FARMERS' ALLIANCE AND INDUSTRIAL UNION. 177 



"In seeking a true and practical remedy for the evils 

 that now flow from the imperfections in our financial sys- 

 tem 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 interests of the country than any other influ- 

 ence, 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 delegated in- 

 directly by allowing such class to issue a large per cent, of the 

 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 necessities 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 fulcrum, 

 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 way of 

 destroying the power of the lever to raise or lower price is 

 to remove the resistence offered by the fulcrum the in- 

 flexible volume of Government issue. The power to regu- 

 late the volume of money so as to control price is so 

 manipulated as to to develop and apply a potent force, for 

 which we have in the English language no name; but it is 

 the power of money to oppress, and is demonstrated as fol- 

 lows: In the last four months of the year, the agricultural 



