Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 257 
the moneyed man is still fastening his grasp on the industries of the 
country and demanding his ten per cent. 
I recollect when I was engaged in the lumber trade. Em¬ 
ployed on my farm were about a dozen men, and in the mill 
about fifteen men, and those men were hired for two dollars a month 
in money and the rest in lumber. And the money-lender was de¬ 
manding six per cent, a month all the time. One time I went in 
to dinner, and said I, u boys, I have sold a load of lumber and have 
got all the money for it.” By the wa} r , I would say I run the mill 
all the summer long and never took as much money in the yard as 
it took to buy the oil for the mill, and when I said “ I have got 
all the mone^y for the lumber that I sold,” one man said “yes, it was 
a back load, I saw the man carry it off on his shoulder.” 
President Bascom. I wish very much to make myself plain on 
this subject, because I do believe it is one of vital interest to you 
as farmers. I believe if you run into any wild-cat scheme of cur¬ 
rency you will in the end rue it. There is no way of settling prices 
except by trading things of value for things that have value. If I 
could multiply paper indefinitely, then I could not, in a short time, 
sell it for anything that could not be multiplied indefinitely. Every¬ 
thing that had value would cease to exchange itself for that which 
had no intrinsic value whatever. If we were to increase our paper 
money, immediately it would be in excess of everything else, and 
prices would again go up because money was going down. Now, 
the point I wish to make is this, that it is always very disastrous 
to the farmer, compared with any one else, if prices are going up. 
the price of farm produce is settled very much by the price of bread- 
stuffs, and these are settled by a foreign market. If all the things 
at home are rising in price, and your wheat is not rising in price cor¬ 
respondingly, you will find that the things you sell are low, but ’the 
things you buy are high, and therefore the rise is taking constantly 
out of your pockets. It is not as necessary for any other portion of 
the community that prices should remain comparatively firm r as it 
is for farmers, because other articles will change prices more easily, 
and your articles will go up more slowly, and therefore the balance 
will always be against you. I believe all classes, especially farmers, 
ought to stand up for a sound currency which keeps prices steady. 
The whole history of th,e world is against the scheme of these gen¬ 
tlemen. Why the world has tried again and again to make money 
IT A 
