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Show HISTORY. 'M Mexican silver money is so much fallen In value !j r H that the financiers and newspapers of that coun- -hH try are seriously considering the proposition of f .' ;H adopting the gold standard. Noting this fact, a L rijM very prominent journal, the San Francisco Argo- , H naut, begins a jeering article by referring to Mex- i x , Ico "as that model silver standard commonwealth ' ,V which Mr. Bryan used to hold up to the voters of ' ' this country as a shining example of financial hap- fl piness and wisdom." " M That Is neither very brave nor wise journalism. , j fl It will do no harm to once In a while repeat that history. Because of the legislation which demoni- ) H tlzed silver in 1873, the money and commercial ' l H values of silver, which for centuries had been the ! same, began to draw apart. The reason was clear f l! H enough. Up to that time there had been an un- f'H limited demand on the part of the nations of the t H earth for silver for money at a certain price per y, ounce. Because of that demand, If a silversmith 1 .''M bought silver he had to pay the money value. V ; JB That Is, the money value and commercial value i j v 1H were the same. With the legislation which stopped r ,fl the demand for the metal as money, it became j, ', H merchandise merely and -its price was regulated by the demand for it in the arts. This began to f H bo a great loss to silver producers in 1876. That t' l-B would not have been worth serious consideration j ' ' H had the loss been to silver producers only, but it ) h H was discovered that there was a mysterious power j 1 fl about silver. It was not really mysterious, for It L ' , H was but the natural action of an inviolable law. t:H The prices of all forms of property except inter- I jlj! H est-bearing obligations fell in precisely the same n 5t'$M ratio that silver fell. This resulted in 1893 in the f j utter prostration of business all over this republic. j kfl In the meantime men by tens of thousands had f !ffl been ruined. It was all perfectly natural. If In 1873 f H a farmer, for instance, had a farm worth, say $10,- j if-H 000, and owed $3,000 upon it, by 1888 he could J ''Jfcj H i.ot make enough to meet the Interest. By 1893 the j iV S farm would not sell for one-half of $10,000. and j H the farmer found that he had worked twenty I, J, years, not only for nothing, but he had beside J j i B lost the $7,000 which ho was worth when the strug- j ''t gle began. This was no exceptional case; It was , fl the general rule. - M 'mmM About the time that the fall in silver and prop- tnHlH erty began to be a real affliction in the United BaoMB States, Porforio Diaz became President of Mexico. ll At that time Mexico had some ten million inhabl- JHJjlH tants, quite three-fourths of whom were mere OT&bIH peons. At the time Mexico was overwhelmed with IPprfl debt, destitute of roads, all enterprise was dead lf$sI BBg ' and revolution was in the air. But Diaz was a HflH f born statesman and soldier. Silver was the stand- jffBJ J ard money. There was nothing else to work with. Hll I , Diaz offered subsidies to railroads, concessions to Hll '1 i manufacturers, inducements for foreigners to go Hi ! there to invest money, with the result that while IBs ill I tlie depress011 deepened in the United States ex- Billff 1 pansion went steadily on in Mexico, until when MHs fc ' business was prostrate and property almost value- jBfff . less in the United States, every enterprise in Mex- HP , ico was moving; the debts of that republic had BflK '! been paid and the treasury was groaning under Bfflffi j its load of money; the land was belted with rail- Bi W loads, schoolhouses were at every crossing of the H H roads; all in all it was the most prosperous land M P' on earth. The degraded Greaser had outstripped Pi j I ; ; the sharper race of the Great Republic. H. j During all those years a few men were pointing R I ; out that the depression, loss and depreciation of Hi J ' property in the United States were due to the very V , small volume of standard money left after silver, H I as money, had been eliminated by legislation. H ' But in the winter of 1894-95 it was made clear H I ' that the crops had failed in Southern Europe, in H; j ' j! India, in Australia and Argentine. A hungry Hr I' j J world turned to the United States for food. This B I ' gave the farmers the first profits they had real- 9jS : lj ized for years. To move the crops the railroads H W. . j had to build more cars and run more trains. That H R I " lirst year there was a trade balance in favor of the B if 1 United States of more than $200,000,000. This was Hj ! Hj I i new blood in the arteries of business in the United jR ir J States. The next year the famine was still more B i sore aboard and again a bountiful crop was har- B U l( vested in this country. Then the engineers' strike B B h came in England, which prostrated British manu- B U "i facturers. The result was that in four or five years JH R. 1 after 1894 the United States drew from the out- H U . side world a balance of more than $2,000,000,000 HB U 1 1 , more than half the standard money of the world, m I I find the chief argument of silver men for a greater ! j 1 volume of money was taken away. But it all came, j not through American sagacity, but through the I misfortunes of the outside world. In the mean- S S time the production of gold had increased until ; i it exceeded the production of both gold and silver if ten years before This double great increase in the j ( "volume of money through a series of accidents .5. ' , does not in the least detract from unanswerable BBIg logic of silver men ten years ago. SI If As t0 Mexco, as silver has been reduced to mere BB is merchandise through the conspiracy of European BBIf ' an(1 American money-loaners, it will probably B r ', have to be given up as anything but token money. Bffi ' But even now, if the men who handle the world's BB II , finances were as wise as they are avaricious, they HK II ; would see that it ought to be given some ratio as HBiII' compared with gold and at that ratio held as BBll " money, for the daily business of quite four-fifths flu I! t ' c.f the human race cannot be measured by gold. |