The dearer the money of the world is, the better off, for the time being, are the money classes of the nation to which other countries owe large quantities of that money. The figures as to the balance of trade are as follows: Our excess of exports of merchandise since 1889 has been as follows (eleven years and six months): EXCESS OF EXPORTS OF MERCHANDISE SINCE 1889. EXCESS OF EXPORTS OF MERCHANDISE SINCE 1889.-Continued. SENATOR: It was a fundamental discussion intellectualized. Its solidarity is marvelous. The prosperity advocate represents only the carelessness of an untrained thinker without facts or figures on which to base his war-whoops. Permanent prosperity is undoubtedly as uncertain as the flight of larks. PRESIDENT: Prosperity is a queen of the air. Prosperity or no prosperity, it is plainly to be seen that the firm of Messrs. Bonded Debt-National Bank-Gold StandardTrust-and-Taxation Company, Limited, can only thrive upon national ruin. The ignorant flippancy and the one-sided theories of pig-philosophers neither analyze nor comprehend broad economic conditions which are the foundation stones of substantial prosperity. SENATOR: I grow so weary of those indolent, languid, shabby, small-type editors, if I may so speak of paid-for illuminations of prosperity. Our prosperity phenomena lack the illumination of knowledge. We are face to face with problems almost incomprehensible, certainly not solvable by truculent logic of partisans, nor the scientific thimble-riggery of "sound-money" literature. I find it difficult to grapple with the exact grounds on which our future prosperity rests. PRESIDENT: You remember Lincoln's aphorism about fooling all the people all the time. I do not believe that frothy superficies of high-sounding newspaper babblers are going to deceive the workingman. He is the voter. He has too much substratum to believe that my Administration has rained golden apples upon the career of industry. Besides, when he wakes up to taxation under our cunningly devised legislation mills there will be a universal choral blast from all manner of reviews and periodical literature. SENATOR: It will be a quarter of a century before human stupidity in America perceives the bottomless pit of Republican taxation. In the meantime the two-legged animals will have become petrified machine serfs. PRESIDENT: You have disposed of that solitary thief in the night, the ravenous ghoul of taxation, but in muchabused Heaven's name, with the economic conditions demonstrated by statistics, how are we to run a workingman's prosperity campaign? SENATOR: By that real symbol of wisdom, stump oratory, and the applause of our sleek, fat paunch flunkies. Belshazzar's fire-letters of prosperity will be daily scattered far and near. Your reply to the notification of your nomination has been already prepared. It shall be the crowning phenomenon, the embodiment of imperialistic and prosperity imposture. Take the floor and speak off some of its passages-not as an ass practicing recitative, but trippingly. PRESIDENT (speaks): In November, I shall, craving divine guidance, under |