732 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



of bankruptcy. To pay these debts requires money. To 

 obtain money requires a sale of the products of the farm. 

 While the debts are nominally to be paid in money, they 

 are practically to be paid in labor or the products of labor. 

 The relative value between money and the products of 

 labor has been changed. The value of money has been 

 increased while the value of the products of labor has 

 been decreased. But the terms of the contract stipulates 

 that these debts must be paid in money. As a new and 

 reduced value has been placed upon the value of the pro- 

 ducts of labor by reducing the volume of currency, it 

 requires more labor to meet the terms, than it does the 

 equity of the contract. In other words a debt of one 

 thousand dollars contracted when wheat was worth $2.00 

 per bushel, is now required to be paid in the same number 

 of dollars when wheat is worth less than $1.00 per bushel, 

 and the farmer is compelled to part with more than double 

 the amount of wheat to obtain the money to meet the 

 terms of the contract than would have been required at the 

 time the contract was made. 



The exports, which represent the surplus produc- 

 tions, for the fiscal year ending in 1888, amounted to 

 $687,000,000. At the prices ruling in 1881, they would 

 have brought $820,000,000; and in 1867 almost double 

 that amount. In other words, had the volume of the cur- 

 rency remained stationary, or increased with the population 

 and business of the country, the people would have had 

 double the amount of money to have paid on their debts. 

 One man comes round and tells the laborer that he is better 

 off than the serfs of India, or the shepherds in the Campagna 

 and that he ought to be thankful and vote the Republican 

 ticket; that a protective tariff is what the laborer needs 

 and that this is the issue between the two parties, and the 

 only issue worth mentioning. Then another set of men 

 come round and say that protection is robbing the laborer 



