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Show MR. CLEVELAND EXPLAINS. H In the Saturday Evening Pest of the 7th Inst., H ex-President Cleveland gives a detailed history jJ of the issuance of bonds during his last term H as President, and the causes that led up to the H necessity for such issuance. The first half or H more of the paper is a histohsy of tho various H steps in legislation which were resorted to in jH order, first, to compel the redemption in gold H at par of the bonds, which had been purchased at 1 H from 37 cents to 80 cents, and then the con- I H tinued determination to destroy silver am money. H Nothing more shameless, more soulless or more jH wicked was ever conceived in avarice or carried H out in cruelty. Mr. Cleveland gives correctly the k legislation, but does not make clear the situa- M tion. The points reduced to simplest English are M these: H In the stress of the great civil war the Gov- M eminent Issued millions of currency notes called mM greenbacks or legal tenders, and mjUjHons' of WM bonds drawing heavy interest which was- payable M in lawful money. The bonds weie bought with the M greenbacks at prices ranging from 85 cents down M to 37 cents. H When the war was over and the Republic was jH again running on an even keel, a bill was pulshed jH through Congress making the bonds payable in M coin. This advanced their value 40 per cent. The H next effort was to retire them and to have them H redeemed In coin. This caused the pressure and jH the panic of 1873 and Congress interposed stop- H ping their retirement. There was some $346,000,- ( H 000 of these legal tender notes then afloat. They Hj were indeed all the money that the people had Hi and the people were entirely content with them. fl But despite the profits the bond-holdens had re- - 9 ceived they were still not contented, and by a H trick silver was demonetized. That of cruise H made tho interest and principal of the bonds H payable in gold. It was such legislation as it H would be today for Congress to decree that half H of the gold coin of the country should be gath- H ered up and cast into tho sea Following a nat- H ural law, silver began to apparently decline, that H is; gold began to advance in value as measured H by all forms of property. By 187G silver was at -fl a discount of 25 per cent as compared with gold. i eBV' H ' IVBb i But a11 otlier forms of property were at the same BS pffSil' discount. That is as it required one-third more Hi fflB; silver to buy $1,000 in gold than it did in 1873, B' 'tB' so it; re(lulre1 fur aores of land or four bushels B' "l filr I wneat to uy wnat three acres of land or B1 ' m$r J three bushels of wheat had brought in 1873. Prior " ' 7 to 1873 the demand for isilver at a certain price I per ounce had been unlimited. The law look jp away this demand and hen the men who had I caused the law to be passed, taking advantage Of their own wrong, cried out: "See how silver i ' has depreciated, it has become too plenty to be i held as an honest measure of values, Lo! see I f the danger that our country will go to a ailvor ' ' basis." Then come a cry that "a silver trust was ' trying to maintain the price of silver and trying to compel the honetet business men of the Hast to buy their "pot metal" worth only 80 cents an ounce and pay for it at the rate of $1.29 per ounce. The bankers raised the cry, the press of ! the East joined with their shout, and though the k labor, the property and the products of the Bast ? were at the same discount, the people could not ?i see the truth and they looked upon the men who ! favored the restoration of silver as the mere tools of the silver trust or as dishonest infia- l tionists who were seeing to get something for nothing, though the depression on the country was growing more and more terrible daily, and B J though half-barbarous Mexico which clung to its jB ,M silver standard was the most prosperous coun- B i'M try in the world. B Am, By 1878 the pressure had becoem so terrible B ' Hull, k ia Congress was induced to pass the Sherman M flfllf law, which provided that from $2,000,000 to $4,- B SmBBI 000,000 worth of silver should be purchased B ? ?9MH monthly and coined into dollars. Under this law B BH; silver began to advance, and would in a few B ImUBk months have gone to a parity with gold, except fm KhH hat ftiQ officers of the treasury, working in concert con-cert with the national bankers of, our Eastern cities, by importing silver from Mexico and from Europe, were enabled at last to sell the government govern-ment the isilver needed for ?, certain month at a price far below the real market value and thus BB ill' broke the market. mi ttjSfi But the law was still in force and the Gov- Hb 'I fyy ernment was coining from $25,U00,000 to $85,000,- Q iftl per annum an( ne revenues enabled the B ''liiM Government to reduce the bonded indebtedness iB niBl from $2,800,000000 to less than 1,000 millions of IflH ?JBnf dollars. Beside the principal as much more had IB hBI een paid in interostI the men who collected Wm iBBl in s money wanted investments, and so m llliBl northern cities were boomed. B l'M Bi A building rage swept oveV a part of the great IB ''11 fPl Eastern cities while smaller cities like Buffalo, BH fiPi Minneapolis, Duluth, Omaha, Kansas City, Den- B l4Iiii ver an( tner8 were transformed. Then came B Ww ne electIon of 1892 the Democracy winning on IBi II1$ a sllver Ptform and on a promise of a revised Ib alfel tariff But the men who supplied the money to Bl fSflfl elect Mr. Cleveland, knew their man. He had B IBl obtained his ideas of silver from Dan Manning; Mm JHheIS ne did not now ne doea nt yet know the sign!- b JfifisSiw ficance of reducing the volume of real money; he HB .aBBl na( a mortal horror lest our country should go to BJBhBBI a silver standard (not knowing that if it should, HyHNRf silver in a day would be on a parity with gold Hffinllf a11 the world around. To supply to him an ex- HBliil ouse for doing what the national bankers dosired BwH him to do, in the spring of 1893 those bankers HBhB sent circulars to all other banks to advance no HBBBBg more credit and to call in their loans. The result HBmBi was an overwhelming and all embracing panic BBfSli'f that extended from Maine to Puget Sound, and jBllllllifj, spiead ruin broadcast. The conspirators who BIBillllilf started the storm only saved themselves by get- HHHgBB ting back to back to each 'other and in the form HniHi of clearing house receipts certified that their BBPifi H ' neighbors were all right They could not meet HI m Mm jM UiHBHIHIHBBBHBHBBBB the drafts that western bankers drew on them for money they had on deposit with them. But in one way they accomplished their purpose. pur-pose. They caused Mr. Cleveland to call an extraordinary ex-traordinary session of Congress and to deliver a message domanding the repeal of the purchasing purchas-ing clause of the Sherman law, and he bull-dozed the measure through Congress. Then at the regular reg-ular session he tried to force through almost froe-trade froe-trade legislation with the result that the bonds had to be issued. Ho went out of office under a dismal cloud. He evidently is smarting under it Still hence his most elaborate effort at justification justi-fication reveals clearly his obliquity of vision. All through he refers to the opinions of the people at the various stages of the tragedy of destroying destroy-ing silver and appears entirely unconscious that their opinions Were created and directed by the bondholders, the national banks and the press that wais controlled by those banks and the bondholders. bond-holders. He tells of the endless chain by which the people over and over unloaded their greenbacks green-backs for treasury gold and seems unconscious that all that was done by probably less than one hundred bankers who did not dare use their money in any business and so adopted that plan to force the issuance of bonds. It is but just to say that Mr. McKinley would. UDon succeeding him, have met with similar troubles had not a failure of crops in southern Europe, Argentina, India and Australia have sent the whole outside world to the United States for food, (even as Joseph's Jo-seph's brethren went to Egypt), and which, with the engineers' strike in England, gave the United States a balance of trade in three years of more than 2,000 millions of dollars, supplying the vacuum vac-uum me by the destruction of silver thus restoring re-storing the volume of the country's money. The country has not, blamed Mr. Cleveland for selling bonds in time of peace, .but the western half has blamed him for finally destroying half the world's standard money, and for so negotiating the bonds that only a few banking houses in New York and London had the disposal of them, and f6r retiring from the Presidency, after four years of unparalleled unpar-alleled depression, with more money than his predecessors in the Presidency altogether possessed. pos-sessed. For the same reasons they look with suspicion suspi-cion on the organs of those same banking houses every day hurling their poisoned shafts at President Pres-ident Roosevelt and insisting that "a careful and conservative," candidate must be chosen. For the same reason they look with suspicion on Mr. Cleveland's personal endeavors, just at this time, to explain why he ordered the soldiers into Chicago Chi-cago and gold bonds after that same crowd of bankers had prostrated the business of the country coun-try to make the sales necessary. It looks as though the old consultations of which the people peo-ple were the victims, were being revived. HENRY M. STANLEY. The great explorer has gone on his last journey jour-ney of discovery; gone to find Livingstone again. For twenty years he was much in the public eye, the special work for which he seemed intended he performed -with indomitable will, courage and faithfulness. Because of Livingstone and Stanley the work of exploring Africa and stopping the awful cruelties which have been the rule there through the ages, was Inaugurated in earnest and will be now continued until the "Dark Continent" will be flooded wtih light. Stanley was born in Wales in 1840. His name was John Rowland. He was given native courage and a vital energy which made any restraint Irksome. So while a child he ran away. The ocean in its restlessness seemed in accord with his own soul so he fled by the sea. He landed a waif In New Orleans, there a kindly man, named Henry M. Stanley, picked him up, adopted him and gave him his own name. When the battle of Shiloh was sat la array he was there under General Albert Sidney Johnston. j He was taken prisoner but escaped, and on an English ship left the coast. But he was irrepressible, irre-pressible, and a little later obtained a place on a war ship of the United States. The war over, he sought and obtained a placo as a newspaper correspondent. An expedition was sent to subdue some hostile Indians on the great plains he accompanied it and wrote up the campaign. On, his return he was sent by the New York Herald to accompany accom-pany the English column that under sir Robert Napier penetrated Abyssinia to release English prisoners, and wrote and sent the first account of the capture of Magdala. On his return Mr Bennett, of the Herald, gave him a terse order to go and find D: Livingstone. The Doctor had disappeared in the jungles of Africa four years before and had become the anxiety of England Stanley started at once, planned his own ex-pedition, ex-pedition, gathered his forces and leaving the their indepcidence and their autonomy. They After 23G days of increditablo hardships and dangers he reached Ujiji and found the aged, feeble and long-lost explorer. Stanley's account of the meeting is wonderfully pathetic and thrilling and when the news reached the Herald and was thence flashed to the world, the name of Stanley was in the mouths ot all civilized men Four years later he was ordered to go and complete Livingstone's work. . The story of what he did is told in his great book. It was a fearful expedition. Danger in ev-ery ev-ery form confronted him, hardships indiscribable were encountered, but he never faltered. Ho crossed Africa, found that Dr. Livingstone's river Lualaba was but the beginning of the great Con go and he followed it to the sea. Under contract with King Leopold of Belgium he established the Congo State and began the redemption of the Dark Continent. He started on an expedition for the relief of General Gordon, but was too late He married an English lady, settled in England, was a term or two fn Parliament, but has been little heard of for ten yearte past His great career ca-reer was in the twenty years after 1868. Because of him and Livingstone the mystery that held Africa in darkness through ages waB cleared away; now it is being rapidly opened, from the north, south, east and west the Caucasian Cau-casian Is making his way. There is still much of darkness, still horrible cruelties are being perpetrated, per-petrated, but the dawn has come and in fifty years more there will be redemption. Stanley was given tissues like a tiger's, courage that quailed at nothing, the brain of a general, fine executive exec-utive abilities and a will that nothing could break nor bend. Of all path-finders he stancEs at the head. In the darkness of Africa he kindled a great light. Under that light his name in letters of gold was printed across the mighty continent and it will remain there, luminous to the ond of lime. |
