St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-11-28

commanded premium over SOid, ana Ihe
land was prosperous. BY indirect means,
silver was dethroned from it's sovereign place
as money. In four years there was crush
ing depression all over the Eastern States of
our Republic; industry was paralyzed every
where. and 1000 tramps were marching up
and down the land. The passage of the Bland
law, though unfair and unjust to silver par
TALLY restored it to its old place and prestige,
and Immediately the wheels of industry be-
gan to roll return to specie payments was
made possible, the paper evidences OF
money owned by the government advanced
$50, 000000. values were equalized every
where throughout the Union, and such pros
perity followed for five years as no land ever
enjoyed before. In the meantime there was
a steady flow of gold to our country from
abroad until the amount in circulation was
doubled and the great debt melted away at
the rate of s5O,OOO,OOO per annum. But the
dishonest warfare upon silver continued. The
banks would not receive it, and they were as
sisted by each Succeeding secretary of the
treasury, until the practical decentralization
of silver has again been accomplished, and
silver, together with labor and property in ev-
cry form, has been beaten down 20 per cent.
compared with gold until now the capacity
to pay any debt with labor, or with the pro-
duct of soil, or loom, or any form of property,
has been so reduced that it takes five days la
Dor to pay what four days labor paid five
bushels Of wheat, or FIVE bales of cotton, or
five yards of cloth to pay for what four OF
either paid for when silver was at premium
over gold. 1t is clear that the property OF
the country is being transferred from the
millions of toilers and borrowers of money to
the thousands who loan money; from working
capital to fixed capital; and the shrinkage OF
value is causing commercial asphyxia.
We are told that to fully rehabilitate silver
will result in the punishment of gold. The
results of the past eight years directly refute
that proposition: but If it were true, the
answer would be, s'Only the rich have gold
now 1t would be better, even for them, for
the millions of workers and producers, to
have silver than to have no money at all -
We demand, too, that there shall be no change
in the weight of the 4l21a-grain dollar. 1T
will buy as much as it could have bought
when silver stood at full par with gold: Its
present apparent depreciation is due solely to
secret and dishonest legislation. TO concede
that its weight should be changed would be
but rewarding past wickedness and Offering
a premium for further legislation of the
same kind. The representations of evils
to follow a complete RECOMMENDATION Of silver,
INDUCED in BY single-standard advocates, are
exploded by a single fact. In the anti-silver
convention, known as the Bankers conven-
ton, held in Chicago few weeks since, the
ablest advocate of the dangers to follow q
further coinage of silver stated that the limit
of silver now held in Europe and the United
States amounts to S1,1OO, 900, 6O0 Assuming
that his figures were correct. were all the
silver of Europe to be dumped upon the
United States and to enter into our coinage,
we would then lack money enough to make
our total money per capita equal to the per
capita of France by $500, 000,0 600. Europe
could not spare US 500, OOO,000 without adj
vancing the price to par with gold. Europe
is not silver-producing region. 1t has to
depend upon the United States and Spanish
America for its annual supply, and were we
to absorb merely the product of our own
country for a single year that action alone
would compel an advance of fifteen points in
Europe.
In reply to the charge that those who adj
vocate silver coinage are interested in silver
mining, the address says that if that were
so, they would merely ask for a tariff on
silver as they do on lead. They say that
silver has always been the money of the
masses, and that they only ask for what
has been conceded through all the ages
since the dawn of civilization and the com
mencement of commerce among men. In
conclusion the address refers to the fact
that we owe an interest bearing debt of
81, 200, 600. 600, and besides legacy of the
war in the shape of debt of 1916, 900, 900
in legal tender notes, and yet the tinanciers
insist that the only honorable way to deal
with that debt is to destroy half of our real
money, so that it would require 30 per cent.
more of what we now have with which to
pay the debt than we had when the debt
was contracted.