Newspapers / The State’s Voice (Dunn, … / May 1, 1935, edition 1 / Page 5
Part of The State’s Voice (Dunn, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
About Garet Garrett’s “Pieces of Money” ((’outlimed From Page Four) . :n,. ,i;,,re than the 100-cent dollar of 1926.' De effort to increase buying power, to re-.. lce jV,j)ply down to the level of active demand, j -ik'cessive reborrowing .and-spending of Jllliui,,. which, like carrier pigeons, fluttered nrol1Il,i ;i bit on buying and debt paying missions till1 the’^ uot their bearing for the cotes of the ,Kinlx-t.;> and darted back home to roost till sent 0n annih'T mission at interest, the American dol jar (,£ any kind today will buy more labor,, more pour, in-o-e bacon, more eggs, more cheese, more butter, etc., etc., than it would in several years of the l(,-Or’s. One thing it will not buy as much £_gold. And the prediction of that state of af fairs? except with respect to those articles, like tobacco and cotton, which have their prices fixed j„ world trade, Mr. Barclay will find in the. article of November 15, 1933. . - . Stability of Currency Depends Upon Management. The stability of currency depends, as stated ?bovc. u] 'Oil the amount in actual circulation and t|ie jpeed at which it circulates. And the amount • j„ circulation and of available “credit money” is. . whatever the basis of the currency, a matter of management, or, as in the 14 years from 1919 tm 1935, a matter of mismanagement. Unfortunately, the United States long ago sur rendered to interested bankers the management of its currency. The immense fluctuation in the purchasing and debt-paying value of the dollar from 1919 to 1933 was-largely due to either the ignorant or the selfish management of the, cur rency by the agents to whom the nation had sur rendered its inherent rights. During the war years, an inverted pyramid of currency and “credit” money was built upon the apex of gold. Not one feather’s weight of con trol was exerted to prevent the enormous growth of this inverted pyramid till it suited the bankers’ interests in 1920, when a clamp was put upon the flow of currency with the result that the real ruination of the agricultural areas of the coun try followed immediately. Hundreds of thou sands of farmers lost their places, among whom were many who had- bought land at the high prices of the cheap dollar era and were unable to continue their payment's. But all people with any memory remember thfe»cataclasm. It was not the stock market fifluFfes- of 1929 that ruined the South. The South and the West were smashed in 1920. - _ But time and s'pace <lo not permit one to review the various crimes--that ultimately resulted in the climax, when all except those who retained mas tery of the gold and'the actual and virtual mo nopolists were, by the hundreds of thousands re duced tu poverty. Even the engineers of the ruin that had befallen, while not killed outright like Samson by the falling temple, were enclosed in the ruins which they had pulled down and found themselves in danger 'of smothering. Their ill-earned gains were lifeless; they themselves recognized for the first time in their lives that the people cannot be destroyed and the wealth retain its value. Hence the little efuibbling when the President demanded the gold in the name and the right of the nation. Management--Was to attempt to redeem the country arid the >eurifency from the calamities fathered hv mismanagement. The actual money in circulation vteuleh not, could not, begin to re deem the homes, the estates, the industries, from the curst.-befallen them. - - ■ ''ith tiie vchillies and volumes ot creuu mimev as dead a d the'dodo and’the gold and the currene\ monopolized by those who had kept their Punches upm it. thertwo recourses present before 'I’residem Korisev-elttwas to create a flood of new currtuicy in take 'the place .of the credit currency jle.itPm ,j and* of #fe-courrency ,aud gold with d] aa\n in mi circulation by the money monopolists (jr t0 I'errow and rbb'crrrow the funds thus locket 1 murtnnatelypa^ I see it, he chose the latter ,llelllrid 1'ur hoped, as it seems likely, that the cheafietm c of the dollar iiVterms of gold would slso lower die dollar’s purchasing price—of _la 0r !ll|(l "miviodi'fies. ■ But,has my article of No vemher 15. 1«»3S, predicted, the cheapening of the &l|Har in ierms of gold could not increase t e HtmiUr „f those dollars nor speed up their cir , 110,1 and therefore could not make the dollar c.leaI' '■ l oiiph to match the gold-standard dollar °t the imlaiion war period and that of the stoc. ^arN.'t nidation period. And the event has justi ,the prediction. Despite a thousand efforts to lociease die amount of currency in circulation. dte frequent shooing back of the retunie 1 l0r|< from the vaults of the Northern bankers, die fact that ’billions'of dollars worth o - actual wealth has been subtracted from the aties, HoW'They Are A. M. SNIDER, Hoffman, N. C: reaties are contracts or promises between- na tions no not between nations, but between gioupp that for the moment are in control of the treaty making power of nations. These groups may be kicked out by popular, vote in less than three months from date of these “sacred/' “bind ing.’..-treaties which are supposed to be the su preme aw of the land, to supersede national and .state legislation, to supersedere will and inter ests of the people for whom these treaties were made, without their knowledge or consent. Our. own State Department has brought home many .. treaties that the Senate refused to ratify, an act *s necessary to make them the supreme law of the land. • - Perhaps the most famous, treaty ever written is 1 he Peace of Versailles which was supposed to end the World war, but which marked a lull in military operations and began a war of diplo macy, the diplomacy war that is being-so hotly stores of.-: 1929 and billions of potential wealth killed aborning or in conception, the dollar will still buy more than it would in tin? inflation pe riod, though it be a fraudulent dollar, according to Mr. Garrett and his ilk. Gold the Agent of Monopoly, i-.. Since gold, long holding a monopoly- in this country and. in many others as the monetary metal,, is itself subject to monopolizing- it has proved itself to be the foulest of all agencies-for the monopolization of wealth and power. — When I was three years old there were*three kinds of money of three values in this country— gold, silver, and greenbacks. Before I was four, those who held .the monopoly of the existing-gcfld (who else wo.ultf do it?) had secured the demone tization of silver r and by congressional decree the greenbacks, which when issued had been at a great discount under both silver and gold, had ' been made redeemable in gold. That was “the crime of 73,” which made silver an ordinary, commodity and reduced the^per capita circula tion.of money in the country to that point that debtors and producers of commodities and wage earners were pauperized.-'v In those days’me North Carolina tot couhted ttifhaelf a favorite of Santa Claus if he got a stidc of candy, an oranjpi, and an apple and a handful of nuts in his Christ mas stocking. But it was a* glorious opportunity, for the manipulates of the money supply. In 1&7S, the Bland bill gave the country a surcease of monetary thirst by authorizing the purchase and coinage of a certain weight of silver each year. The eighties were the years of the cart wheel dollars. But the gold bugs were not satis fied with anything short of the complete destruc tion of silver. The finish was made in 1893 and since then till Roosevelt took the reins the bankers have had almost carte blanche power to write the value of the dollar. There was-a constant point ing to the shrinkage of the value of silver and a persistent demand for its utter banishment. _ It was Bryan’s fiery declaration that mankind should not be crucified on a cross of gold that heralded the hot 16 to 1 battle of the campaign of 1896.' The gold bugs’won. Silver, utterly demonetized here and in the leading countries of Europe, continued to shrink in value as geld would, have done under similar conditions. On the other hand, the complete monopoliza tion of the monetary-function by gold gave a greater and greater power to its monopolizers and masters. The Federal Reserve bill was sup posed to cure this ill. But the bankers, were-the reserve owners and manipulated. I have alieadj mentioned the catastrophe of 1920 which .pauper ized millions of helpless producers, laborer^, and debtors. The crash of 1929, continuing with its reverberations till the Roosevelt era, left tne gold still in the hands of the monopolists and there fore the power to monopolize the wealth so gen erallv pledged on the millions of evidences or ' debt. Only One Kind of Money. The Rosevelt coup was the answer to the long prevailing problem: how to maintain all curren cies at par with each other and with the metal basis In the late sixties and early seventies, holders of gold raised it to a premium over both silver and greenbacks. But there are now no holders of gold, and Uncle Sam can fix the dol lar’s value and maintain it by management, giv inK J only one kind of money and it not subject to a six-fold variation in value. But such men as Garrett cite the German m fJon as a possibility in this count.7. Germany S hdpless like the man who gives one bad i k- and must continue to give them. Her 'sources had vanished; her indebtedness to the contested inJ Europe today. Germany and Aus- ' tria have recently repudiated certain “clauses” of that treaty, those clauses^relating to re-armament > of those countries. France and Italy .are .now.., trying to stir up trouble for Germany for the * Hitler declarations breaking- this most - sacred * treaty... } Let us see how Germany came to be signatorj J • of that-sacred document. You remember Presi » dent Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points. Thes^ t provided-for “peace without victory,” an honor* ■ able settlement following cessation^of hostilities. ! These the Allies agreed to. They further agreed f to disarm,- when Germany disarmed. -When the » Central Powers were disarmed, the "Allies flatly . [ ignored all their promises. They proceeded to * destroy the Central Powers for good and all; but * “there’s a divinity-that shapes our ends, rough’ * hew them how we will,” or how any. one else yrtH. " Justice and right traihpled to earth will rise f again. * . * Italy, who is now, along with Jt* ranee, leading j; the holy crusade in condemning Germany for ■ treaty violation, had a “sacred treaty” with the I CentraP Powers, pledging her to . support them in' 11 the World war; but being promised a sum in the.. t form of territory by these same present treaty ; •lovers, Britain and France; she broke her “sacred j treaty” and joined the Allies. . ! Recently the League of Nations, under the pressure of England, France and Italy, voted ! condemnation of Germany for violating a treaty ‘ that she was forced J>y the Allied armies and. navies to sign. They call it the abrogation of “a \ sacred contract..” Maxim Litvanoff of Russia wanted to make those resolutions apply to all in ternational agreements; but “No, no,” cried, the * holy defenders of sacred treaties. You see they ; taught want to infringe on some, sacred docu ments. Treaties are Sacred when ..and only when they 1 flavor, the country speakingr and damnable when they favor anybody else. •-Did you notice that -the Big Three made their threat of dire penalties, for violations very much ■ as--the parent who knows that his days of flo^ ~ ging the'son are over puts off the son ‘‘this time • with some healthy promises as to what he will do the "next time”? It should be remembered that Germany is now -virtually without “sacred” -treaties. It will -be interesting to note how theso treaty defenders keep some of their present trea ties- as Germany builds a large army, navy, and air fleet. .. • . A. M. SNIDER. April 15, 1935. .. -Allies Was ‘unthinkably great; she was drowning and grabbing at any straw. She did not deliber- ‘ ately ruin her- currency. <• America is a l^nd full of wealth and-potentially ten-fold abounding in it. She -has the" gold* in -her coffers, half of the world’s supply-. - But' Mr.- Garrett J thinks she ‘■would "deliberately drown herself in the currency bathtub, as if the-bather- had sense enough to turn on the water needed for a decent bath but -not sense enough to stop?the flow till the tub is overflowed,- the room flooded and the bather drowned. - In Conclusion. I intended to discuss the several, fallacies of the Post contributor, but find that-it would take an article as long as Mr. Garrett's, to ■ discuss fully the suggestions raised by him in his •argu ment, if you can ,call the' diatribe an argument. But that is not all—1 just now got hold of the May 4 Saturday Evening Post and find that he has continued his discussion in that number. You may think this a long article. But it is not more than a fourth the length of Mr. Garrett's discus sion, if even a fourth—possibly not more than a A sick man, with limited time and'^imited space, cannot be expected to cover the whole Gar rett palaver in one article. Therefore, I am clos ing. I hope at least what I have written under the handicap of a lack-of strength is sufficient to give Mr. Barclay at least a notion of my. “reac tion” to the Garrett bosh. Our pieces of money are as good as we need and better than the 1926 ones, for instance. One of the most degrading results, of the li quor situation is the increased used liquor by women and girls. The cocktail rooms in .hotels are visited by many women; in fact, it is said that more than three-foyths of the drinking done at such parties is done by women. Lots oh men aim high who never make a hit.
The State’s Voice (Dunn, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
May 1, 1935, edition 1
5
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75