172 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



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to almost every man to whom I have suggested this. But just think 

 for a moment. You know that if there is an overproduction of 

 corn, the value of corn in other commodities goes down. If there 

 is an overproduction of gold, the value of gold will go down, gen- 

 erally speaking. The value of the dollar depreciates with the in- 

 crease of the supply of gold in the world. I find that during the 

 past thirty years the visible supply of gold in the United States 

 has doubled. I find that within the past fifteen years the visible 

 supply of gold has increased fifty per cent ; and I find that in every 

 ten days at the present time we are producing as much gold as they 

 did in an entire year in the seventeenth century. The man who 

 has a million dollars or so to invest, either of his own funds or 

 those of some great insurance company or other body that he repre- 

 sents, will know that if he puts it into bonds, forty or fifty years 

 from now he is going to get back that money in a depreciated 

 value; consequently he demands a greater inducement to put his 

 money into bonds; in other words, he demands a higher bond rate 

 before he will buy bonds. But when he puts his money into stocks 

 he knows that at the end of forty or fifty years he will get back, 

 not so many dollars, but property which will keep on increasing 

 faster than the gold ; for while the gold dollar is going down and 

 depreciating, property is increasing. For the very same reason 

 that the price of bonds goes down, the market price of stocks goes 

 up. These facts have gradually penetrated the minds of the think- 

 ing men on "Wall street and the great money centers of America, 

 and they have been reflected in the market prices of stocks and 

 bonds as I have described to you. 



Further, gentlemen you can find from the Interstate Commerce 

 Commission reports precisely the same facts without any trouble 

 whatsoever. You have heard recently that the margin between the 

 operating expenses and earnings of American railroads had been 

 growing smaller and smaller from year to year, until they are 

 up against a crisis; that the cost of supplies and labor has been 

 advancing so rapidly that they are now making less net earnings 

 than ever before. That falsehood has been circulated from one end 

 of the country to another. It is absolutely not true. I have here 

 the figures themselves, and for fear of misquotations, I am going 

 to read them to you: 



These records of the market place reflect other facts which are easily 

 ascertained from reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission. I have 

 compiled the figures representing the net earnings of American railways 



