12 



said, this is a foreign investment ; we must keep our bonds at home. 

 Not let our bonds go abroad ? How is Congress going to help it ? 

 These same German capitalists came over and bought these bonds 

 and have got one thousand millions of them now, and we have got 

 to pay the interest to them. Europeans have got five hundred mil- 

 lions more of State bonds, municipal bonds, etc. — that is, we have 

 got fifteen hundred millions of bonds held in Europe that we are 

 bound to pay gold for. But our Congress wouldn't borrow money 

 of these German capitalists. Another fact : One would suppose 

 that, if a government hasn't got money enough, it should borrow 

 money in the market. " But/' said one Congressman, *' would you 

 have the great government of the United States go shinning about 

 Wall sti-eet selling bonds ? " Well, the issue of our legal tenders 

 resulted in selling millions of them at forty cents on a dollar, and 

 these German capitalists and other foreign capitalists invested 

 money at that time, and well, too. 



But not to dwell on this matter of the mistake of our legal ten- 

 der currency, it is the currency of the country, it is forced upon 

 us. We have got to endure it till we can get rid of it. Let us see 

 some of the burdens it lays upon us — upon the farmers of the 

 country, all over it. A.nd in this connection one or two financial 

 laws may be stated. A man who gets hold of these simple prin- 

 ciples of finance can see where they will lead to. These laws are 

 just as certain and fixed as that of gravitation. One law is, when 

 we export any commodity and retain of that commodity for our 

 own consumption at home, the price of the part we retain is 

 measured exactly by the price of what we send oif. The pi'ice of 

 wheat, for instance, or breadstuffs generally, which we are export- 

 ing largely, depends exactly on the prices current in Mark Lane, 

 London, which is the controlling market of the world. The price 

 in Mark Lane determines just what any farmer in Massachusetts 

 or Minnesota has got to sell his wheat or corn for, minus the 

 cost of transportation, and this cost you will notice is to be esti- 

 mated in gold ; only gold is taken there. Now notice that pro- 

 ductions that we produce and don't export, and use the whole of 

 them at home, are determined in price by the home market exclu- 

 sively, and the prices are regulated in currency all through. Now 

 let us see what it is we export besides gold and bonds. First and 



