Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1879-07-25

for over six months past. We have had,
moreover, for three years past two un-
paralleled favorable COincldences-enOr-
nous crops at home and great lorelgn
demand for our surplus. The Repub-
lican party did not give us these two
blessings. A kind Providence, looking
down in pity on the industrial distress
inflicted by the ingenuity OF theorists
and usurers, relieved its asperlty by
bounteous harvests at home and eager
markets abroad. But for our self-intilct-
ed troubles, these great crops would
have flushed our country with eXhuber-
ant prosperity. But in spite of these
good providences, in contradiction OF
all the pledges OF gold resumptiOnists,
which led the people to a patient but
longing endurance of their trials, the
promised prosperity has not come.
The paDer dollar is equal to the gold
dollar, but the gold dollar is ingeniOusly
kept boarded in the Treasury. The
money actually current is no greater
now, if as great, as it was one or two
years ago. Every little debt you owe
still nettles you. Every large debt still
threatens YOU with the loss OF your
home, your farm, your factory, or your
store. Every tax YOU pay calls for more
labor or product than before. Wages do
not increase, labors still hunt for en-
ployers instead of employers seeking la
borers, and it is at last becoming appar-
ent that the condition OF things last year
and the wear before is TO become the
permanent condition under established
: 4 1 80 l.,l,,. n,,l
GOLD PRICES oNE-THIRD LOWER THAN b.
METALLIC PRICES.
Fellow-citizens, when the Republican
party started to lead the people by con-
traction 20 the promised land OF specie
payments it never talked about gold
prices and gold resumption, but only OF
''sDecie payments" which meant resump-
ton in silver and gold-eaCh equally the
dollar, the unit, the full legal tender.
Contraction of currency and shrlnkage
of values were not thought by anybody
TO be intended by the stealthy manipu-
lators OF our currency to bring prices
below the bi-metallic level. But the
demonetization of silver in Germany
and the United States, and the initial
steps of decentralization by the States OF
the Latin Union, practically de-
stroycd the chief part OF the
silver half of the currency OF the great
nations, and caused such increased de-
mand for the gold half that the purchas-
ing power of gold rose between 1874 and
December, 1878, a little over 90 per
cent. throughout the commercial world.
In other words, the gold prices OF land,
labor, and property throughout the
world sunk over 81 per cent. Our peo-
pie, therefore, were not led back by the
resumptionists to the bi-metalic level OF
prices, but in place of the double stand
ard the single gold standard was set up,
and that so increased in value that 1t
cost any man 30 per cent. more in land,
or labor, or products, to pay in gold a
debt of one hundred dollars in Decem-
Der. 1873, than it would have cost in
1874. That is, 80 per cent. was added
bv the dcmouetzatIOn OF silver TO all the
debts and all the taxes payable by the
people of the United States. | do not
make this statement at random, but
from tables of prices elaborately pre-
pared each year by the Ner York Pubic,
the highest authority in the United
States on prices of commodities. have
made the same statement twice on the
floor of Congress, and no man has ques-
toned its accuracy.