alºne
º- —-
º pºol - Micº
A LECTURE
-- ON THE -
INDUSTRIAL
º AND —-
--> FINANCIAL-º-
PROBLEMS,
a
JULIET H. SEV ERANCE, M. D.
MILWAUKEE WISCONSIN.
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MILWAUKEE:
114 MICHIGAN STREET.
1881. - |




A LECTURE
INDUSTRIAL
--> FINANCIAL-3-
PROBLEMS,
JULIET H. SEVERANCE, M. D.
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN,
---
MILWAUKEE :
GODFREY & CRANDALL, PRINTERS,
114 Michigan Street,
1881.



A LECTURE
ox. The
INDUSTRIAL
AND
&ſiºn cºncicºſ ?: obſc was.
Aellow Laborers, Brothers, Sisters, of the Great Human
Family:
tº APPEAR before you not as a silver tongued speaker to
tickle your fancies, please your conceits, or to call forth
your applause by lofty flights of oratory; but as a cool
º § and deliberate sympathizer in your labors, sufferings,
hopes and fears; as one who for years has studied to
find out what the matter is in this favored land, that
possesses all the elements of prosperity of all other countries
in the world; that there can be at the same time creaking
warehouses, burdened by the surplus products, and also millions
starving. Mothers agonizing for their children who cry for
bread they have not to give; fathers desperate and ready for
almost anything that promises redress.
I come to reason with, perchance teach you by speaking
plain truth in plainer language, to show you the fundamental
principles of industry; how those whom you have appointed
to government, have prostituted it; how one after another, the

-4-
non-productive classes have sprung into existence to live upon
your toil, under the pretense of conducting business systems
in your interests;–to show what are your rights in existing
things and the various steps by which you may assume them
without violence.
The first step that should be taken, the first question to be
understood by those who would intelligently right a wrong, is
to learn from what the wrong has come; in what it had its ori-
gin; since if the cause be known a remedy may then be found.
If we who deal in industrial remedies, think only of the effects
we see; if we simply take the pains and aches we suffer, and
try to alleviate them by palliatives without inquiry why they
come, we may even aggravate the real malady, as they do
who deal in pills and powders. If, however, we can get back
to the fountain head and dry that up, then the streams of suf-
fering that flow from it will cease.
Therefore if we can find and cure the cause of
the dark shadow that hangs like a pall above the
industries, subsequent events that might arise would
have no basis from which to inaugurate another
flood of wrongs. In other words, had there been no
industrial evils, as a beginning, there could have been no in-
dustrial ills following, as effects. Fundamental errors, then,
are what we seek to learn about, those errors in which the
wrongs from which we suffer had their origin.
It were impossible the evils which fall heavily on ten out of
forty millions of the people of a single country, simultaneous-
ly, could have originated in any recent cause; this must be
sought in some deep seated errors in the industrial system.
The evil from which our sufferings come, is not that there is
not enough by which the needs of all might be supplied; but
that while there is more than could be consumed, the daily
laborers and their families are houseless, naked, hungry;-is
not under-production of what is required, but unequal distri-
bution of what we have. And why is this? Because
the strong, have the unquestioned power, legally, to

–5–
oppress the weak from whatever cause. The few
who have the peculiar talent to aggregate the re-
sult of labor, secure possession of the net products of
the industry of the many and restrain them from
their use. Had competition in Government been confined to
the individual plane as it has been in industry, there could have
been no government of people in any country.
Industrially each person competes with every other for su-
periority, the frequent result of which is the compulsory idle-
ness of starving millions.
There are certain general principles that lie at the base of
all relations between peoples individual and collective, which
if observed will give peace and harmony, and in countries
moderately productive, plenty and prosperity; but, ignored, in-
harmony and open warfare. The conditions now, industrially,
border on open warfare. Or, if these principles be regarded
in some of the departments of society, and ignored in others,
then those in which they are observed will evolve to higher
planes, while those in which they are ignored will revolve in the
homogenious state, as industry is doing and ever has done.
The causes of industrial evils, then, are as old as society.
To find their initiative search must be made in its rudimental
state, when all relations were on a common plane.
In prehistoric eras, there are evidences of a time when there
were no aggregations of individuals larger than the family;
when the family was a kingdom—a government within itself,
the father being the arbitrary head. Then no one could ques-
tion him save by rebellion. In this condition the weaker
families were prey for the stronger, and were reduced to slav-
ery. To protect themselves, several families would combine,
and, in turn becoming strong also become oppressors. These
families forming tribes were the first departures from the homo-
geneous state politically. Farther on tribes coalesced and
builded cities which extended their rule over the intervening
countries—the second order of governmental evolution. Next,
cities united and nations were evolved as the third order.

–6–
Finally under Caesar, Rome united all the known nations of
the world, and in the arbitrary sway by one man, of their des-
tinies, culminated that cycle of evolution.
Then the redistribution of the aggregated power began.
Through a number of kings and rulers absolute, downward
through limited and constitutional Monarchies, Dictatorships
and Republics it descended until in this country, each per-
son is supposed to rule himself through a common head, who,
in theory, is the servant of the whole. Should this cycle of
development continue the world will become an Universal
Republic with a single representative at its head. Then the op-
posite extreme to Caesar of governmental evolution would cul-
minate the second cycle. But what has been done for the in-
dustries during these vast periods in which the political rela-
tions of the people have evolved so far from the homogeneous?
Nothing! They are still in the condition in which the people
were, politically, in pre-historic time. Politically the isolated
family is merged in the greater one—the nation; but industri-
ally it is still left to take care of itself, and when failing from any
weakness or inability to do so well, falls a prey to the
strong.
A people living, in some respects upon a highly developed
plane and in others on the rudimental, oscillate between the
conditions of the two. Harmony and prosperity exist
permanently only among a people whose developments
are in all respects upon a common plane. They
cannot be enlightened politically and savage industrially,
and avoid a clashing of the interests of the two.
As a nation we are politically enlightened, have a
high order of governments, but industrially we are
savage still,—each family or individual contends with every
other for superiority as they did politically in the infancy of the
race; and these opposing interests clash, and keep the political
and industrial tides alternately on the ebb and flood.
A good illustration of the working of these two conflicting
systems was seen in the late war, which was the immediate

–7—
cause of the late depressed industrial condition. When the
government called on labor to volunteer to create
an army, it should also have called on wealth to
volunteer for its support. When volunteering failed
to keep the army to the proper standard and drafting was re-
sorted to, so should its support also have been drafted, provid-
ed contributions were insufficient. The reason this was not
done, is, because politically, we were a national unit, had
common interests; while industrially we were mere squads of
families without any common interest or bond of unity. As a
consequence the industries were saddled with a debt of three
billions dollars.
The effect was this; it added so much to the public debt that
the burden on industry required to pay the interest, became
unbearable. Before the war the interest-bearing debt was not
less than nine billions, dollars made up of about four billions of
National, State, County, Municipal and Corporate Bonds and
of about five billions individual notes, interest bearing debts,
and dividend paying stocks. It may seem at first thought
that I have set the individual indebtedness too high; but wait
till I call attention to a fact existing in a single county in
Illinois and the doubt will vanish. The sum is rather below
than above the reality. The industries could pay the interest
on even this vast sum, with gold at par, without serious incon-
venience, but when three billions more were added, with the
premium on gold at an enormous price, production being
greatly reduced by reason of the war, the burden made them
tremble. Think of it! twelve billions debt Seven-hundred
and twenty millions dollars annual interest. And to this
should be added the premium paid for gold, dividends on stocks,
discounts on notes and bonds, and the rates of interest exceed-
ing six per cent, swelling the aggregate to the
enormous sum of one billion, three hundred mil-
lions annually demanded as tribute to non-producing
classes; or nearly six hundred millions more than the annual
increase of the aggregate wealth, in seasons when labor is

–8–
largely unemployed, as for several years past. What could be
expected save bankruptcy of the industries? Nothing! And
it has come upon us fearfully; but not half so much as it will if
the past course be still persisted in by the money kings.
And it has come about in this way: So long as the one
billion three hundred million interest was promptly paid, the
usurers loaned it back again to the producers, and there was
no dearth of money; but when the pressure came, when Jay
Cooke's speculative Northern Pacific bubble burst, confidence
began to weaken, and the usurers, instead of loaning their re-
ceipts from interest, hoarded up the one billion three hundred
million that was paid them. The industries deprived in this
way and by the contraction of the currency, of the circulating
medium collapsed; and the sad spectacle of millions unem-
ployed was before the world—laborers who see the products of
their toil filling the warehouses of the rich, who live in luxurious
idleness, and smilingly extend their mortgages over the remain-
ing wealth, at the rate of six hundred million annually, while
those who created it are starving.
It may be asked: how can these obligations be avoided, and
would their avoidance be legitimate? There are but two al-
ternatives; to rid the industries of their burdens, or else extend
the present suffering. The general business of a country is
governed by the same principles as that of the individual. If
a person does business on borrowed capital and pays interest
to double the amount of his net profits, giving notes secured
by liens upon his capital, he will eventually consume his capi-
tal.
Now this is just what we as a nation are doing. We pay
six hundred millions in cash or bonds—more than the net
profits of the country's industry annually, as interest and divi-
dends to non-producers. So long as this goes on, so long will
the distress increase.
There may be temporary alleviations, as at the present time,
but they will not last. A radical cure is demanded; and the
demand is being made in piteous tones from every hut and

–9–
hovel of the country; from every dive and garret of the city;
but these will soon be changed to tones that will not brook de-
lay. Let those to whom the appeal is made beware.
The cause of industrial evils, then, lies in the conflict inaug-
urated by engrafting a highly developed political system upon
an industrial system not yet advanced beyond the rudimental
plane; and the cure must be to raise the industries to the plane
upon which we stand politically; that there may be harmony
instead of constant conflict between political and industrial
interests, indeed politics should be abolished or merged in in-
dustry.
Now having seen the cause of the evils that require a reme-
dy, let us examine the line of development that those evils
have observed.
There are a few fundamental propositions at the base of any
proper understanding of the issues between capital and labor,
that must be properly presented, before we can proceed intelli-
gently to treat of the methods by which the organization of
the industries is to be effected. Few laborers know their in-
herent rights, because they have not had the time to inquire
about or study into them; while the rich do not ask when
they take the net proceeds of labor, if they oppress the labor-
er. The former realizing when hungry from compulsory idle-
ness, that there is something wrong, do not know what it may
be; and the latterseem to be unconscious that the sufferings of
the unemployed are caused by them. Butlet us see.
The basis of all wealth is in the elements—the land, the air,
the water. Everything that contributes to the necessities, the
comforts, the luxuries of life comes from them.
They are what man found when he made his advent on the
earth. Every person has an inalienable right to them, a right
to use them to support himself. The right to life carries with
it the right to that by which it can be maintained. Without
this the other is a sham. The “privileged classes” make it a
sham, since while they say to the toilers, in the Declaration of
Independence, “you have a right to life,” they nullify it when

they say by practice “you shall have no right to that by which
you maintain it, save as we elect and at such cost as we may
set upon it.” These classes have obtained possession of the
free gifts of nature, and usurped the power to do with them as
their interests decide, without reference to what is right. If
the elements belong to universal man, instead of to a class, no
person can acquire an ownership to an inch of land, a drop of
water or a breath of air. But the few deprive the many of
their use by the right of might; still the right to their use ex-
ists, inalienable though trampled under foot, and no less to the
land than to the air and water. What would the holders of
the land say to him who should bottle up the air and water
and assume to deal them out to others for considerations?
Would they submit as tamely as do the many to the few in the
instance of the land 2 No! There would be rebellion at the
first attempt at such a thing; and yet this might be done with
air and water as justly as what they do with land.
The air, the water, the land, exist – man had no
hand in making them. They are the first factor in the prob-
lem of maintaining life; but, unused, are valueless. Labor is
the second factor in this problem, and wealth—being whatever
can contribute to the maintenance of life, or increase its com-
forts or luxuries—is the result. Before labor there was no
wealth. All wealth comes from labor, hence- belongs to it.
If there were none but equitable exchanges made, all evidence
of labor would remain with its producers. But the surplus
wealth is held by those who had no hand in its production,
while the producer sees his fruits added to their aggregations
year after year, and his own allowance, in the best of times,
reduced continually nearer the starvation point; and, in the
worst, cut off altogether.
If every person had an unrestricted right to use the ele-
ments (under equal regulations) and should put the right in
practice, everybody would be supplied with, at least, the neces-
sities of life.
Experience, however, early taught that it is an economy for

-1 I-
people, laboring in different fields and localities, according to
their soil and climate, and their general capacities and adapt-
abilities, to exchange their products with each other, rather
than for each to attempt to produce everything that he de-
sires Could they living in different localities and producing
different things, have done their own exchanging, the need for
a non-producing class would never have arisen. But it was
not always convenient to pay for clothes in corn nor for the
tailor to receive such pay. So here a need arose for some oth-
er than the direct method of exchange. The ingenuity of
man, ever on the alert to serve his selfishness, invented a thing
and called it money, to fill this need. This, while used for noth-
ing else but this exchange, performed its functions normally;
but when put to other uses, it became the Lord of labor.
All the exchanges might be effected without the use of
money, but not so well; not so conveniently; not so econom-
ically. It is therefore in a strict sense, an economical conven-
ience for doing what might be done, but not so well without it.
But now observe how the non-productive classes rose one
after another, to draw on the producing, and still farther tax
the consuming class.
The use of money made the opportunity for the modern
merchant. His legitimate functions are the distribution of the
fruits of labor in the interests of laborers and consumers, and
as their agent. But from this he degenerates to a speculator
on their needs. Prostituting his functions and those of money
to selfish purposes, he buys from one at the lowest price (a
price leaving him no profit,) and sells to the other at the highest
price, (a price that exhausts his earnings,) the difference be-
tween the two remaining in his purse—a profit-making system
in which many industrial evils have originated.
These middle-men were the first abnormal class. Had they
exercised their normal functions only, they would have been
the allies of laborers, acting as their agents in exchanging com-
modities, and with them shared the surpluses. But in the
greed for gain, the desire to dominate, the passion to possess,

-12-
they waived their great advantage, and became oppressors;
began an open warfare upon producers, which has resulted in
the absorption by the middle-men of all surplus wealth, leaving
labor a bare subsistence. As the natural allies of labor they
should have divided the world into producers and consumers,
and this would have limited the non-productive people to this
class.
But the short-sighted policy of the middle-men did not stop
here even; some of them being successful in speculation be-
gan speculating on the speculators; buying large quantities
from first hands (endeavoring to purchase all) and holding to
control the market, small dealers are forced to pay large pro-
fits. Here another class was introduced to live and fatten on
producers. Again, some of this class, more shrewd than their
associates in profit-making, gave up the traffic and made loans
to the less fortunate to enable them to “bridge over” some
financial chasm; or else to get possession of vast quantities of
merchandise; and thus the money lending usurer was born,
the sum paid him as interest, always being added to
the price paid by consumers, or else deducted from what pro-
ducers should receive. And finally some of the money lend-
ers grew rich enough to cater to the wants of Kings. With
money they controlled the destinies of nations and became
more powerful than their royal patrons. All vast aggregates
of wealth have been accumulated from agriculturists and me-
chanics through unjust exchanges, and are the surpluses that
should have remained in their possession, and that would have
remained, had none save normal use been made of money,
which is exchange, and means of distribution.
But this, it may be urged—and with some reason too—is
the restricted view of the great subject, in which individual
interests alone are considered—the pessimistic argument that
everything is out of joint. It presupposes that had these ills
been otherwise there would have been happiness and prosper-
ity, peace and comfort only in the world; that the industrial

-13–
and moral instincts of the race would have had a better field
for active growth.
The broader view is from an opposite direction, which,
taking things as they are, assumes that the moral and industrial
instincts have been evolved as rapidly as possible, and that the
seeming evils—by reducing the elements through mechanics
to the control of intellectual power—will be the means by
which eventually the race will save itself in the struggle for the
things of life from the “wear and tear” of bone and muscle. It
is the optimistic argument that all things work together for the
good of all, or as the profound poem sang:
“All discord, harmony not understood
All partial evil, universal good.”
We know of no method by which things could have devel-
oped more rapidly than they have. We must therefore con-
clude that had there been no aggregations of wealth by which
the great improvements have been made and by which intel-
lectual and commercial interests have been so wisely and in-
separably connected, there could have been no civilization.
Vaulting ambition was necessary to conceive and carry for-
ward vast enterprises; and even this needed the stimulus of
“gain.”
While the humanitarian was dormant in the race, the selfish
propensities furnished the motor power for all great move-
ments, and if great aggregates of individual wealth are monu-
ments to the cupidity of the people, they are also the evidence
of possibilities in the future, when these monuments shall en-
franchise labor. So, though the motives of those who have op-
pressed labor, have been for self, the outcome will be for the
good of all.
But, look at the ills of labor as we may, there seems to be a
single system only, by which immunity from these may be se-
cured, and this is in organizing it upon the plane of mutual in-
terests, or co-operative principles. In the competitive system
there will always be illustrations of the possibility of one get-
ting possession of what thousands have produced. When

-14-
financial crises come—as come they will in such a system—the
thousands will suffer, and the one will make no sacrifice, unless
compelled to mitigate the suffering.
Though this right to acquire and hold possession in the face
of suffering, is legally unquestioned, if it be examined in the
light of justice it will not stand a moment. It is the power by
which a Caesar ruled the world; by which kings have kept
their sway; the South its slaves. None of these subjections
were more despotically maintained than is the dominance of
wealth over the laboring masses.
The liberty that the working man enjoys is more in name
than fact. How can he be free, whose right to labor for what
he needs to eat and wear, is in the unrestricted hands of an
employer P Or how can he be free whose labor in prosperous
times, barely feeds and clothes himself and family, leaving him
penniless to encounter adversity when turned adrift from work 2
It is through the ignorance and selfishness of the rich that mil-
lions are hungry, homeless, naked, starving, in this land of
plenty.
When the history of the terrors of starvation recently endured,
shall be written by the brave historian—and a brave one he
must be who will dare to tell the truth—the rich will be held
responsible for all this misery.
But we should not err on this side of severity. We should
not blame individuals too much, lest we lose sight of the sys-
tems in which the real wrong exists. We must remember the
world has evolved out of chaos through a long series of
change, and that the men and customs of any given period are
legitimate for that period, but are not legitimate for the next.
From this to the next generation sweeping changes will be
made, some of which are now moving rapidly. Laborers have
no cause to charge the tardy movement to the rich since they
have the law making power in their own hands and have re-
fused to use it. Until they shall send men to Congress to no
longer misrepresent them and their interests, they should rath-
er admit their own responsibility, and make haste to change

-15-
their previous conduct in political affairs, and wage their war
against the law and customs that have brought on the distress,
and not against individuals.
We have seen how the industries were saddled with the
three billions of public debt. One billion of this has been
paid, seven hundred million having been purchased as a sink-
ing fund. The means with which this has been done, has
been drawn by the government from the industries, and this
has been another burden which is seldom taken into consider-
ation. “But,” say the money classes, “we and not the labor-
ers have borne all this.” Before going any farther let me dis.
pose of this wholly false assumption. True, it was from these
people the government received the money; but from whom
did they obtain it? A few rays of light shed upon this hither-
to veiled subject will show distinctly that the seeming here is
not reality. Beyond the possibility of a doubt, the rich not
only do not pay a dollar of taxes, but equally beyond a doubt,
productive labor pays them to the last farthing, no matter in
what form levy may be made; and not only this, but also all
the bills of expense of the vast establishments of these same
rich, their wine brandy and cigars; their corruption funds, with
which they buy and sell the legislating power against the labor-
er, and every other thing in which they now indulge from
which he is shut out. His earnings—his hard wrought pro-
ducts —are seized upon by them and turned against him, as an
army seizes the cannon of its conquered foe and with their
shot and shell, annihilates what is left that can resist them.
Admit, for the sake of argument, that the wealth which each
one holds to-day, is his of right; and that to-morrow is assess.
ment day for the whole country. This wealth is valued at a
certain sum on which a given tax is laid. During the year
everything goes on as usual: the various governments, national
state, municipal and local; the expenses of the rich, and the
labor of the poor. At the end of the year the net proceeds
of labor will be gathered and realized upon, and added to the
total aggregate of wealth, which will be increased over what it

—16–
was at the beginning of the year by three per cent. Now from
whence will this increase come? Whence that from which all
these expenses will be paid? From the wealth that was on
hand? That were impossible, since that instead of diminish-
ing will be increased. Will it come from the non-laborers—
the Bankers, the Bondholders, the Money lenders, the Usury
takers, the Railroad Monarchs, the Land Kings, the Merchant
Princes, the Cotton Lords? Or will it be from the high-toned
gamblers—the Stock-exchangers—those who “corner” wheat,
corn or pork in Boards of Trade, or those who fatten by the
law, Attorneys, Judges, Sheriffs, Marshalls, Constables, and the
whole crew who man the Ship of State; Doctors, Ministers,
etc., etc., etc. Will any or all of these “Gentlemen” create,
produce the wealth that will pay all this expense and add three
per cent to the aggregate 2 No. Any school-boy
can answer that. Not so much as one paltry
dollar can come from them, it all must come from
some producing source. And where, pray, is this source?
Where the power, the skill that will create all this vast wealth 2
One simple word contains it all. Zabor. Those who toil day
after day, urging the fruitful, willing earth to yield her boun-
ties. Those who fashion what she freely yields for use; those
who go into the dense forests and hew down trees, and raft
and saw; those who in murkey mines delve in the bowels of
the earth, to cause her to yield her hidden treasures—gold,
silver, copper, iron, lead, coal, salt, oil; those who level down
the mountains, fill up the valleys, bridge the mighty rivers and
lay the iron bands that bind this country's people inseparably
together. You, and you, and you, from the strongest man, the
most industrious woman, to the weakest child who furnishes the
slightest thing, or fashions it for use, over and above what it
shall cost to live. You, these, those, all are they from whom
will come the wealth to do all this; and the time has come for
justice to be done to this long suffering, uncomplaining toil, and
to have it known and acknowledged who it is that supplies the
vital power by which the vast machinery of this great govern-

—17–
ment and people, with all its non-productive classes and at-
taches, is run!
To be sure some, perhaps most, of the non-productive classes
have labored in some way. They have overseen your work,
handled your wealth and money, while you have been produc-
ing more. They have bought your wares, and sold your mer-
chandise, grain, meat, cotton and wool, and from their pro-
ceeds have paid the taxes; have lodged themselves in palatial
homes, or luxurious hotels that you have built, while you have
been content to live in mere huts and hovels; have clothed
themselves in “purple and fine linen” that you have spun and
wove; while you have been barely covered with coarsest wools
or cottons; have fed and drunk themselves on the choicest
foods and costliest wines that you have cultivated; while you
have sometimes been satisfied to get a crust of bread; and even
this slim fare at times is denied to the starving millions who
live—if what they do, can be called living—on the crumbs
which fall from what is left of that which you pass to the tables
of the rich. These are they who pay the taxes, are they?
Who will, who can pretend it when they come to look into the
matter closely; or who will dare to say they deserve the con-
sideration with which they have been treated all these years?
Or who, that the labor they have done, entitles them to the
wealth they hold, or to that which you each year are adding
to it? No one. And the time has come for the truth to be
spoken to them in thunder-tones, if necessary to make them
feel it; to induce or force them to listen to your claims. For
their own sakes much more than yours, they should lend a
willing ear. And let them remember this before it is too late
that the southern slave-holder, playing the foolish confidante
lost his all; let them remember that those who make the wealth
do not object to sharing it equally with those who aid them in
exchanging it in any way—who buy and sell it to meet the de-
mands of trade—who do anything connected with the gather
ing or distribution of what your labor yields or fashions.
Abraham Lincoln, whose name we hold in reverence for his

—18–
sterling qualities of head and heart, whose emancipation pro-
clamation raised four million slaves to the position of men and
women; who had a keen appreciation of the highest virtue of
which human nature is capable, justice, left us this simple, yet
comprehensive statement on this subject: “Labor is prior to
and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor
and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.
Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher
consideration.” Daniel Webster also left us these immortal
words: “The great interest of this country, the producing
cause of all its prosperity is labor, LABox, LABOR. The Gov-
ernment was made to encourage and protect this industry and
give it security.” How it has degenerated.
Remembering the lesson as to who pays the taxes and ex-
penses of the non-productive public, let us return to the bond-
ed debt, and see what are the rights of labor in respect to that.
We have already seen that this was incurred because the politi-
cal and industrial systems of the country are the former upon
a high, and the latter upon a low plane of development, in
which one is subject to the law of common interests for all the
people, and the other in which each family competes, is at in-
dustrial war with every other family. But what are the equi-
ties between labor and capital—between the producing and the
possessing classes so far as they were related in the war; and
the debt incurred in its prosecution ?
To show the position to which wealth aspires, allow me to
quote from the “Chicago Times,” a strong “Coin basis” “Bond
Holding” “Money Lending” organ of the administration, of
date January 21st, 1878. “Those who,” says this paper,
“maintain their claim to property in land, are those who will,
and who by every reason for the existence of society, ought to
exclude from the source of its power, those who do not plant
themselves in the earth on which society must take root.”
Now let the "Times” and those whom its theories represent, when
it promulgates doctrines such as these, be held rigidly to their
logic and see to what it will bring them. According to this,

—19–
property and not citizenship, irrespective of it, should be the
basis of government; and all who do not possess it, may be ex-
cluded; that is disfranchised. How do you laborers, who feed
these classes year after year, like their teachings? But, hold
them to their words a moment, while the Public Debt shall be
examined from their own standpoint of right. If the govern-
ment should have its base in property, and be administered by
those only who have it, then property and its holders should
maintain it, should they not? If you laborers have no interest
in, are not to be recognized by the rich man's government,
then the rich neither had, nor have any right to call you out
to fight their battles. Why did they call on you to volunteer,
and why draft you into the service if the government was theirs
and theirs alone? Why did they not fight their own battles
and why haven't they, and why do they not now pay their
own. expenses? Put this question to them when they prate
about their right to exclude you from the sovereignty. But they
neither fought nor paid the costs. They first urged and after-
wards drove you laborers into the ranks for slaughter, so that
their persons might be safe and their property inviolate, and bor-
rowed the money from themselves with which to pay the
costs, giving your obligations as security for the payment.
They issued in round numbers, three billions of bonds, and
sold them to themselves, paying for them on an average, sixty
cents on the dollar—(for some no more then thirty-five), or one
billion eight hundred millions dollars. In other words they
loaned the government this latter sum and took a bonus of one
billion two hundred million in Bonds to pay for doing it.
And now what do they ask that you shall do for them with
each of those three hundred thousand Bonds? Only this!
They ask that for each one, you give them sixty dollars a year
for twenty years, or in all, one thousand two hundred dollars
and at end the of that time the full face of the bond itself; total
two thousand two hundred for the original six hundred fur-
nished, or for the one billion eight hundred millions that the
government received, they demand the modest sum of six bil-

-2O-
lion six hundred million, and this too in Gold,—nothing else
being good enough for the immense service they rendered.
Greenbacks were good enough for you, but they want Gold, and
say if you do not give it you will break your faith with them
and ruin the credit of the country. This is adding insult to
injury. Break your faith with them, forsooth. What faith have
they that you have pledged to them? None They tried to
pledge your faith to themselves and because they see you do
not intend to be imposed upon to keep it, they begin to trem-
ble lest they not only lose the enormous yearly interest you
pay, but their Bonds as well.
They say there was no other way by which the war could
have been carried on successfully (and they ought to know)
but this is equal to saying that, while the government could take
by force, the unwilling laborer from his family to fight the
battles that were to save the property of the rich men from dis-
truction, it had no power, or right to compel this same prop-
erty to pay the expenses; and the rich now intend when these
expenses shall be paid to have in fact, the property that your
devotion saved from ruin, and to have four dollars returned to
them for every one advanced. You shed your blood and they
have fattened on it, and still propose to do so. How do you
like the picture ? Well enough to let it remain for their satis-
faction? I don't believe it! I believe you are making up
your minds to send to Congress when next you vote, such
men, and only such, as shall be pledged to Industrial Justice.
But what should,—what ought the laborer to say to the de-
mands upon him for the payment of the six billion six hundred
millions dollars? He has a right to say this at least; that it
was enough to ask of industry to fight and win the battles that
preserved the country; enough that the working classes laid
down their lives by thousands on a hundred fields of battle;
enough that wives and mothers gave up their sons and
husbands to fill the soldier's grave that wealth might be secure;
enough to ask all this! enough to have done all this, without
now being called upon, to toil year after year for a whole gen-

-2 I-
eration to pay these rich ones back their loans. They ought
to urge that as the flesh and blood that existed in the ranks of
labor at the time the war broke out, were freely used to bring
it to a termination, the wealth that then existed should be
compelled to pay the costs, to not only pay what still remains
outstanding of the Public Debt, but to return into the treasury
that which has been paid with all the interest received upon
the whole amount—there having been already paid more than
the whole amount received by the government at first; more
than one billion, eight hundred million dollars. Think of this
and determine how much longer you will let these things go
on. I appeal to the rich themselves, hard as it may be to part
with money, if this would be asking more than what is right?
They are warned that labor will use these arguments with
whatever force is necessary to make them felt, if want shall
drive them on to desperation. If the rich are wise they will
forestall all this by doing simple justice voluntarily. I have no
doubt, however, and I express it for the rich man's sake, that,
if they would now come forward and offer to take greenbacks,
with which they paid the soldiers, for their bonds, labor will be
magnanimous enough to permit the debt to be thus paid, al-
though it is by far, too great consideration, by far too much
beyond what justice itself ought to permit.
And such a payment would be advantageous to those who
hold the bonds eventually. The interests of a people are by
nature so interwoven that it is impossible for one to make an-
other suffer without sometimes feeling the reaction; impossible
for one part of the social body to be diseased and suffering,
without every other part nearly or remotely, sympathizing with
it. Now what would be the first result should the bonded debt
be paid in greenbacks? It would reduce the national expenses
over a hundred and fifty millions annually in interest and
costs of raising revenues.
The interest bearing debt now in the hands of those
who hoard the money paid to them as interest being changed
in their hands to a non-interest bearing currency, they would

-22-
engage at once in some business to employ their money. This
would create demands for labor every where, and soon hunger
and distress would be replaced by thirſt and happiness. Well
paid labor is what is wanted for the unemployed, not money
for the rich. When all the labor of any country is engaged, it
must be prosperous, let the financial condition be what it may,
or whetherit have any financial system or any money even at
all. Finance is only an aid to not the cause of production,
and there would be just as much wealth in any country, if
there were no money. It is the right of the laborer to the use of
so much of his previous productions, as will ſeed and clothe him
while he produces more. This is denied him now.
The credit of the country would not be injured but improv-
ed by the payment of the bonds in currency.
The principles upon which the creditofa nation rests, are the
same as those upon which individual credit stands. An individ-
ual who has a million dollars worth of property engaged in
business without interest, has a better credit than another in-
dividual having a like amount of property engaged in business,
but to keep up which he has annually to pay-by liens upon
the property—fifty thousand dollars more than his income. The
distinction between the two cases is precisely the same that
would exist between our national condition, and that which
would be if the bonded debt were changed to one not bearing
interest.
“But the foreign holders would certainly be large losers by
such a change and would never again grant credit,” says the
“Speciemen.” Not at all! They would find in a short time
that what they conceived a disadvantage, turned out a benefit,
unless they grumble because compelled to seek new invest-
ments. The foreign bonds would be paid for—as balances due
to other countries are always settled—by our exports at prices
that would be determined by the standard of their values in
the countries to which they should go. So while the Bond-
holders would nominally be paid in Greenbacks they would
virtually be paid in their own country's money to the amount

–23–
that each thousand dollars worth of produce in Greenbacks
would there be worth.
The stress laid upon the coin payment of the public debt is
therefore a fallacy and meaningless, and is urged in willfulness
or else in ignorance, to blind the eyes of labor to the issues
coming on, until the scheme for monied interests which are in
view shall be completed.
Again to change the form of debt would stop the failures,
that under the existing state of things will continue to increase
spreading desolation, want and hunger, still wider among the
laboring poor. with conditions in our country such as seldom,
or never before existed—for the balance of trade was near two
hundred miltions in our favor in 1877—yet notwithstanding
this, 1877 was a most disastrous one in business circles. In
New York alone, in December, the failures were for nearly
eight millions, or at a rate of one hundred millions annually,
and for the whole country according to its population, forty
times a hundred million or four billions dollars, and this in
spite of a most unusual foreign trade. What our commercial
condition might have been, had this trade been as heretofore,
about that much against us, no one can tell; but it would have
been something that nothing less than awful could describe.
But there will be too much money—still claims the advo-
cates of Gold. That is impossible unless the whole amount
in circulation exceed the annual net productions. A country
with all its labor utilized, that can add one billion five hundred
million to its aggregate of wealth each year, can issue, and use
that amount of currency without choking the avenues of
trade. The difficulty in the past has been that prosperity has
only been considered such when it has been on the side of the
money-makers. Of course, to have a large amount of cur-
rency afloat, is to make their profits small. But in the future,
prosperity will be measured by a different standard. The
country will be considered prosperous when labor is rewarded
by large surplus products. The vital issue is not, and never
was confined to money. It is in labor. Keep that employed

–24–
and the country may be flooded with the peoples’ obligations
in any legitimate way without fear of there ever being too
much afloat, for no one can procure it without giving an equiv-
alent in the products of labor. It may be asked what ways
are legitimate? Any method by which the people can obtain
it equally.
Had the Government, instead of playing into the hands of
the monied men, in its legislation and administration paid
some attention to the necessities of the poor, some attention
to the principles that underlie industrial prosperity; instead of
catering continually to the rich and fawning at the feet of mil-
lionaires, there need not have been a single one of the millions
of hungry mouths, naked and unsheltered forms, that have suffer-
ed in this country during the last few years. Had the idle
labor of the last ten years been utilized in any line of staple ar-
ticles, its net results would have paid the whole public debt;
erected in every city magnificent public buildings; built the
North and South Pacific R. R., and completed every other
improvement that could have added to our prosperity.
But the wisdom of our statesmen could not rise above the
rich man's bank accounts, and the size of the miser's yellow
pile.
The producing classes are deciding that Greenbacks shall
furnish the means of exchanging their products; because, by so
doing, an enormous sum of interest would be stopped at once.
They have also decided that bank currency shall be retired by
Greenbacks, because the times are too hard to pay to Banks
two hundred millions annually, for furnishing one por-
tion of the circulating medium, while the other por-
tion costs nothing, and while the whole can be had
at the same rate. Of course the bankers do not want
to give up the two hundred millions, nor do they
want more Greenbacks issued, but they want what are out to
be retired, so that they can furnish the whole of the money re-
quired to do the business of the country, and thus raise their in-
come from this source to one billion dollars annually, besides re-

–25–
taining the privilege of receiving and keeping the good peoples
money safely, as they always do, you know. Some banks with
five hundred thousand capital, secure five millions deposits.
Nice thing, isn't it? Let's see. Thirty thousand interest on
their circulation, and three hundred thousand on their deposits.
(Bankers are the only persons who draw interest on what they
owe.) Who would not be the owner of a bank when he can
realize three hundred and thirty thousand annually on a capi-
talof five hundred thousand and yet these banks clamor against
taxation and about reducing their capital. It is all gammon;
else why are they so anxious to have the greenbacks retired
and bank currency to take its place?
Gold and silver coin the only money, with the annual pro-
duct less than a hundred million ? Was there ever such su-
preme folly? When they talk like this, they do it to
blind your eyes to what they want to do behind the scenes.
They do not mean a word of it; they mean the opportunity
to issue and collect interest on from three to five dollars of pa-
per currency, for every one of gold they have ; that is to say,
with a capital of a hundred thousand they want to issue and
loan five hundred thousand, at largerates of interest to the pro-
ductive classes. Interest! interest! interest! just as if money -
breeds, is the everlasting croak of capital.
But why longer pay interest to anybody ? If the rates
which our manufacturers and producers pay were not double
those paid by their competitors of other nations, they could out
sell them in every market on the globe; and that too without
a protective tariff Free Money and Free Trade go hand in
hand. The Government can issue and loan all the money for
which the people can give the requisite security at the mere
cost of keeping up the system; and thus by one fell swoop
strike from existence Interest, Bonds, and the whole speculating
power that now owns and runs the Government. Let the
Government establish sub-treasuries all over the country which
shall be depositories for the people's money, and in which the
loans they need can be negotiated, and there will be no more

–26–
fifteen thousand broken-hearted widows, orphans and helpless
men, wringing their hands in agony over the collapsing of
State saving institutions, as was recently witnessed in Chicago.
To show what a blessing free money would be to millions
the following facts are cited which will strike home to at least
every western farmer, who is struggling on year after year un-
der a heavy weight of interest which he must pay to keep a
mortgage from foreclosure, and trembling always lest he die
and leave his family at the mercy of him who holds it. The
item is an editorial from the Chicago Times of Feb., 1878, and
reads thus: “A curious statement has been published in
Champaign, Ill. The assessed value of the real estate of that
county is a fraction over eleven millions, and upon this there
are mortgages recorded for about six millions. The interest
on these is near six hundred thousand dollars, and the taxes
raise this burden to more than a million,-equivalent to nine
per cent on the whole taxable value of realty in the county.
The weight of the burden thus entailed falls upon productive
industry,” (here the Times admits what I have claimed
about these expenses falling upon labor,) “which is shown by
the fact that the interest and taxes require an average annual
payment of every soul of the county's population of twenty
dollars and fifty cents.” -
“It will require something more,” says the Times, “than
the free coinage of daddy dollars, to remove the load which
through reckless borrowing is buckled on the backs of the peo-
ple of Champaign.” And, let me tell you, this “something
more” that will lift the load lies within the power of the peo-
ple to have not only in Champaign Co., Ill., but in every other
county distressed as is this. Let the people of the
west, at the next election of representatives to Congress, elect
only those pledged to vote for the issue of the people's money,
Greenbacks, and so provide that the farmers who are oppressed
by the payment of large interest on mortgages, can take
them up from the Money-lending Usurer, by this free money,
and transfer them to the government as security for the loan.

–27–
Thomas Jefferson declared, “Bank paper must be suppressed
and the circulation restored to the government to whom it
belongs.” Calhoun, Franklin, Harrison, Webster, Hamilton,
and others of renown as statesmen, have claimed that it was
the duty of the Government alone, to issue the money and con-
trol its volume.
But it is claimed we must have a money standard like other
countries, silver and gold. This, like most of the other argu-
ments for specie basis, is a fallacy. If a specie basis be not
the best one for the industries, though it be maintained by oth-
er countries, we should not follow the bad example set by them.
We should adopt the best money, that which will make the in-
dustries most prosperous, and add most to the general comfort
of the people. Our coin goes to other countries as bullion,
and is received by weight and not as dollars; is received as
all other commodities are, according to what it is worth by
their several standards. Gold and silver bars are better to ex-
port than coin, and are equally valuable to pay whatever oth-
er countries claim; to pay balances of trade against a foreign
country is all for which gold and silver is required. That is to
say, in trading with the various countries, what we receive as
merchandise from them is paid with cotton, wheat, pork, oil
and other commodities, that we produce in excess of use; bu
the lack of these exports, or the demand for them can be sup-
plied with exports of gold and silver as products the same
as wheat and corn.
We raise two hundred and fifty millions dollars worth of
cotton; five hundred millions worth of meat, butter and cheese;
one billion dollars worth of corn; three hundred millions
dollars worth of wheat and so on through a long list of staple
products; but we produce only eighty-five millions of the
precious metals, forty-five of gold and forty of silver. Now
if there be a basis needed for our currency, why not make
it of all of these.
One of the special points is, that a money that is not re-
deemable, at the option of the holder, in gold or silver, has

–28–
no stable value. The reason that this is urged has been al-
ready shown to be to keep the measure of values to the narrow
limit of the precious metals, or two of them, of which we
posses but little, and of which we produce the least of all our
staples.
Gold and silver when considered in the light of common
sense are like other commodities and have the same capacity
for paying debts, have the same sort of value as any other com-
modity. The fictitious values given them over other products of
our soil is for some other than utilitarian purposes, to facilitate
or make exchanges.
We demand that the National Currency shall not be made
redeemable, by anything, save those things that the hardy
hand of labor coins out of the earth, or from the raw
material. This is the redeemability, the only redeemability
that the interests of the people demand for money, and this is
the redeemability they are going to issue their currency
upon, the objections of the goldites to the contrary, notwith-
standing.
If a currency will at all times purchase every thing a person
wants, what other power does it need to make it good?
The vital necessities are, first: that labor shall produce
enough to satisfy all the possible wants of our people; second
that each person shall have enough of something with which to
obtain his portion. There are no other necessities. Then how
shall those conditions be secured; and so secured that they
can never be suspended ? How shall a currency be instituted
that the people can always get and purchase with. Solve
these and the question of the necessities of life is settled; after-
wards some less important issues can be properly attended to.
The reply is “easily.” Butlet the illustration be first made on
a small scale so that the principle on which it stands may be
plainly demonstrated, then it can be applied to the whole peo-
ple. Three large industrially organized families—one agricul-
tural consisting of thirty thousand persons, one mechanical
consisting of fiteeen thousand persons, and one mercantile

–29–
consisting of five thousand persons—settle a new country; say,
an island never before inhabited. Each family carries actual
wealth (not money) in commodities, produced and manufac-
tured, machinery and stock, to make it possible for them
to live wholly within themselves, to the value of five millions
dollars. Being thoroughly organized as families they would
need no police government. All the public business they
would have, would be of an industrial and commercial char-
acter.
Their common interests would be commercial, and the in-
dividuals charged with their keeping, would be those deemed
the best judges of what would contribute to their prosperity.
When these representatives should meet, they would say, one of
the first things we need to enable our families to transact busi-
ness with each other, is a currency. When a mechanic
needs a sack of flour, it may notbe possible for him to deliver an
article of his own manufacture as the payment; and when the
farmer wants a pair of pants, he may not have harvested his
crops, hence let us agree among ourselves to issue a million
dollars currency of various denominations which shall be a lien
forever upon all the property we brought with us, and all we
shall add to it in the future; and a legal tender for all purposes
for which money is required both public and private.
Can there be a better money for this people than this
would be 2 Indeed isn't it the only possible money they
could have that would be secure? I know bank men will say
some ought to turn bankers and issue currency so that it could
be redeemed. They should rather say put out their currency
and fail to take it in, as banks usually do, when the people call
upon them in a body to fulfill their pledges. Suppose these
families had gold and silver; would that make them a better
money? No! Since let them be as valuable as they may be
as metals, they can never be scientific money. They are wealth,
which money can never be. Money is only a representative
of wealth; a promise of wealth. It is an impossibility for a
man or thing to be both the representative of other men and

–30–
things, and the men and things themselves. One can not be
principal and second also. So if wealth be principal, money
must be representative. Money is representative and always
has been, and wealth is principal and will be. When I say
wealth, I mean the product of labor, not the mere aggregations
of property in the hands of the now rich. Gold never was
and never can be scientific money. Gold ever was and ever
will be wealth, and as such can be represented by money;but the
money that would represent the gold and siver of the country,
would not represent the fifty billions of other wealth that it pos-
sesses and could never be made to do so unless the value of
that fifty billions be shrunk by financial chicanery to less than
two hundred million dollars.
The gold men have been trying to do this for the last ten
years, and so far have had pretty good success. Shall they
succeed completely or not, is a question for labor to answer.
Now the Greenback currency is just such money as that
would be which such communities would naturally adopt; and
if it were issued just as they would issue theirs it would give
the greatest possible prosperity to production, and the most
comfort and ease among the people—excluding the non-pro-
ductive clases for whom we have no use. We are virtually
three great industrial families: agricultural, mercantile and me-
chanical. We can and ought to live within ourselves, save in
such respects as it is advantageous to exchange with other na-
tions; we have but little gold and silver, and would be better
off if we had none as industrial classes. As the producers of
the fifty billions wealth there is, and the one billion five hund-
red millions yearly added to that aggregate, we can
agree to issue a dollar Greenback for every fifteen dollars of
that wealth and can make it legal payment for all dues, public
and private, and a lien forever upon all wealth existing and all
that shall be added to it, or, the better way to say it, a lien
forever upon the three greatindustries, which agree to receive
it for everything that they produce. What better money
could be made than this, redeemed every time that any of the

–31--
industrial bodies should receive one of these notes for any-
thing that they should have to sell.
Let the mask with which capital has hood-winked labor, fall
forever, and let a money be adopted based on the products of
the toiler's hands, the redeemability of which rests on their will-
ingness and capacity to add to that basis year after year forever.
Is it strange that laborers have not long since had this all arrang-
ed? No; it is not. They have employed the non-productive
classes to think for them politically and industrially, just as some
have employed ministers to think for them religiously. Until
quite recently most people have swallowed whatever either of
these classes have offered without questioning; but the
questioning has begun in earnest the curtain
will soon rise upon a new scene in the drama of the industries
as well as that of religion, and reveal the grand spectacle of a
whole nation—fifty millions of people—doing its own thinking,
and guiding its action by its thought in all departments of life.
When this shall come, when the curtain shall be rung up to
show this scene, the star of hope for down-trodden labor will
rise even to the zenith, shedding its benignant rays upon an
emancipated, prosperous, happy people.
p--2.

++TO THE+=#-
LIBERAL PUBLIC
Having been a Student of the problems involved in Human Life
for many years, and a practicing Physician for over a quarter of a
century, I have been called upon to write and lecture upon most of
the practical questions of the day. The following Lectures were
prepared with care and have been delivered in many parts of the
Country, and I have consented to put them in pamphlet form in
order that they may reach those who cannot hear them.
---
The Evolution of Life in Earth and Spirit
Conditions.
The Industrial and Financial Problems.
Life and Health, or How to Live a Century
Philosophy of Disease and How to Cure the Sick
Without Drugs.
Religious, Political and Social Freedom.
I will send them post paid, the five for 60 cents. Single, 15 cents
apiece.
Address, DR. JULIET H. SEVERANCE,
219 Grand Ave., Milwaukee, Wis.