Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/220

194 have to pay much more for the goods I buy of the whole sale merchant. Therefore I am obliged to charge more.”

So the worthy laborer has to pay those higher prices, for he cannot wait for a better chance, like the rich man; he must buy shoes and clothes, or he himself and his wife and children will have to go barefooted or naked; he must buy provisions, for his family must eat. He consoles himself with the idea that the “people's money” will make it all right. After a while he discovers that with the high prices he has to pay for all his necessaries, his wages are no longer sufficient to support him and his. So he goes to his employer and says: “Everything has become very dear, and I can no longer live on the wages you give me. You must give me more.” What is the answer? “Well,” says the employer, “things have gone up because gold has gone up so much. Wait a little, it will come all right again. The currency will fluctuate, and, you see, in my large business I cannot change my scale of wages every time gold goes up or down.” He omits, however, to add that he has been very quick in marking up the prices of all he had to sell as soon as the upward movement commenced. The laborer shakes his head, but submits for the time being, hoping for a favorable change. But things do not come all right again. Prices rise still higher, while his wages remain the same. At last he finds his situation unendurable, and, combining with his fellow-laborers, he loudly demands higher pay. The employer yields, or rather seems to yield. Gold and prices have gone up thirty or forty per cent., and he grudgingly consents to increase wages about fifteen or twenty per cent. That is all he can do, he says, for “things are so uncertain.” In the meantime, more “people's money,” more greenbacks, are issued, to “make and keep the volume of the currency equal to the wants of trade,” gold and the prices of commodities rise still higher, while wages creep slowly