THE NATIONAL ALLIANCE. 125 



that have been in power since the war have pursued practically the same 

 financial policy. The situation is this : The most desirable and neces- 

 sary reform is one that will adjust the financial system of the general 

 government so that its provisions cannot be utilized by a class, which 

 thereby becomes privileged and is in consequence contrary to the genius 

 of our government, and which is to-day the principal cause of the 

 depressed condition of agriculture. Regardless of all this, the political 

 parties utterly ignore these great evils and refuse to remove their cause, 

 and the importunities of the privileged class have no doubt often led the 

 executive and legislative branches of the government to believe that the 

 masses were passive and reconciled to the existence of this system, 

 whereby a privileged class can, by means of the power of money to 

 oppress, exact from labor all that it produces except a bare subsistence. 

 Since, then, it is the most necessary of all reforms, and receives no atten- 

 tion from any of the prominent political parties, it is highly appropriate 

 and important that our efforts be concentrated to secure the needed 

 reform in this direction, provided all can agree upon such measures. 

 Such action will in nowise connect this movement to any partisan effort, 

 as it can be applied to the party to which each member belongs. 



In seeking a true and practical remedy for the evils that now flow 

 from the imperfections in our financial system, let us first consider what 

 is the greatest evil, and on what it depends. The greatest evil, the one 

 that outstrips all others so far that it is instantly recognized as the chief, 

 and known with certainty to be more oppressive to the productive inter- 

 ests of the country than any other influence, is that which delegates to 

 a certain class the power to fix the price of all kinds of produce and of 

 all commodities. This power is not delegated directly, but it is dele- 

 gated indirectly by allowing such class to issue a large per cent of the 

 money used as the circulating medium of the country, and having the 

 balance of such circulating medium, which is issued by the government, 

 a fixed quantity that is not augmented to correspond with the necessi- 

 ties of the times. In consequence of this, the money issued by the 

 privileged class, which they are at liberty to withdraw at pleasure, can 

 be, and is, so manipulated as to control the volume of circulating 

 medium in the country sufficiently to produce fluctuations in general 

 prices at their pleasure. It may be likened unto a simple illustration in 

 philosophy : the inflexible volume of the government issue is the ful- 

 crum ; the volume of the bank issue is the lever power ; and price is the 

 point at which power is applied, and it is either raised or lowered with 

 great certainty, to correspond with the volume of bank issue. Any 

 mechanic will instantly recognize the fact that the quickest and surest 



