Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1878-11-06
SOFT HONEY DELUsIONS.
The Free Coinage Of Silver--.How to
Enrich Bullion Holders at the
Expense OF the People.
National Bank Questioa.-Some Practi-
cal Considerations-.A Scheme to
~ Revive Gold Gambling.

From Senator T. o. Howes speech in the Assembly
Chamber, Madison, October IA.
said ir the beginning that this new
party had no history. They are not to be
condemned for what they have done. You
must judge them upon what they say. l
find their utterances are very verious, and
very iucoherent and very contradictory.
had placed in my hand he platform upon
which the Democratic and Greenback can
didate, for they are combined upon one and
the same man In that district, il made to
stand. was surprised to find that the plat
form was
MANUFACTURED AT THRKR DIFHH1ENT
TIMES
in three different shops and by three differ
ent mechanics. A portion of it was made
by the Democratic party, portion of it
was made by the GreenDack party, and
large portion of it was made by the Hon.
James r. Doolittle. [Laughter.1 That
platform contains propositions not only
fatty contradictory to each other, but each
one is fatty in contradiction to all that ex-
perience has testified, and, as I think, to all
which common sense teaches to-day. l do
not think that piece of patchwork is current
in this congressional district / do not
quite know what is the profession of faith
which il in vogue in this congressional dis
trict-
WHAT THE GREENBACKERs DEMAND.
Recently cut from the Greenback organ
in this state, the &andard, of September Is,
a very explicit declaration of what that new
school of statesmen demands. l will read it
to you. 1t is entitled "What more do you
Want?" and it is replied:
We will tell you what more we want. We want
free coinage of silver that the law shall give 10
silver fair chance gold. and % that II shall
b. imposs Die for John Sherman to add eight cents
to every dollar of coined silver.
That is one thing they want-free coinage
of silver. Why? In 1873 by mistake, as
l think, congress discontinued the coinage
of silver. Other countries had done it
before-other countries have done it since.
The effect OF this legislation was to reduce
the market price of silver bullion below the
relative price of gold bullion. It must of
necessity have had that effect. The less use
you allow to any commodity, the cheaper
it will be. When England and Germany,
and the United States had discontinued the
use of silver coin, and France was threat
ening to do so, and other European states
were threatening it, of course there was less
demand for silver, and therefore the lower
the market price. And from the very
fact that all these states continued to use
gold in the coinage OF their countries, and
based their whole paper circulation upon
that metal, the use of gold was greatly en-
HANGED and so inevitably the market price
of gold bullion went up-and the market
price of silver bullion went down. That
was inevitable. But the fact we thought we
saw when we came to consider the question
was this-that we could not get along with
the business of the world in this broad
gauge day with a metallic currency alone,
nor could we do the business of the world
with a paper circulation convertible into
coin of a single metal-that we must have
paper circulation, but q convertible paper
circulation-and a circulation such as
could be converted not into one coin, but
into both coins. The purpose, therefore, to
which we addressed ourselves was, to rein
troduce this discarded metal into the coin
age of the United States. But we did not
mean to stop there. We meant to do what
in us lay to induce all other countries to re-
store silver to the coinage of retrospective
realms. We put the statute on our books
first. We have sent q commission to Europe
to urge the re-coiDage of it in England, in
Germany and in France. You have within
two weeks probably read short statement
of the conclusions of that International con-
ference, and it you have read it, you see it
stated there, that the whole conference, al.
most without exception, was OF the opinion
that demonetizng silver was q mistake, and
that it was the business of every country to
restore it to the coinage of the world, Just
as fast as political complication would per.
nit it to be done. But when we put the
statute on our books, we found that in &C.
cordance with this hostile legislation,
SILVER HAD BEEN DEPRECATED
and gold appreciated. We could not tell
what would be the effect upon the market
price of our act alone remonetizing that one
metal. But we said this: "There are enOr-
nous contracts for money outstanding, pay
able in the coinage which existed in 1873.
We will stand by the coinage which existed
in 1873" What then should we do? Ac-
cording to the demands of this new school
of statesmen, we should have allowed every
man who had silver bullion in his possession
to bring to the mint ninety-two cents
worth, as the market then stood, have the
stamp of your minis put on it. and pay it
OUT, by force of your statute, for an even
dollar. What was that but simply
PUTTING EIGHT PER CENT. INTO THs
POCKETS
of the bullion-holders, no matter whet.cr
he was the man who raised it in Nevada or
bought it in Germany? We thought it was
the fsirer thing, since your law was going
TO send that coin into the market at
higher nomin al value than was then its
market value, that if there was any profit in
that coinage, it should be made, not by the
bullion-holders, but by the people of the
United States, whose government passed the
act and whose minis were to coin the metal.
Applause These gentlemen say it should
have been free, and the profits should have
gone into the pockets OF the bullion-holder.
leave the dispute for you to pass upon. II
you are so imbued with love for the
bullion-holder that you prefer he should
make the profit rather than make it your
selves, stand for this first demand of the
Greenback party. Applause
ABOLIsHING THE NATIONAL BANKS
We tn. national banking system abol.
ished and non interest airing treasury notes sue
sltuted in the place of national bank notes
You do. Well, let US do it Just for the
fan of the thing, and see how you like il.
=" The bearings of this ere observation. :"
said the sage Captain Bunsby, Giles in the
practical application of it." Let us make
practical application of this measure. Let
us abolish national banks. We can do that.
An act OF congress can do that any dav
when you get you congress filed up with
such men as Mr. Tenney and Mr.. Parker,
and the men who make this demand. They
can tell the national banks to close their
doors as banks of circulation, and call in
TIL