Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/329

Rh the things which the producers make and sell to them. This picture is an insidious lie. The number of people not engaged in any directly or indirectly productive work is, thank heaven, in this country, still very small. And not only they are consumers, but everybody is. Nay, more than that, the poorest laborer is, in proportion to his means, a much heavier consumer than the richest millionaire. And as to the blessing of high prices, they are a grinding hardship, not to the rich, but to the poor consumers, unless their earnings rise in full proportion to the rise in prices. Neither are rising prices a sign of rising business prosperity, except when the rise of prices springs from increasing consumption. It certainly is not when it is caused by a debasement of the purchasing power of the current money.

Make the practical application. Some time ago I read among the published utterances of various persons on the silver question the following from a street car conductor: “I am for Bryan and free silver,” said he. “If he is elected, money will be plenty and circulate more, and then we'll get some of it.” The poor fellow! Let us suppose, then, Mr. Bryan elected. We are happily on the silver basis. The dollar buys its 50 cents worth of goods or thereabout. The wages of our street car conductor are, say, $2.00 a day. His wife, poor woman, goes to the grocer and finds that everything she used to buy for 10 cents now costs 20. She plaintively remonstrates. “I cannot help that,” says the grocer. “You pay me in silver, 50 cents on the dollar. I have to use this money in buying my stock, and need twice as many dollars as I did before. So my customers must pay twice as much or I must close my store.” There is nothing more to be said. It is the same thing when she goes to the butcher, the baker, the shoemaker and so on. Our street car conductor finds that while he and his family could with