468 AGRICULTURE. 



' So that the cotton farmer pays, in the products of his labor, over four 

 times as much for a dollar as he did in the years 1860 to 1870. 



" If a farmer had given a mortgage, in 1870, for $1000, he could have paid 

 it with 1052 bushels of corn; but if he has paid one-half of it, the remaining 

 $500, without interest, would now require 1351 bushels of corn to pay it. He 

 could have paid the $1000 with 606 bushels of wheat, in 1870; but if he owed 

 $500 of the debt to-day, it would require 593 bushels to pay it. He could 

 have paid the $1000, in 1870, with 10 bales, or 5000 pounds of cotton; 

 but if he owed $500 of it to-day, it takes 10 bales, or 5000 pounds, to pay 

 it. In other words, the farmer must pay his debts with the products of his 

 labor, and he must work twice as hard, and give twice as much cotton, corn, 

 or wheat to-day, as was required in 1870, to pay the same debt. But we are 

 told, by those high in position, that the law of supply and demand controls 

 prices. That may have been true before the operations of this ancient law of 

 trade were practically supplanted by the more imperious law of greed, as now 

 enforced under the mandates of monopolistic combinations for the pillage of 

 honest labor. 



"In 1881 we produced 498,549,867 bushels of wheat, or 9^ bushels per 

 capita, and its price was $1.15 per bushel. In 1889 we produced 490,560,000, 

 or 7^ per capita, and its price is 79 cents per bushel. We should not forget 

 that the financial history of all countries and of all ages shows that the law of 

 supply and demand, as applied to money, is inexorable and never-failing in 

 its operations. Scarcity of money has never failed to enhance its price ; a 

 plentiful supply means cheap money. A contraction of the circulating medium 

 always raises the price of the dollar, and, as a natural result, it always depre- 

 ciates the price of labor products. Nothing can so surely control or annul the 

 law of supply and demand in labor products, as a reduction of the volume of 

 currency below the legitimate requirements of business and trade. 



" But, granting that the law of supply and demand is in full force and 

 effect, there are two ways in which prices change under this law : Either a 

 change in demand, supply remaining the same ; or a change in supply, demand 

 remaining the same. But I assert, and statistics will sustain the assertion, 

 that there has been no change in the great staple products, relatively to 

 demand or to population, to justify this great depreciation in prices ; unques- 

 tionably the demand has not diminished. Where then has been the change? 

 Has the weight of the dollar been increased? Has the area of our acre of 

 land been curtailed, that it should have fallen in value from 33 to 50 per cent? 

 Does not a pound of beef weigh now 16 ounces? Do we not now measure 

 our wheat or corn by the same measure ? Does not the cotton farmer give 

 now the same number of ounces to every pound ? Has the change been made 

 in the quantity or quality of the commodity, or has it been made in money, 

 the measure of its value ? This is the great question that the farmers of the 

 country desire and expect this Congress to explain. 



" But I apprehend that the most zealous advocate of the theory that the 

 law of supply and demand controls the prices of products, would not attempt 

 to claim that it is applicable to all farm values. Farm lands, all over the 



