Page:Coin's Financial School.djvu/132

 114 as it is now, and as bimetallism was then the law, he would like to know how that was? Also that corn in 1873 was about the same price (38 cents) that it is now, and he would like to hear from as to that point. Unless, he said, there is a satisfactory answer as to why corn was as low in 1873 as the present low price, he could not satisfactorily change his present views, which were for the gold standard.

replied:

"The statement that wheat in 1859 was as low as now is not true.

"The secretary of your Board has the bound journals of a trade paper published in this city before the war that escaped the great fire. They are shown to any one who calls there. I have them here.

"They show that the average price of No. 2 red winter wheat for 1859 was $1.10 per bushel. The average price for the month of May, 1859, was $1.35.

"On this 11th day of May, (1859)," said turning to one of the books of the bound journals, "No. 2 Red wheat is here quoted at $1.38 and $1.40 per bushel. Wheat is now 54 cents a bushel; so this Mr. Wheeler is much mistaken when he says that wheat or anything else was as low in 1859 as it is now.

"We will take some other things," continued "I now hold in my hand the statistical abstract of the United States issued in 1892 by the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department. Any of you can get it by writing to the treasury department. It brings the annual average prices down to 1892.

"On page 341 we see that the average price of cut nails in 1859 was, per 100 pounds, $3.86. In 1892, $1.83. Now they are about $1.00.

"On the same page the average price of pig iron in