Daily Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1876-1884, 1878-02-21
The Miner ana his Mines.

Senator Jones in his great speech
last Thursday on the silver bill,
paid glowing tribute to the miner.
He said:
The prizes in mining are few,
the failures many; but there is
always doubt enough to check I'M
due expansion. A comparatively
small number have reached the
plane of success, while many have
failed and fallen by the way. Shall
those who are now hopefully toiling
be punished for the success of the
few? No Drawer or harder men
ever courted fortune by the straight
forward road of toll, sacrifice and
privation.
President Lincoln, in one of his
messages to Congress, declared
them worthy not merely of ordina-
ry protection of law and Justice, but
of extraordinary measures of ell
enlargement. The mining regions
of the country frown with the most
fOrbidding aspects of nature. In his
restless wanderings in search of the
precious metals, the miner sees no
stately forests, no smiling lawns,
nor luscious fruits to enchant the
senses or soothe the mind; but it is
in torrid valleys and on bare, bleak
and trackless mountains that
gold and silver are sought and only
occasionally found. In his search
the miner leaves behind him every
luxury of life, every convenience of
comfort, an d every necessity of
growth. The metal which the sill
yer miner seeks to obtain is not, as
is usual in gold mining, gathered
from alluvial sands by unskilled
toll. 1t can only be wrenched from
Its embraces of adamant by ex-
hausting labor. 1t can only be sep
arated from the baser surrounding
by expensive machinery and efforts
of patient science. No dollar of gold
or silver obtained by mining has
ever involved the robbing of one
man by another, but has been fairly
WOE in struggle between the rude
forces of nature and the dauntless
energy of man, and was an addition
to thewealth of the human race.
My constituents have
RIGHTS AS SACRED AS THOSE OF
THE NATIONAL CREDITOR.
II is my high duty and privilege
to defend them on this floor, and l
shall make no apology for the ardor
and persistency with which | dis
charge this duty and exercise this
privilege. Does anybody doubt
that the Senators from Massachu.
sets would rise with Indignation
If anybody should stigmatize as
"blubber-gambers," "whalebone-
speculators," and members of an
oil ring" the bronzed whalemen of
Nantucket and New Bedford, who,
when fortune has favored, bring
safely into port the wealth which
they have not obtained by wreck
ing railroads or by watering rail-
road stocks; but which they have
created by struggling with the cold,
the darkness, the storms, the Ice
foes of Arctic seas?
AND WHY SHOULD RESTRAIN MY
INDIGNATION
When | hear the stigmatizing cpl
tibet of Bonanza swindlers" APP
piled TO my constituents, who are
toiling in the gloomy passages, I'M
der eXhausting heats, two thousand
feet below the surface of the earth,
away from the cheering light of
day, in an industry which is be-
lIeved to pay less profit upon the
average than any other known to
man. l do not shrink from COM
parison of the ways and methods
of the acquisition of wealth in
mining industry on the Pacific
Coast with the ways and methods
of its acquisition anywhere, and
least of all with the ways aud
methods of Wall street, where
these attacks upon my constituents
originate.
The silver miners of the United
States have shirked no duty either
in peace or war; they demand
neither protective legislation for
exemptions from their full share i'm
the burden of taxes, nor special
privileges of any kind; but they
have
SPECIAL INTERESTS IN THE PRO-
DUCTION OF SILVER,
And it is task equally easy and
grateful to me to vindicate them.
They are engaged in u lawful and
honest industry, and who, between
the two oceans, are better entitled
to fair treatment than they? The
people of Nevada do not shrink
from any comparisons to which
they can be subjected. 1t was be-
cause they were known to be loyal
and patriotic that Nevada was ad-
mitted as State into the Union.
1t was admitted during the crisis
Of civil war as an added bulwark to
the defence and liberty of the coun-
try. If their numbers were few,
they have maintained good govern.
ment; efficiently protected life and
property; literally endowed insti-
buttons of education and benefi-
cence, and have so well ordered
their finances that their Governor
has been recently urged to convene
the Legislature in extra session to
reduce taxes, in order to prevent
the accumulation of an inconveni-
ent surplus in the treasury. L am
ready to meet here and everywhere
any comparison between the vague,
shadowy and unsubstantial after
born expectations and understand
ings of the holders Of bonds, prom
ising coin, that they shall he paid
in gold, as against the
EQUITABLE AND LAWFUL, CLAIM
or my constituents-that one of the
money metals of the Constitution
shall not be striker down after they
have crossed continent to explore
for 1t, and devoted their lives and
fortunes to its development and
production. 1 confront the charge
that they seek an unjust addition
of ten per cent. to the value of
silver by its remonetization. with