James Baird Weaver Quotes
I am as much opposed as any member here to worthless money, to depreciated money, but unquestionably it is the interest of the great mass of our people that we should have cheap money and dear property; I do not mean worthless money, but I mean cheap money as compared with the property which it buys. Property is held by the many and money by the few.
Most people owned a little land as most of America were still farmers. They had small amounts of money at different times but spent it for necessities. A relatively few people (mostly in the East) had money—gold and paper currency backed by gold. If the price of property was high, only rich could afford to buy it. The home mortgage system did not then exist, so there was no way that the average land owner could get enough money to buy land to expand farms or buy for children unless the price was low. Today, most land owners want the price of land to be high. The financial system in use at the time makes the difference.
James Baird Weaver, 1833–1912, U. S. Congressman (Greenback Party, IA), Twice Presidential Candidate, Greenback Party and then The People’s Party (Populists), Speech in the House of Representatives, 1879
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This is the first major history of banks written in the United States.
At the time, there was no United States currency. Private banks in some of the states issued their own money. A dollar from Georgia might only be worth 75 cents in New York.
FDR was then a candidate for the Democratic Vice Presidential Nomination. This statement shocked some of the conservative French and British delegates and officials such as Ramsay MacDonald, Georges Bonnet, and Neville Chamberlain, but economist John Maynard Keynes strongly approved of Roosevelt Roosevelt’s statements. At issue was whether or not the major currency powers should confer frequently and set the international currency exchange rates or should the rates float and be determined at any point by the free market in currency. FDR held the latter view which was opposed to the positions of the conservative banker-oriented delegates from the European counties, However Roosevelt’s statement was considered “harsh” and “vituperative” by the conservatives and the entire conference collapsed over them. FDR admitted that perhaps he had been too strong and blunt in his language. An irony of this quotation is that 80 years later the positions of liberals and conservatives had both flip-flopped. It became the conservatives who adopted the FDR free market for currency exchange while many liberals called for government intervention and agreement on exchange rates to prevent instability.
This was a very astute prediction. At the time, the United States gold mining production was second only to South Africa and American currency was based on the gold standard which seemed to all to be permanent. Half a century later, the U. S went off the gold standard.
James Baird Weaver was a member of the United States House of Representatives and two-time candidate for President of the United States. Born in Ohio, he moved to Iowa as a boy when his family claimed a homestead on the frontier. He became politically active as a young man and was an advocate for farmers and laborers. He joined and quit several political parties in the furtherance of the progressive causes in which he believed. After serving in the Union Army in the American Civil War, Weaver returned to Iowa and worked for the election of Republican candidates. After several unsuccessful attempts at Republican nominations to various offices, and growing dissatisfied with the conservative wing of the party, in 1877 Weaver switched to the Greenback Party, which supported increasing the money supply and regulating big business. As a Greenbacker with Democratic support, Weaver won election to the House in 1878.
