Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-12-05
A Deadly Blow to the Friends of
silver.


itate towards the West, but it is very
careful to know its man. Of course, Mr..
Cleveland being New Yorker, naturally
held the ideas concerning that metal
popular in the Empire State. The same
thing prevailed with Mr.. Arthur. The
chsgrin Of the silver men is great, how
ever, when they find that, no matter how
far West the President may hail from, he
invariably turns up with Secretary Of the
Treasury in sympathy with Wall street,
which is notably the case with Mr.. Win
dom. The President. of the Bank of
France and Baron Lionel de Rothschild,
in common with numerous other dis
finsnciers, have not hesitated
to express the opinion that the remone-
tization of silver was the great need Of
the commercial world; and, although
silver is one of our leading pro-
ducts, the President of the United
States is found dsmning 1t with faint
praise. 1t will be interesting to hear
what Senators Jones and Stewart, and
their fellow Senators from Colorado,
North and South Dakota and other States
interested in silver will have to say-or
rather what they will think-of the
Presidents cavalier treatment Of their
pet theories, which the whole people Of the
West, Northwest and South share, by the
way. Free coinage of silver. if it passes at
all, will have to pass over the Presidents 3
veto. 1t is doubtful if the utmost efforts
of the friends of the Bland
bill will be able to COM
pei the purchase and coinage Of
the maximum amounts, 900, Cooper
mitted by the present law. In the
House of Representatives large
majority could be obtained for
the passage of resolution re-
questing such action, but it is verv doubt
full if it could get majority in the Sem
ate. The great drawback encountered by
the silver men is in the generally covert
but sometimes outright hostility to silver
on the part of the very men who should
give it hearty moral and official sup
port. These public functionaries instead ol
saying, "Here ia your silver dollar it is
just as good as a gold dollar; it ought
never to have been demonetizsd, and it
will soon be running neck and neck with
it's yellow rival all over the world; it
bears the imprint of the United States,
and this government is determined to
stand by it, accredit it and receive it TO,
all it's Dues" they have in effect really
advised people, both at home and
abroad, to look upon it with extreme dis
trust. They have gone even further,
and have indicated their impatience
at having to store it in Washington, set
ting up querulous complaints because the
large stock of that coinage, necessarily
held at the national capital as the basis
of the silver certificates, compelled the
building of an extra storage vault. When
the men who should have been, under
the law, the champions of silver, be.
trsyed it in this peculiar fashion, it is
small wonder that silver has failed to re.
gain its old status. Treated fairly and
squarely by the officials of the government
of the United States silver, through the
cooperation of France and the other
nations of the Latin Union, would be at
par with gold within year. Such a
course would encourage the large and in
fuentisl clientele in England which
favors restoring silver to its old
status, and which, to the sur
prise of many, includes no less a
man than the President of the Bank Of
England. In Germany, even, there
is a big movement in the same
direction. With the directness and
pliancy of a true disciple of Wall
street, President Harrison places himself
in the way of this movement and demon.
strates himself to bs the enemy of the
great West and Of the debtor classes OF
the whole world. If it shall ever be
President Harrison's fortune to run for
second term, when it comes to the
votes of the States of the Pacific Slope
he will hear something drop. His darling
new commonwealth will go to make
up the weight of the bolt which will
crush out his political life. The resent
ment against him will be all the more
intense because, being himself Western
man, he ought to have Western sympa-
thies, though instead he is even super.
serviceable in his devotion to the Gotham
Mammon. With Harrison, Window and
Reed all arrayed against our leading
treasure product, its friends will be put
to their trumps to make any headway.