Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 243 
demand gold, well knowing that it isn’t there, and a rich harvest 
is theirs at the expense of the nation’s industries. What the people 
of this country want is a sound currency, like the Government 
greenback, so called, with a fixed, low rate of interest, based upon 
the precious metals dollar for dollar—mercantile currency—or upon 
the faith and credit of the country—paper money, pure and simple 
—or partty upon each, as the needs of business may require. 
Now, if the people of the United States allow this greenback 
currency to be retired and destroyed, and private parties to give us 
a currency, such as we formerly used in the states, and which was 
never reliable, they will demonstrate most clearly, to my mind, their 
incapacity to protect their true and vital interests, if not their want 
of capacity for self-government. 
When money is made merchandise, it is no longer currency. It 
cannot be a just and equitable measure of the value of property, un¬ 
less it has a fixed and unvarying value in itself. To permit money to 
be bought and sold like commodities, and the rich to gather it into 
their hands to hold for extortionate rates of interest, the entire 
currency of the world would not supply the necessary wants of 
business in the United States. Under just, monetary .laws, there 
is no reason why money should be scarce, when there is an abund¬ 
ance of property susceptible of representation and capable of am¬ 
ply securing it. 
Walker, in his Science of Wealth, says: “A great conflict between 
labor and capital is now imminent throughout the civilized world, 
but if there shall ever be a good and satisfactory solution of the 
great question at issue, it will be because the capitalist and laborer 
have been educated to understand the laws of wealth, and the true 
relations between the two great competing, but not antagonistic 
forces of production.” There is no antagonism between labor and 
capital so far as production is concerned. The evil and antagonism 
exists in an unjust distribution of the profits of the partnership of 
these forces. The capitalist says, practically; I will take all the 
profits, except what is absolutely required to keep the laborer in 
health and strength to perform my work, and to rear a family so 
that capital shall have a full supply of laborers in the future. How 
to justly distribute the profits of labor, and honestly protect the 
industries of the people against the selfish greed of capital, is the 
coming question. It is a question which interests every laborer 
