Arizona weekly citizen., 1890-01-04
A SILVER TONGUE
Does Service for Silver Speech of Hon. Thos. W. Fitch at the Silver Con veution.

Does Service for Silver Speech of Ho1 , Thos. W. Fitch at the Silver Go, a vention.
 At the national silver convention hel i recently at St. Louis, among other dbl speeches delivered, was the follewin from the Hon. Thos. Fitch, the "Silvs
 Tongued Orator" of the Southwest. A Mr. Fitch is we'll known in Tucson, hay ing been once a resident of the 'ol pueblo" it will be read with interest:
 MT. President and gentlemen os tn
 Convention-It is now sixteen year
 since the demonstration of silver wa l interpolated into the national laws During those sixteen years the curb O the monometalists had been frightened around the throat of the laborer. Dur ing all those years the vampire bats O finance have been increasing both thei power of suction and their capacity O gorging themselves. During all thos, years the rich men have been growing richer and the poor poorer. During al those years commerce has dallied anC dawdled and dawdled and dallied unti we are led to question whether the in terest of the people, or the interests oi Wall street are more potent at Washing ton. If we expect to accomplish the restoration of silver to it's former value we must carry our purposes into the do- main of practical politics. Applause. There is no party west of the Allsghsnies sufficiently strong to saddle itself with the continued robbery of the wheat farmers. LApplause.l
 There is no party in the Northern States sufficiently strong to identify it's self with the avowed hostility to the in- terests of the cotton planter. Applause. There is no party west of the Platt sui ficiently strong to deny justice to the silver miner. Applause.
 
 am not kere to complain that Mich igan lumber, Louisiana sugar, California raisins or Pennsylvania crowbars have been protected, but it cannot be denied that Congress has prostrated rather than protected our great industries of silver, of wheat and of cotton. For ten years the silver producers have begged both Democratic and Republican repre- sentatives in Washington to undo the wrong of 1873, and for ten years they have begged in vain. It is time now that the silver producers coalesce with the wheat growers and the cotton plant CTS. Applause. And without regard to previous conditions of political servl tuds Laughter and applause demand free coinage. And the benefit would not be confined to the silver miner, be- cause it would add, as you know, 8 per cent to the value of wheat and to the value of cotton. I mean that it would increase the wages of the laborer and add to his opportunity for employment, but it would not be confined to those classes. Why, in all Nevada there is neither a loom nor spindle. The prair- ies of Dakota stretch for hundreds of miles unllluminated by furnace fire. How can Massachusetts expect that the people of the northwest will con- tinue to vote for a higher protective tariff to sustain New England factories when both political parties in Massachu- setts openly avow hostility to the great export industries of the northwest. Applause. All the benefits of free coin age would not be confined to the miners and cotton growers and wheat growers, whose pocket nerves have vibrated with anguish for sixteen years under the con- strlctive touch of the laws of 1873
 
 From steamship to hairpin, from a cargo of sugar to spool of cotton, the value of every product of man s skill and industry depends upon the amount of human labor consumed in the produc- tion. The apparent debt of this nation is the number of dollars it owes; its real debt is the number of day's labor it will require to earn that number of dollars of debt that it owes Perhaps as people we have not sufficiently considered these clements of political economy, and in our occasional legislation we havo been to much inclined too listen to the coun- sells of bankers, who are supposed-I don't know why-to possess the financial W shoulders the credit and prosperity of this nation. I do not know why the Atlas that sustains the weight of the counter. l say that the creditors of the people who plough the fields, the people who sustain tho armies and bear the burdens of civil government will ~.% h<f 1f l A,,.I nor in the drawing rooms of fashion. They are hammering at the anvils, they are guiding the ships, they are hammer ing at anvils, they are at the forge, they are following the blow. they arc smiting the rock, they are toiling in the cotton field, they are busy in the work workshops. [Applausel
 1868 the amount of our national debt was S2611 ,G00O00. Wheat was worth S.129 per bushel, cotton 19 cents a pound, pork S27 barrel. We could have paid the national debt then with l, 400, 100000 bushels of wheat, 100,O00.000 barrels of pork, or 43,000,000 bales of cotton. Since 1868 we have paid in dollars S,4S0,O00,- 600 of the public debt, and there is now left in dollars to pay s1,113OO0,O00. But wheat, cotton and pork have gone down in price. It would take as many bussels of wheat, as many bales of cot ton, as many barrels of pork, as many days labor to p,y the balance now due of s1,113,O00,OO0 as would have sufficed in 1868 to pay the dept of S2,611, 100000. We have made about as much real pro- gress in paying the debt as did the god of Scandinavian mythology, who under took to drain drinking horn, but found it was connected with the ocean. Ap- plause
 *
 The fight for the restoration of silver is the fight of the debtors against the creditors, the laborer against the capital ist, of the poor against the rich. To day all over the northwest the farmer views with dismay the narrow margin between the cost and the income of his wheat fields, and wonders why it is that the prices of these things which he has to sell continue to fall in value so much