4*6 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



potentially in the vigorous arms of the idle workman. A 

 shrinking volume of money transfers existing property un- 

 justly, and causes a concentration and dimunition of wealth. 

 It also impairs the value of existing property by eliminat- 

 ing from it that important element of value conferred upon 

 it by the skill, energy, and care of the debtors from whom 

 it is wrested. But it does not destroy any existing pro- 

 perty, while it does absolutely annihilate all the values 

 producible by the labor which it condemns to idleness. 

 The estimate is not an extravagant one, that there are now 

 in the United States three million persons willing to work, 

 but who are idle because they cannot obtain employment. 

 This vast poverty stricken army is increasing and will con- 

 tinue to increase so long as falling prices shall continue to 

 separate money capital, the fund out of which wages is 

 paid, from labor, and to discourage its investment in other 

 forms of property. * * However great the 



natural resources of a country may be, however genial its 

 climate, fertile its soil, ingenious, enterprising, and indus- 

 trious its inhabitants, or free its institutions, if the volume 

 of money is shrinking and prices falling, its merchants will 

 be overwhelmed with bankruptcy, its industries will be 

 paralyzed, and destitution and distress will prevail." 

 Report of Silver Commission, page 53. 



u The true and only cause of the stagnation in indus- 

 dustry and commerce now everywhere felt is the fact 

 everywhere existing of falling prices, caused by a shrirrk- 

 age in the volume of money." Report of Silver Commis- 

 sion^ page 121. 



"We find that in every kingdom into which money 

 begins to flow in greater abundance than formerly, every- 

 thing takes a new face; labor and industry gain life, the 

 merchants become more enterprising, the manufacturers 

 more diligent and skillful, and the farmer follows his plow 



