474 WISCONSIN AGRICULTUEE. 



set our faces against all the wild-eat, red-dog, and shin-plaster 

 trash which now floods the country, and insist upon receiving 

 nothing in the shape of currency which is not safe and sure, and 

 at all times and places convertible, at its full value, into all the 

 uses for which good money may be applied. If the farmers will 

 properly respect their own rights and powers, and justly appre- 

 ciate their own position and character, and with the same har- 

 monious determination unitedly act upon this basis, as commer- 

 cial and some other communities do, they can at once and con- 

 tinually dictate the currency that shall be offered for their staples; 

 they can say to Mr. Banker — if you wish to make a percentage 

 and accumulate wealth upon the little frail " promises to pay ' 

 which you circulate to be paid to us for our indispensible, life- 

 supporting products, you must make your paper safe and sound, 

 at least against any reasonable loss or depreciation to us — let us 

 be sure that your bills will at all times be worth what they pre- 

 tend to be ; the farmers can do this if they will act firmly and in 

 concert — think of it — take it into manly consideration, and use 

 the power for justice which you possess. Look at the miners in 

 the lead region — they long ago unitedly resolved not to receive 

 any thing in the shape of money for their toil but specie, or the 

 bills of the old State Bank of Missouri, which were at any hour 

 convertible into gold — they would contemptuously laugh at the 

 man who ofiered them the common bank paper of the country 

 — and thus by determined and united action, they kept out all 

 worthless trash, and always got sound currency. And farmers 

 can control this matter just as effectually, and even more so, for 

 their products are even more vitally essential than the miner's 

 produce — if they will fairly consult and understand each other 

 on this subject. 



Just now the times suggest a peculiar appropriateness in tak- 

 ing a cautious and manly stand upon this matter. There is 

 much trembling in large consuming locations, there is a sorrow- 

 ful depression among speculators — and a terrible shaking and 

 crashing among "bulls and bears," and stock gamblers in the 

 cities — because their operations are with fictitious shares and 

 stocks, which have no intrinsic value or force — they have been 



