The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-10-26
SPEECH OF SENATOR PLUMB
At the Crawford Grand Opera House,
Wichita, Kansas, October %, go.

NlCu1bd1 hducdcg OObODSA HOg W.
Mr.. Chairman Ladies and Gentleman. Fellow Citi-
zens Of Sedgwick County,
have always found great pleasure in
coming to Wichita; first, because in all my
political aspirations | have enjoyed the
cordial and effective support of all her peo-
pie during that period. / am glad to come
TO Wichita because in this western country
Wichita represents what Mr.. Conkling so
aptly said of Gen. Grant, the ''arduous
greatness of things done.
| feel when am in Wichita that am in
the current of things, betokening growth.
prosperity and all the things that go to
make the typical American common
wealth.
Two years ago Just about this time
came to urge those who heard me to vote the
Republican ticket, from president down
TO constable. / presented then, as best l
could the reasons why | thought Grover
Cleveland and his party ought TO be beaten.
presented here as best | might, the things
that / thought might result from the over
throw OF the Democratic party and again
bring into power the Republican party. [
come here tonight, fellow citizens, TO tell
you in part what has resulted, and leave
you to Judge whether the change that
your votes wrought in November, 1888, was
worth doing
AT that time arraigned, as properly /
ought to have done, the administration of
Grover Cleveland: which increased the peo-
pies debt by contracting the currency do
ing wrong TO the great mass of the Amer
ican people for the benefit Of the few. /
come here to say tonight that the evil
which was then done, has been largely
repaired by Republican administration,
and that the function which the general
government has assumed Of controlling
the volume and fixing the character of the
Of hp IL thA ttnla NVIGa
judicious and calculated to, in large
measure, if not wholly repair the injury
done to the country under the preceding
administration. 1t had been bru-
tai, unjust 10 the Union soldier and
] come TO say tonight that a long step
has been taken in the direction of jus ice
10 the comrades: and step which II Ben
famine Harrison had not been elected
never would have been taken. lApplause.
The administration of Grover Cleveland
either wickedly or unadvlsedly, or both,
withdrew from the uses of the people
more than one hundred millions of dollars
during the four years of its tsencumbency of
the money which by law had been pro-
vided for use the circulation of which was
material TO the best interests of the people.
The Republican administration, adj
dressing itself TO that question, has not
only paid out of the treasury since Cleve-
lands administration the money boarded
there beyond the needs of the government,
but by judicious legislation, which / do
not hesitate TO say is the grandest improve
ment of the kind the country ever wit
messed, has provided that hereafter there
shall be each month, until better is done,
a large and permanent addition to the cur
rency of the country, whereby the burden
of taxes will not be increased and whereby
the business of the country will have of
money, its life-blood, an increased volume,
substantially adequate TO meet the demands
of the country. Aud how is that done?
in the first place it is done by passing an
act one of the provisions of which re-
quires the disbursement of more
than sixty millions of dollars then
held in the treasury unnecessarily,
congress thought, for the redemption of
bank notes, whereby a vast amount was
taken out of the treasury and put into the
channels of business. BY further pro-
vision that the secretary of the treasury
each and every month, not this month or
next month, not this year or next year, but
indefinitely, shall purchase four and half
million ounces of silver, and for il shall
issue, not silver certificates | beg you to
observe, not piece of paper which cannot
be in the highest sense of the term called
money, but piece of paper receivable by
the government for all debts due it, in
cluding customs duties, to be used as a
part of the bank reserve; and a money
which is a legal tender between individu-
ais. This money, these bills to be issued
in payment Of silver, is just as much mon-
ey here, or elsewhere in the wide world, as
the gold dollar is or has ever been. Ap-
plause And yet, have in my hand as a
testimony to one of the effects of
it. a leading editorial published in the
New York sun on the 2lst day of last
August, "A Democratic paper which says
that the passage of the silver bill up 10
that date, only a short time after il passed,
only a few days after IT, took effect, that
that silver bill had added one hundred
million dollars to the value of the agri-
ricultural products of the United States
then on hand. Great applausel. Can
there be conceived of a wiser and more
benevolent piece of legislation than one
that could thus add TO the value of the
agricultural products of the United States9
But that was all apart from and in addi-
tion to much which comes from the per-
maneuJ distribution of the money pro-
vided for by the bill The agricultural
products as stated by this article, and it is
well attested by all those schooled in such
matters. grew out of the increase in value
OF the silver by the passage of that law,
whereby the price of wheat in London was
immensely increased and the price of
silver immensely increased, TO the cores
responding benefit of the man who pro-
Now il has been said that that law, per-
init me to say, was voted for by every sin
gle Republican in both branches of con-
grass and voted against by every single
Democrat in both houses OF congress. IL
is entirely safe TO say, as | said before, that
if there had been a Democratic congress,
or if there had been a Democratic house of
representatives, and if there had been
Democratic president, rs there was during
the four years of Cleveland's administra-
tion, no such law. nor any other law in
tended TO accomplish the same result,
would ever have been passed. Mr.. Cleve-
land, the leader of his party, said by the
to he even better than his
party. was 30 opposed TO silver as money
that before he took the oath of Office he
addressed an open letter to the members
of his party i'm the lower house in which he
pictured the dire evils that would come TO
the country from the further adoption of
silver as money, and all through his ad
he berated silver or the coin
age of it. The coinage of it at
81 000,O0 per month was discouraged and
was asked to abandon it: and when
in the third year of his term, the senate
passed a bill, moved by myself. TO put sill
yer certificates in the place of the silver
dollar; and the Democratic house of repre-
not only returned the bill but
did so at the request of the president. |
siil NuIAdhlttl lli StA AilB II ulS party ndu
come back into power this legislation of
which | have spoken, and this act, the
benefits Of which are TO 90 on and on and
on in the years TO come, would never have
been enacted.
Some people who are anxious TO criticize
say, why not give us free coinage of silver?
j moved and voted for the free coinage Of
silver, and the senate of the United States !
by vote of nearly two TO one. adopted the !
Now let me say If free coin
age alone, sticking to the text, had been |
adopted with nothing else. il would not |
have been as wise as the bill that was /
nhnntel And NyhNs RAcansn II we haa |