The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 11, No. 35, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 1, 1892 Page: 3 of 16
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Sept. 1, 1892.
SOUTHERN MERCURY.
OVER-PRODUCTION.
jim armstrong. sr.
"Liberty cannot long endure in
any country where the tendency of
legislation is to concentrate wealth
in the hands of a few."—Webster.
If over-production means any-
thing it means that there are pro-
duced more of the necessities of
life than there are people to con-
sume them. "Their cotton crop
was so great that it could not be
consumed by all the artisans and
people of the world," are Sherman's
words to Senator Morgan, in ex-
planation of "as to what is the
cause of the distress in the south?"
This is the logical and on1} con-
struction of over-productic i But
from the daily accounts of starving
thousands, and the pitiable indi-
gence of the many, that is falling
under one's own observation, give
it the lie. Among the words com-
pounded with "over," Worcester
doesn't give "over-production."
From the very nature of things the
great lexicographer, no doubt, knew
that such a combination ot words
was preposterous.
Man can destroy faster than
build up.
If a Wall street Webster were
to give you what he thought a true
definition of "over-production" he
would tell you that it meant a sur-
plus of goods over money—more
cotton and corn than silver and
gold. If you were to ask him its
synonym, he would tell you "hard-
times ! national distress! over-pro-
duction ! hard-times!" If you were
an average reasoner you would sum
up something thus: Hard-times
is nothing but an inability, wheth
er natural or adscitious, to supply
our needs. But since over-produc-
tion is the root of our evils, the
cause of the present commercial
uneasiness can be attributed neith-
er to human industry nor to nature.
Then the "direful spring" of our
woes must be sought for elsewhere.
Perhaps you become a little per-
plexed. You read the political
economists or hear an Alliance
lecturer. They tell you that "a
people may be in the midst of
plenty, and yet starve, for money
is like muck, no good unless it be
spread." They tell you that for a
nation to be prosperous, it must not
only be thrifty, but must have a
medium of exchange adequate to
all the demands of business. You
look around, and see a people busy
HEIGHT
POWDER
Absolutely Pure.
a cream of tartar baking' powder. Highest
of all in leavening strength.—Latest United
States Government Food Report.
Koyal Baking Powder Co., 106 Wall St., N.Y.
in the harvesting of unparalled
crops. Statistics tell you that there
has been a steady increase in farm
productions since the war; also that
there has been a steady decrease of
the money volume since 1866.
You may think that the evils of
the demonetization of silver are
greatly exagerated. But you know
that there are many millionaires,
men who have accumulated enor-
mous sums ot money, not for the
money's sake, but for the power it
gives them to control the commer-
cial interests of the country. You
cannot deny that their motives are
conquest, unless you deny the fun-
damental fact of all nature: life
preys upon life.
Gould is an Alexander, armed
with a bond instead of a bow. lie
has his Ectabanas and Arbelas.
Again you read that gold and
silver are worthless unless they can
be exchanged for "mutton and
books." The books and mutton—
over-production—are here; but
they are "dead stock." Your in-
evitable conclusion is, since you
come in daily contact with the rag-
ged and hungry, whose distresses
you know were not voluntarily
imposed, that there is not enough
money afloat. You know that the
plutocrats.have it, not only because
they are professed money-makers,
but because men do not cast their
bread upon the waters without a
hope of its return. They do not
do business from the motives of
philanthropy or health.
But, says the plutocrat, such
people have been prodigals—have
wasted, and not worked, have been
loungers, and wreckless of their
own prosperity. You retort: How
can this be, when they are the vic-
tims of over-production? These
idlers of whom you speak are num-
bered by thousands, among whom
are many that have bankrupted the
country with over-production; the
makers of plenty and yet the vic-
tims of poverty. How can you har-
monize such incongruities? Thus
you might argue indefinitely with
this prince of idlers!
But when you come to know
that our currency has been con-
tracted from #1,900,000,000 to a
little more than $600,000,000 since
1866, you no longer wonder at
hard-times, but you know that the
theory of over-production, as its
cause, is the most infamous of false-
hoods.
If human needs were liberally
satisfied there could be no such
thing as over-production. Where
men are nobly great, where they
are true to their sublimer intui-
tions, nature is never too prolific.
But in a country where children,
who should yei be imbibing the
precepts of virtue and wisdom,
are forced into the conflict for
bread, surrounded by poverty and
the allurements of vice, in a coun-
try where womanhood to preserve
its purity inviolate is driven to toil
that would outrage a slave, in a
country where the sweet accents of
childhood are drowned,in the wild
clamors of hunger, over-production,
like the gabble of cannibals feasting
on babes, like the councils of sav-
ages for murder and conflagration,
is perfectly consistent with the
wisdom of its statesmanship!
Over-production is but one o!
the ruses of tyranny—another of
the gilded lies of aristocracy.
The history of greed is one.
What is gained by fraud must be
held by force. The records of no
people will deny this. Avarice
beguiles, but to enslave. By weep-
ing over the self-inilicted of a pre-
tended patriot Athens owned a ty-
rant. His seductive generosity
reduced Rome from the proud mis-
tress ot nations to Cajsar's prosti-
tuted hand servant. As a "stanch
protestant," Charles I wormed
himself into the graces of England.
His hand scarcely touched the
sceptre ere his tongue spoke the
accents of treason. His eloquence
found a vent in crying against
the popular encroachment upon
his rights as king. There was an
over-production of free speech, free
press, security of property, and
personal liberty! When the church,
a "bloated bond-holder" by the
sale of indulgencies, was confronted
by Luther, there was an over-pro-
duction of honest reform and an
under-consumption of inquisitorial
fires. When the insane and greedy
George III, who would have had
a Homestead as broad as the conti-
nent, was assailed by Jefferson,
Adams and Henry, there was an
over-production of revolution and
an under-consumption of British
musketry. And now when a peo-
ple cry out against America's Ñe-
ros, Caligulas, and Carnegies, they
are told that they are the lazy and
indigent victims of superabundant
crops
The human brain is incapable
of a more pernicious misstatement
of facts. When the mitre ruled
the world, when Italy acknowledg-
ed the popes, the masses were ig-
norant, ruffian, and impoverished.
When England was swayed by
such crown murderers as the con-
queror, her children were sunk in
the vilest of vassalage. The
popí
I; the
and the king were destroyed; tne
conqueror remains. He is with us
to-day, and though he has neither
thrones nor episcopates, neither
bulls nor standing armies, his
power to trample and scourge is
none the less strong.
4 —• * < —
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Southern" Germicide, Mf'u,Co.
Dallas, Texas.
——> + +
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We can furnish it neatly printed
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Southern Mercury, Dallas.
If you are debilitated, have
sick headache or sick stomache,
no appetite and have a dull heavy
feeling, Southern Germicide will
cure you. $3.00 per gallon. Cure
guaranteed.
He Seos It.
O. F. RICHARDSON.
The pictures that might be drawn
from life's pages illustrating the
hardships, the want and suffering
growing out of man's indifference
to his brothers' necessities and
comfort, are numberless. So
familiar are we with established
usages and customs, however, that
we fail often to associate the facts
and scenes about us in their true
relation. Little <to we stop to
think how the poverty or pain of
one poor man can in anywise be
attributable to the prosperity of
his shrewder and over-reaching
neighbor. But there are facts
underlying the social and business
world which, when the full blaze
of reason is turned upon them, will
be found as a lever and fulcrum,
crushing out the abilities and
opportunities and keeping back the
just claims of multitudes of the
humble, suffering helpless.
Let us draw a rude sketch. Let
us go down to the home of a hard
working, unsuspecting man at his
rustic home. Through the year
he toils from morning till night, in
field and forest, fencing and plowing
—gathering his crops, and striving
in his simple, honest way to meet
life's obligations, and to provide
for the wants of his family. No
man cultivates more acres, or does
his work more thoroughly—none
raise better crops. But in spite of
all he can do, his wants and those
of his frugal, toiling family are
scarcely met. But each year, when
the harvest is gathered and the
accounts adjusted, all has been
consumed by the creditor. We
write of a tenant farmer who pays
his honest debts, squares accounts
with his landlord, paying one-third
and one-fourth of his crop as rent.
His merchant has kept all the
accounts against the illiterate hon-
est man, has charged up all mer-
chandise against him at a good per
cent of profit, and he, the merchant,
credits his account with the result
of his year's labor; his wheat, his
cotton or other farm products, at
the lowest price. The speculators
have manipulated prices, have
made corners on cotton, wheat, and
other products, and prices have
been run down, just at the time
the farmer must sell, and when the
figures are all footed up, he finds
himself not only not ahead, but
actually in debt.
All know that the tendency of
the age is to put into the coffers of
one man a million, while the toil-
ing millions whose labor and skill
make snch things possible, go
wearily to their homes and hovels
at the close of the day, week, or
year, with a bare sufficiency for
life and health, with nothing of
comfort or luxury. Herein lies a
crime against nigh heaven, at
which God will not always wink.
The idea that any man should
hoard up millions and live amid
palatial luxury and splendor, while
the hard and caloused hands of
.nen, women and children, who
have produced these millions, are
empty of the scantiest comforts, is
simply monstrous.
.■atMjr:
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Park, Milton. The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 11, No. 35, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 1, 1892, newspaper, September 1, 1892; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185480/m1/3/: accessed May 22, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .