The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-11-22

in no way so as to prevent them from fighting to
the death any candidate for speaker OF the
House OF Representatives not fully IN accord
with those who demand that the wrong done the
country by the decentralization of silver shall be
righted by the most direct means.
In justification Of our position we submit the
following statement OF facts:
Since history began to make a record of hu,
man events, each advance and retreat Of civil
cation can be measured by the amount of money
in circulation among the people. Allison, nearly
forty ears ago, says: :.
The fail of the Roman empire, so long as
scribed, III ignorance, to slavery, heathenlSm
and moral corruption, was in reality brought
about by decline in the silver and gold mines
OF Spain and Greece"
Jacob, the historian OF the precious metals,
makes an estimate that at about the time OF the
Christian era there was 81, 5tO.0OOOOO of coined
money in Rome, the product mostly OF the mines
of Spain and Greece. Shortly after this period
these mines began TO fail ana in few years al
most entirely ceased TO yield. Then the prices
of money began to rise, the price Of property to
fall, then business began to cease to pay because
property bought was sure to be worth less in
wear; then men who owned debts could not pay
them OF that period a noted writer says:
Wealth in the form of money became con-
gested in a few hands: society became the mere
parasite of few money houses; this was fol-
| lowed by every excess Of social Generalization;
the worship of money began 10 show itself in the
adulation OF the money proprietors; the cultiva-
ton OF the soil being 10 longer profitable, was
neglected: the people Hooked into the towns,
and so it was that the vices and eneminacy OF
corrupt capital we're substituted for those na
tiCnal virtues which had adornt majestic civil
lization 7 m the Euphratess o the Moth sea" =.
Is not that fair photograph of what has feen
going on il our own country since 1873?
The rural districts Of the great states between
the Atlantic and the Mississippi have scarcely
increased at all in population since the last CEN
sus was taken; the young men and women are
fiocking TO the cities to live by their wits; the
mortgages on the farms have increased beyond
all former experience; the daily press reports
the selling of noble farms all over the middle
states through mortgage foreclosures: from New
England comes reports of the abandonment of
ancestral homes by scores; the Boston Globe
says as things are tending the masses of the peo-
pie will soon be but tenants on the farms they
once owned; the increase of insanity and crime
is the despair OF humanitarians and peace Off
GERS; wages are steadily falling, strikes and
lockOuts are every day affairs, and the burden OF
the daily dispatches Is made up of accounts of
horrible or unnatural crimes. II this has come
about in seventeen years, what wonder that in
the swing OF the centuries the men of western
Europe passed down into the dark ages?
When Columbus started on his first voyage all
the money in Europe was less than two hundred
million dollars; less than is yielded by our west
ern mines every three years, ana the condition
OF all the people of Europe was most deplorablet
In few years after the mines of Peru and
Mexico began to yield, the silver age" set in.
Values increased sudnedly 400 per cent, and the
intelligence OF the people began to increase as
fast as their property values. OF the change
Professor CairneS says:
1.-The influx Of silver from America rendered
possible that remarkable expansion of Oriental
trade which forms the most striking feature of
the age that followed"
But by the beginning or the present century
the yield Of the silver mines OF the CordllleraS
and the Andes and Of the gold mines Of Brazil
had greatly fallen of, and then followed another
period of contraction and low prices The
United States was exceedingly poor when the
placerS Of California were discovered. With
the flow Of gold from those placers prices
doubled all over the eastern states, and a thou
G. m cot thpi
started in glorious motion. Even the great war
could not retard the onward sweep of prosper
ity. The volume OF money was kept up nearly
to the volume OF business, and labor had its hon
est reward.
But when all was peace and prosperity when
silver, on equal terms with gold, commanded q
STEALTH by cursed conspiracy in the interest OF
the creditor class, silver was demonetiZed Debts
which were made payable in silver were, by an |
arbitrary edict of the government, made pay |
able in gold, and though prosperity in all ages |
of the world has followed an increase of money, !
and depression and disaster have followed its |
contraction, the blow aimed by the robbers was |
nothing less than to destroy half the money of |
the world. They have, up TO this time, reduced |
values 50 per cent and taken from the debtor !
almost his entire capacity to pay. Why SHOULD |
we not denOunce the act as merciless usurpa- |
ton and as wholesale robbery, and demand |
that il and every other act that by word or i'm |
plica1on casts dlShonor upon silver shall be re-
pealed!
Inc royal precious metal commission winch |
sat for months in England unanimously agreed
that the fall OF prices was due solely TO the de
monetiZation of silver by Germany and the |
United States; the ablest witnesses called be- |
fore that commission pointed out that the fall in
prices was universal, and there was no conceal |
ment OF belief that the continued demonetiZa |
ton of silver would bring utter ruin to the agri-
culturlStS OF the United States, for 1t was plain
to them that men who live in good houses wear
clothes and educate their children cannot dom
pete on equal terms with wretches who for thou
sands of years have been training themselves for
q perpetual warfare vi h want.
BY the decentralization of silver England was
made the dictator of the price OF silver. Think !
of an American Congress, when silver was al a
premium over gold, when England YVES coming |
10 us and paying premium in her SovereignS /
for our silver, think OF our Congress declaring |
that the chief function OF silver should forever
be taken from il; that henceforth the Ameri- |
can miner should have no home market for |
silver, but should trust to the tender mercies |
OF London brokers for their market and this |
too, only ten years after Nevada silver had |
held the credit OF the nation solid before the |
world.
Well, England by clingng to the gold stan
diri and trading with her debtor colony India |
which has a silver standard has gradually |
closed the markets of Europe against the world |
for all products that India can supply, and has !
brought the American laborer into direct COM |
petition with the Wretched creatures who in |
India toll for 81 q month Why should We not |
demand that this degradation and loss shall at |
once ceaseE
We of the west know why gold and silver have !
been termed the precious metals 1t is not only |
because OF their indeStrucubility and perfect |
ductility, but because the experience OF thirty I
centuries has demonstrated that they are not |
only the only perfect measure of values but they
also labor exactly. More they make /.
labor immortal. The silver in a dollar to-day !
may be of the shekels that Abraham paid for "a |
burial place for his wife; IL has not changed in al
the rolling ages.
MOreoverit has been reduced to an exact fact |
that the labor OF this world-the only thing that
counts in this wOrld-it costs the same to mine |!
4l2 grains Of silver that it does to mine % $40
grains OF gold, and the sum of each. measured |
by that labor IS dollar. No legislation can |
change that value at least cannot change the !
power of either silver or gold and .
when either metal Is d!Sgraccd by legislation, |
poverty and sorrow are sure 10 follow.
WAY then should we not demand that the Z
silver dollar which the IA hers made the unit OF
values shall be restored to its ancient sovereign I
place without restriction by any law, the perfect .
measure Of values and the perfect legal tender
for all Indebtedness"
Professor Holden was aware that there was n .
good deal Of thought expended upon these reso ;
lutionS. Their circulation should not be CON
fined to the western states. but they should be .
put in pamphlet form, and presented 10 the ,
silver convention in st. Louis
On motion il was decided that 1000 copies of
the resolutions and accompanying address, be /
printed for circulation at the st. Louis cOnven-
ton.
The committee on organization Of permanent
silver association were given further time IN
which TO report, and recess was taken until
o'clock.
The Afternoon Session.