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Show Reserves and Reproduction.- In his speech to the Governors and their advisers ad-visers in Washington the President stated that when mineral resources are exhausted they cannot can-not be renewed, but other resources like timber can be renewed. Of course that was but a statement state-ment of fact, but It was pertinent. The President Presi-dent seems particularly anxious that there shall be no further waste. That emboldens us to remind re-mind him and the country that since 1873 quite $600,000,000 has been stolen from silver miners through a law which was criminal on its face, but which the government of the great United States has refused to repeal. Because of this same law the people of the country who with a little property prop-erty and their own labor try to make a living have lost very much more than that amount. And the waste is still going on. When the great mines of Mexico and Peru were in Bonanza and their product was sent to Europe, quadrupling the money of that continent, of course business took on a great boom. But there was no thought of demonetizing silver. In the course of a century of that mighty production silver fell off only five points in its ratio to gold. But where are those great bonanzas now? They were mineral and being worked out they could not be restored. Well our mines are being worked out much faster than were the Spanish mines. In them no ores are brought up from 800 to 1200 feet on the heads of peons. One hoisting engine can beat that 1,000 to 1. So by and by the precious metal mines of the west will begin to fail. When that time comes what will the men of that day think of the men who when, in our country, they were facing an interest-bearing indebtedness equal to all the money In the world converted one-half of the whole stock of money Into a commodity? his was done, I too, when all the representative of money which I the people had to use was paper, utterly worth- 1 less, save for the stamp of tne government upon 1 it. What will they think, too, when it Will be 1 told them that the only purpose behind this was I to reduce all forms of property 50 per cent in B value, so that the interest gatherers could realize two dollars for their paper which only called for one? Finally what will they think when it is told them that the people of the United States which had been held as reasonably intelligent, latifled the steal even when they saw that their property had been reduced 50 per cent in value fy by it? We commend to the President and the other great statemen that they reflect upon future fu-ture results, for silver does not belong to that class of natural products which can reproduce itself. it-self. When an ounce of It or a ton of it is taken from the mine, the mine is reduced by just that much, and for all time. There will come a tlmo when the men of this country will need that material. ma-terial. Indeed, though they cannot see it, they need it now more than any other one thing. As is pointed out by Mr. Moreton Frenen and ex-Senator J. P. Jones, they are killing their trade with the Orient and Spanish America, with quite half the people of this world, by their treatment of silver, sil-ver, and are at the same time getting their own finances into inextricable confusion. The President Pres-ident seems especially solicitous to stretch forest reserves in all directions that the forests may restore themselves. He had better stretch a forest for-est reserve over the brains of Wall Street to see if on that singularly barren soil any seeds of common com-mon sense will spring up. |