The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-12-25
SILVER.

silver mining being the great industr,
winch fetcnes money into Utah, gives EN-
ployment to so many hands and provides E
market for the products of our fields. gar
dens, factories and ranges, the readers O.
he CHRISTMAS HERALD will be pleased
When they run through these pages anc
note the progress which the industry has
made during the year, and the general
prosperity which attends that industry
IL may be said that silver minino
IN Utah is in more satisfactory condition
To-Day THAN at any time since
the discovery of the precious metal in
'hls territory quarter of a century ago.
This is accounted for in two ways: First.
In the elimination of the wildcat eIe-
ment In mining. There have been times
when the public was led to believe that
mining was in a Furnishing condition. and
that everybody who engaged in it was
prosperous, but when the end of the wear
came and the books were made I'D. it was
learned that the industry had been prose-
cuted largely on paper, and that what had
been doomed as mining was simply specu-
lation. The tendency of late wears has
DDS, and conduct mining as legitimate in
dustry. To-day our mines are worked for
what there is in them, for what they will
produce, and not for what they can be sold
for to ignorant or speculative buyers. The
owner looks for his profits in the vein. and
not in the pocket of the capitalist, the re-
suit being the working of the ledge. and
not the manipulation of the man of money
who knows nothing of mines. There is
very little use here for the %promoter',-
the man whose profession is the selling of
mines or prospects after they have been put
in shape for exhibition purposes.
The other cause for the better showing
which the mining industry makes is the
activity in the free coinage movement.
Great progress has been made in this mat
ter Agitation has about completed it's
work. The country has very nearly been
convinced that great wrong was done
when silver was demonetized, and the feel
ing is that the wrong can be made right
only by the complete restoration of silver
to the position which it occupied IN our
system before the creditor class
succeeded in reducing silver from money
metal to a commercial commodity. The
last Congress felt the temper of the Ameri
can people and was disposed to do some
thing towards undoing the mischief that
had been wrought, but failed through the
opposition of an anti-silver administration
and the powerful influence of the money!
lenders. The silver question was some |
thing OF factor in the campaign which |
eliminated in the election of the present
Congress, the majority of the members of
which represent silver constituencies. It
It is absolutely certain that free coinage
dill will pass both houses, although it is
doubted that it can become law, as the
veto cannot be overcome. How
ever, the certainty that in the near future
silver will be restored to its rightful place
IS money metal, the discrimination
against it being removed and gold no
onger having legal or commercial ad-
rantage, has encouraged mining men and
stimulated the industry until the business
las been brought to its present Furnishing
Free coinage will do the rest, opening
many mines which cannot now be worked
Employing hundreds of hands, increasing