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Show I Tbe Meanness and Mendacity of It. 1 A few days since we made a note of the vin- g dlctlve attacks of certain New York City newspa- pers, notably the World and Times, upon Mr. I Bryan, because some individuals in the west, I some of whSm were silver miners, had made I small contributions to Mr. Bryan's 189G campaign I and Mr. Bryan did not repudiate their con- tribution. And l assailing Mr. Bryan they in I eluded scurvy abuse of the men who had made I the contributions, as though they were public I onemies who were seeking to bribe the Govern- mont into committing something like hari-kari. I The infamy of the assault upon Mr. Bryan I and upon the contributors grows in thought the I more it is considered. I There is no principle or rather we should say I axiom in political economy more sound than that I pricos advance and recede in the precise ratio I that basic money increases and decreases in a I country. I Since before the first page of history was I written silver and gold had been basic money. I They wore the only two metals fitted for the pur- I pose because they alone possessed the only need- I od requisites, namely, lustre, malleability, inde- I Ktructability, density the only difference be- twoon them being the different degree of den-I den-I sltyand tho fact that all the avarice of man I had never been able to acquire enough of both I metals to servo ;,men's needs for money. After mints were established, their relative I value was established as nearly as possible by I the amount of labor required to produce each I which- was about 11 to 1. All the silver poured I into Europe from Mexico and Peru from A!. D. I 1500 to A. D. 1800 could not boat silver down I more than 4 or 4 1-2 points and the coinage of Groat Britain stood at 16 to 1, that of continental Europe at 15 1-2 to 1. Our own Government Anally established it at 1G to 1 and so sensitive was tho world's market that our small coins had to bo underweighted to prevent their being I bought up and shipped abroad, silver at 1G to 1 was more valuable than gold. B Silver was discovered in the United States in 1850. When the great war came on the gold of M California and the gold and silver of Nevada, steadied the credit of the nation through the anguish, the faintness and the fear of that second sec-ond birth. But in the upheaval gold in the east wont into hiding and the Government had to issue is-sue paper money to meet its awful expenses and to sell bonds to cause men to let money go. The bonds were sold at a discount, the paper currency cur-rency fell before the war was over to below 40 cents on the dollar. With this paper currency passing at par with the Government these bonds were bought at a discount. The war ov the first move was to have the interest on .these bonds paid in specie (Silver or gold). The next move was to have the principal of the bonds paid in specie. The bonds were in great part drawing ?7.30 iper cent interest, this meant that the bondholders were thenceforth to receive in specie double Interest and principal for the money they had paid for the bonds. But even that did not satisfy their avarice. In 1873 the bonded Indebtedness amounted to more than ?2,-200,000,000. ?2,-200,000,000. Then a few of those bondholders conceived the idea of doubling the interest and principal once more. The then comptroller of tho currency drafted an innocent looking bill purporting to better regulate the currency, and two or three senators and representatives pushed it by st' h through- the house and senate and it became a law. Each one of those men received princely rewards from the interest-gatherers of New York City. The nation at large had no realization that by that act silver had been reduced from a basic metal money to a commodity until silver began to fall in value as compared with gold. But with it every other form of property except interest bearing securities payable in gold fell in tho same ratio. Then a storm arose in and out of congress to have the wrong undone, but that New York press, faithful as it always is and has been, rushed to the bondholders' defense and raised the uy: "Would you pay debts in light weight dollars, though the truth was self-evident self-evident that silver had seemed to fall solely because be-cause its function as money had been denied It by legislation. At that time tho government, the states and olties, the railroads and people owed quite one-third as much as all the property of the republic amounted to. The fight to restore silver went on for twenty throe years. Once It nearly won, but was boat-en boat-en back by the then Secretary of the Treasury. All the time the press that always does the bidding bid-ding of the capitalists worked Incessantly against restoration. In the meantime the property of tho country had, measured in gold, shrunk 50 per cent in value even as silver had and hundreds of thousands thou-sands of men had been made bankrupt, while millions more owed about as much as their, property prop-erty would have sold for. Then to help a willing president to give to silver as money a final blow, those same New York conspirators precipitated a panic which prostrated the country, a special session ses-sion of congress was called nnd silver as basic money was finally assassinated. Three years later in the country's extremity, i one of the great parties put a plank in its plat- 1 form pledging the restoration of silver. In the , I previous twenty-three years since the first legisla- I tlon against silver tho miners in the silver states J had been robbed of quite $350,000,000 by the leg- islation which denied silver its immemorial place as money; the property owners of the dast had 1 lost in the shrinkage of their property quite 50 ': per cent of its value. ' j; A few men in the west, some of them owners in silver mines, sent of their free will what they could to try to elect the candidate pledged to the I restoration of silver. It did not amount to G 1 per ctnt of what was raised for the other party i by the bondholders, the eastern national banks, the trusts, the manufacturers and corporations. 5 All tho great newspapers of the east were heavily j subsidized, there never was such lavish and scan- V dalous use of money made in any campaign as i, was made then. ft With it all the silver candidate was just barely defeated and not one man in a thousand believes ?'j that he was fairly beaten. -A Now after twelve years, after the idol before - f which the east fell down and worshiped has proved -to be a false god; after ten years of wonderful p prosperity, those great New York financiers have ; proved their imbecility and impotency; now that trade with silver countries has been for twelve I years in confusion; when two-thirds of the poopla of the earth are clamoring for silver money; after it is clear that had silver been left alone the ? panic would have boon avoided and while congress is struggling to help these harpies out by devising devis-ing some means to give them more paper ropre- g sontatlves of money; when ISurope is making American financiering a theme of jest and poor little Mexico is pitying us; those New York great j newspapers that drew steady subsidies every year for three and twenty years to fight silver, and 'i extraordinary subsidies every fourth year, have now tho monumental gall to arraign tho candidate in whose behalf those western men voluntarily ; contributed a trifle of money to help pay tho legitimate expenses of that campaign and with 1 simulated indignation are holding up those men who were making a final fight to save a remnant of their possessions from spoliation as enemies of native land, as men who sought to bribe tho country to secure legislations against the best interests of the people. ( Nothing meaner was over seen; nothing so causeless in mendacity and meanness was over witnessed. The very meanest thing on record is tho -abuse which has followed silver men by the purchased pur-chased press of New York City and Chicago for more than a quarter of a century. That they dared make a fight for their own and for the right against tho brutalized money power of New York City was a crime unforgiveablo. We say pur-chased pur-chased press, because from the first they have ;4 never made an honest argument for the cause they championed. They pressed It until they saw the country ruined in 1893; they clamored that th country would go to a silver basis when they know I! there was no silver that could be Spared to come hero. When the -whole product of silver in our country would not buy the eggs that the people of tills country used, when they and their principals princi-pals knew that the tfhole trouble Ttad-'come from demonetization, mid that with that infamous- logls- lation wiped out' silvdy would be at a premium over gold in a week as it had been for the preceding century. And now after having drawn from our mines 1,000 millions in gold during the past decade j and twice that amount in trade with the outside world, those same harpies have prostrated the country again, and do not know which way to turn, they incite again that old villainous press i to assail silver men and pour out their abuse ! upon them. New York City should establish a kindergarten night-school of finance and give 'hose learned editors free scholarships. |