The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1878-03-08

ali money, whether metal or paper is
a creation of law, and has precisely
the value that the Government Issuing
iL declares it shall possess The crea-
ton of money is a power delegated to
Congress by the people. It's unit must
necessarily be arbitrary, and its value
rests upon the consent of the nation
The relative value OF silver and go d
to each other as compared with other
commodities cannot be aseeTtained. II
is affected by Thousand circumstances
that operate every day and hour. Pro-
duction, demand, peace, war, famine,
the standard of other nations-all are
factors in the insoluble problem. Mon
etary commissions, whether national
or international, can 90 nothing ex
cepJ TO agree upon an arbitrary ratio
that shall be accepted by the parties TO
the alliance
Mr.. President, the State which rep
resent is almost exclusively an agri-
cultural community. It's history is
marvel even in an age of miracles. Its
growth Is unprecedented. Its develop
nent has no parallel. Twenty years
have seen its population increase from
few thousand adventurous pioneers
along its eastern border, to three-Quar-
ters OF million or people who are
rearing to the remotest bounds of its
fertile area the enduring fabric of q
CHRISTIAN society Already it has sim
gle counties that produce annually
more corn than any State in New Eng
land, and more wheat than all the
States of New England combined. 1t
has made the most liberal provisions
for education, the most heroic sacrifices
for liberty. Men of all races and creeds
have assembled there from every con-
tinent, amid the most favorable con-
dltions of nature, assimilated and
blended by common purpose to build
stately edifice, where they and their
children and all who love liberty, order
and law may dwell in peaceful pros
perity. They are a tolerant, thought
iul, progressive, and laborious people {;
and yet they are habifually stigmatiz-
ed By gentlemen whose only claim CO
superiority is based upon u difference
| of opinion, as maniacs, lHnatics, repu-
diators, ViolaTOrs of public faith, rob-
bers, destroyers of the national honor,
because they ask that silver may be
restored to the place which by law it
occupied till 1873 in the monetary sys-
TEN OF the United States.
Like all new communities they have
been borrowers and were obliged to
anticipate their revenues and pawn the
future. They had to buy their land, to
build houses, to make highways, to
bridge streams, construct churches and
school houses, aud lay the foundations
of the State.
The capitalists of the East, captivated
| by the prospects of secure investments
| and large Interest advanced money to the
farmers and took mortgages on their
| farms; they purchased taX-titles; they
| induced cities and counties to issue bonds
for the construction of railroads and
| court-houses and works of public i'm
provement. They loaned their capital at
| exorbltant rates, beginning at 10 per
C mt, and thence ranging through the va
rlous gr additions by which interest passes
into usury, usury into extortion, and all
into larceny and spoliation. Even I'M
der these conditions, SO long as money
was abundant and exchanges easy the
| country thrived; great enterprises were
| stimulated; new industries were develop
ed, and States grew Opulent and prosper
| Gus.
Blu soon the circulating medium of the
nation began to be diminished by law.
The public debt was declared to be pay4-
bic in coin, and then the money power of
silver was destroyed. The value of prop
erty diminished IN proportion. Wages
| fell and finally employ ment ceased. The
value of everything was deprecated eX-
cept debts and gold. The mortgage, the
| bond, the coupon, the tax have retained
immortal youth and vigor. They have
not deprecated. The debt remains, but
the capacity to pay has been destroyed.
The accGmulatiOns of years have disap-
peared under the hammer of the sheriff,
| and the debtor is homeless while the
creditor obtains the security for frac-
| ton OF what it was actually worth when
the debt was contracted.
As 8 satisfactory solution OF the diff
Guilty we are assured that our prosperity
| was unreal; that there had been an
| unnatural expansion of values; that our
towns and cities sprang like an exhalS-
ton from the desert; that this new en-
pIre beyond the Mississippi with its dense
| populations, its harvest fields, its perma-
nent institutions, was merely deceptive
mirage which lifted its fragile phantOms
| above that distant horizon.
| At every new crisis in public affairs
Mr.. President, the American people give
fresh evidence of their capacity tor self
government, and of their ability 10 COM
prehend any subject, however abtruse
that may be presented for their consider
alton.
They will not be deferred by threats
nor deluded by Sophistries. They know
that an abundant and staple currency is
the essential foundation Of national pros
perity. They know that had not the
credit of the nation been utilized as the
basis Of a circulating medium, the Pa
cIfic railroad would have been to-day the
unrealized dream Of Benton's brain; that
the Pacific States would have been ac-
cessible only by sea or by the ox-Wagon
and the SLOW. stage journeying for weeks
through the alkali and CROSSWORD Of the
plains, and that the footsteps Of the pic
neer would yet have faltered upon the
imaginary confines of the Great Ameri.
can Desert. They know that our legal
tender period previous to enforced con.
traction was not, as the gold-worsh1ppers
would maintaiP, a frenzied epoch of
wild and eager speculation like that Of
Jonn Law, when the holders Of assignats,
based upon church revenues or the cOnfis-
Gated estates of an exiled nobility, haV.
ing no faith either ii the permanence or
the honor Of the nation, FecklessIy sought
to invest worthless currency in any
scheme that offered prospect Of ultimate
reward, but q healthy era OF legitimate
enterprise, attended with the most bene-
ticent results, not to this nation alone but
to the whole limits and boundary of the
civilized world.
They know also that their distress is
i. chiefly dut to the efforts OF those who
own the debt and money Of the nation TO
enhance its value, " no Ere rapidly OBJ
tanning fatal control Of the railroads, the
forests, and the fertile lands of the South
and w est, through colossal monopoIIes,
which threaten with arrogant menace moi
only the material prosperity but the So
cial order Of the country.
We cannot disguise the truth that we
, are on the verge of an impending revolu.
ton. The old issues are dead. The peo-
. pie are arraying themselves upon one
! side or the other Of q portentous conte {.
On one side is capital, formidably en-.
treuched in privilege, arrogant from con.
: tInued triumph, conservative, tenac
Ious Of old theories, demanding new con.
cessions, enriched by domestic levy and
3 foreign commerce, and struggling TO sd.
8 | just all values to its own standard. Ou
/ the other is labor, asking for employ
ment, striving to develop domestic indus
tries, battling with the forces of naLure
and subduing the wilderness; labor
! Starving and sullen In cities, resoIuteIy
{, d termined to overthrow a system under
which the rich are growing richer ano
e the poor poorer; q system which gives e
Vanderbilt the possession OF wealth be.
yond the dreams of avariee and condemns
the poor to a poverty which has no refuge
from starvation but the prison or the
, grave.
] Our demands for relief. for justice, have
D been met with indifference or disdaIn
] The laborers Of the country asking for
e employment are treated like impudenI
: mendicants begging for bread. The Sen
ator from Connect1cut informs us thai
hundreds OF millions Of dollars are lying
; idIe in New York and Hartford, viii,
{ can be borrowed on good security at 4 pei
cent, and asks with something like .
8 sheer how the coinage Of . dollar worth
Z ninety cents will benefit the poor unless
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