Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIF«'
A Working Man for Gold,
HARRY JOHNSON'S SPEECH
TO
HIS
OK
H
FELLOW
PIANO
MAKERS—A
SILVER FOR WAGE EARNERS.
ENRY L. JOHNSON, one of the em-
ployees of Chas. M. Stieff, piano
manufacturer, Baltimore, Md., made a re-
markable speech on the politico-financial
question, at the fifty-fourth annual picnic of
the Stieff concern held on July 20th. Mr.
Johnson said:
"Thisassemblage is not simply a response
to invitations extended, but a flattering
recognition of the firm and employees of a
great Baltimore industry, where skilled
labor and honest capital meet and com-
mune in the cup of pleasure. The more
closely they unite the greater the victory
over ignorance, fear, and superstition. As
twilight remembers the morning star, so
weary toil thinks of past prosperity. Stag-
gering side by side are labor and capital,
under a prolonged and persecuting panic,
whose end has been promised in political
prophecy, while anguish and sorrow fill
each hour.
"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.
For existing ills the free and unlimited
coinage of silver is proposed as a remedy
and proper solution. As its demonetiza-
tion was the specific cause of all evil, its
remonetization will be the cure. The cur-
rency has been contracted; we are doing
the same amount of business upon a
monetary basis one-half as large as
formerly.
The price of commodities has
sunk and wages have been decreased. Only
accept our panacea and the mortgages that
hang upon your farms will vanish like the
snowflake on the river and the period of
depression will be as short as any dream.
"We want the silver circle of our fore-
fathers, the dollar of the Constitution.
Flood this land with silver and the heart
of the farmer and the home of the mechanic
will be filled with sunshine. We are a
great and glorious nation, capable of es-
tablishing any system we may desire, ir-
respective of the civilized world.
"These claims are but an extravaganza.
Not one will withstand the scrutiny of an
intelligent people. It is not a subject of
eloquence, but one of economy. They ap-
peal to prejudice, pride and passion, when
it requires the highest degree of intelli-
gence and integrity.
"In the evolution of money, the metals
gradually superseded all other commodi-
ties as the medium of exchange. Iron and
copper came to be produced in such quan-
tities that they ceased to be precious metals,
and gave way to silver. As civilization
and the demands of trade required it, gold
was introduced into one country after an-
other. In their evolution a nation's needs
and progress can be determined by the
kind^of money it uses. The ruling princes
stamped on the pieces their weight and
worth, and decreed that they must be ac-
cepted, even though they were debased.
This was the origin both of coinage and
the legal tender laws. About three hun-
dred years before Christ copper was de-
throned and silver became the standard
money; one hundred and fifty years before
Christ gold was introduced as money.
"With the fall of Rome, Europe was
without gold for five centuries, silver and
copper being the money. The reintroduc-
tion of gold coinage began in Florence, 1252.
As the commerce of the various coun-
tries increased gold was demanded and
used with silver. Then began the coin-
age of both metals; then began the mone-
WAGE
EARNER'S DISCUSSION
II
before Congress three years consecutively,
and was a proper fulfilment of the act of
'53, when we went practically on a gold
basis. I admit that the feline is not a
stranger in the legislative halls at Washing-
ton. We who live in Maryland are famil-
iar with his antics. He is the Senatorial
Cat of Compromise; therefore he did not
appear in the late Chicago Convention.
Through the action of this agile animal,
that awkward and unclean beast which has
from time to time disturbed our financial
system and now threatens to plunge us
into a fresh panic worse than any the
world has yet witnessed, has been pampered
in the Senate and loved in the lobby, you
will appreciate the inconvenience and bulk
of this 'white elephant' under free coin-
age.
"Frequently
$5,000,000 in gold is
shipped from New York. It can be hauled
in a single dray to the wharf. Make it
payable in silver, and it would require 150
carts, each holding one ton. What a fu-
neral !
"The eloquent son of Nebraska says:
Destroy your cities and the farms will
flourish; destroy your farms and grass will
grow in every city in the Union. Let us
reduce Chicago to ashes (if Altgeld with-
holds his dynamite), go forth upon her
smouldering ruins, and with Tillman's
pitchfork rake from her ashes the trans-
formed gold and silver. Then tell the
American people the truth—that the melted
gold is unchanged in value, while the silver
has lost one-half of its face value.
"We condemn dishonest money, a
crown of thorns and a cross of gold. It
was thirty pieces of silver that figured in
the conspiracy that betrayed Christ. Will
American labor be betrayed and crucified
by the silver mine owners of the West?
The revolutionary platform which these
heresy hucksters have constructed repudi-
ates the national debt and degrades the
nation. It declares against issuing inter-
est bearing bonds in the time of peace,
and agrees to open our mints to the free
coinage of all silver soup ladles and shav-
ing mugs in a country, at the same time
making us a dumping ground for the sil-
ver of Europe.
" I want Mr. Bryan to tell me, in his
Madison Square Garden speech, what will
be done when our bonds come due in 1904
— $100,000,000 at five per cent., or our
four per cent, bonds, 1907, amounting to
$559,634,000. Will the silver kings meet it
with a donation, or will it be necessary to
declare war to pav them ? This is not pre-
sumption. The flag" that floats above gives
me this privilege. I stepped upon this plat-
form from the rank and file of American
workmen, and the unstained hands of hon-
est toil are my credentials."
tary trouble with which the next five cen-
turies abound—the alternation of silver
money and gold money; the frequent
change in the ratio in the vain attempt to
keep both; the edicts against shipping out
either kind of coin; the execution of prom-
inent merchants for seeking gain by export-
ing the metal undervalued in the mints of
one country and overvalued in the mints of
other countries. England abandoned this
fallacy in 1816; other nations continued
losing their gold and silver alternately.
"In the middle of this century the flood
of gold opened a way for relief. Con-
gress, in 1853, passed an act making silver
coinage subsidiary and limited the coinage
and tender. The countries composing the
Latin Union did likewise in 1865, as did
Germany in 1870, the principle now having
been adopted by most all the civilized
nations of the world. India, Japan, Mex-
ico, and some of the South American re-
publics are still silver countries. Chili,
however, a silver-producing country, con-
vinced by bitter experience, has just
adopted a gold standard.
."What a hideous spectacle does Japan
present, where the hours of labor com-
mence at 5 A. M. and close at 6 P. M.,
where wages paid to the best workmen
amount to twenty-one cents in our money.
Mr. E. J. Smithers, Consul at Hiogo, says
in the consular report for 1894 that the
great difficulty in introducing American
flour in Japan is that the people are too poor
to buy it. This is the banquet that the sil-
ver disciples invite our wage earners to par-
ticipate in.
"They tell you the increase in t u e vol-
ume of money means a rise in prices,
which is both erroneous and untrue. In
1800, when prices were high, the amount
of money in circulation was $4.99 per
capita. In 1847, with prices much lower,
it was $10.59 P e r capita, or more than
twice as much, proportionately, as in 1800.
In 1865, when we had inflated war prices,
it amounted to $20.57 per capita, while in
1894, when average prices were much
lower, it was $24.28 per capita.
"The total volume in circulation in
France today amounts to $35.37 per capita,
while in Switzerland it is $9.97 per capita.
Are the prices in France four times as
high? Taking gold money as the basis of
comparison, France has $22.19 P e r capita,
while Greece has 23 cents per capita. Are
the prices in France a hundred times as
high as in Greece? The fact is, they are
almost equal.
"But consider the price of wheat since
Not Afraid'of the Bicycle.
the demonetization of the white metal. It
is regulated by supply and demand. The
world's supply of wheat vastly increased
HE London trade papers ridicule the
after 1873, owing to the building of rail-
story which
has been running
roads and opening of new lands. The crop
of the United States rose from 250,000,000 through a number of our contemporaries
that manufacturers and dealers on "the
bushels "in 1872 to 500,000,000 in 1884.
Prior to 1873, there was practically no other side" are complaining of the adverse
movement in wheat from India to Europe. • effect of the bicycle craze on their business.
After the opening of the Suez Canal and In this connection the "Piano, Organ and
the reduction in freights, the export of In-
dia wheat rose from about 18,000,000 in Music Trades Journal" has this to say:
"Piano-makers here, at all events, have
1880 to 41,000.000 in 1887.
In 1881 the
territory of Dakota did not produce a no cause for complaint, and, although occa-
"bushel of wheat for sale: in 1887 she pro- sionally a dissatisfied growl is heard, these
duced 62,500,000 bushels, or one-seventh are only isolated cases, and cannot for a
of the crop of this country.
"But was not the 'crime of '73' an act moment be accepted as proof that cycling
passed surreptitiously, like the tread of a is seriously affecting the musical instru-
gat in the night? Absolutely not! It was ment trade."
T