14. How
to Lift the Burden from Labor
Source:
Kansas Populist (Cherryvale, KS), October 18, 1895
The
term, "Non-Interest Bonds," meant greenbacks (paper money not backed
by silver or gold), which Populists and their forerunner third parties, the
Greenback and Union Labor parties, advocated.
If labor alone created wealth (according to the labor theory of value),
then money was only a method of keeping count, and could be made of anything.
All major industrialized nations today accept the idea that money need
not be backed by precious metals. But,
the idea was controversial during the late nineteenth century.
The man labeled "Populist Party" in this illustration is Jacob
Coxey. He led a poor people's march
on Washington, DC in 1894. This
cartoon was originally drawn for Coxey's newspaper, Sound Money.
For
more on Coxey, see:
Schwantes, Carlos A. Coxey's Army: An American Odyssey. Lincoln: U of
Nebraska P, 1985.
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