Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1891-02-14

Democratic party the responsibility
of change in the standard of all
values, and feel that it as IA party is
responsible for the disaster and ruin
which would follow such legislation,
they would soon forget our enormous
services in fighting their battles
against protective tariff robbery and
fairly smother us at the polls. We
now have and we deserve the conf
dence Of the people, but if we yield
to the temptation so shrewdly placed
before us by our Republican oppo>
nents, and embrace this new heresy,
under the mistaken idea that 1t is
popular, we shall soon see our we'll
earned laurels snatched from us. In
the first place, free coinage is not pop
ular, and if it were it could not res
main so, because it is contrary to hu>
man experience and in conflict with
common sense. Just now, along
with some very excellent and honor
able men, we find a multitude ofpaid
agents and subsidized writers filling
the air with din and noise, but when
the intelligent and level>headed
voters examine this question, you
will find they will spew it out OF
their mouths, and along with it any
party which sustains it. l would like
the readers of the News-Democrat,
very many of them my old friends
and neighbors, to remember that l
predict now that if the Democratic
party is untrue to its traditions and
old-time faith in sound currency it
will march to the rear just as it did
when It turned its back on hard
money and went a whoring after
greenbacks. For years after that the
Democratic party eat of the husks
and warmed itself with ice, while
Republicans enjoyed the corn, wine,
and oil, and the same fate is ahead Of
US if on this silver question if we are
untrue to the people. have no OBJ
jectiOns to the free coinage of silver
if it is not given legal tender quali-
ties, or if we insist that 100 cents
worth of silver be put in it, make it a
Democratic dollar, an honest coin
worthy of a great nation and fit for
an enlightened people; but l would
rather return to private life at the
close of my first term in Congress
than vote to cheat and rob the people
who have honored me by election, in
forcing them to take in return for
their labor or property debased and
degraded coin at the demand and
under the lash of public opinion
created by an interest whose object is
to rob the public in order to fill their
private Golfers with the plumber. If
l am wrong why will they not con-
sent to make their dollar worth a dol.
lar?
Reporter-What do you think
ought to be done with the silver
: question?
Mr.. Harter-I believe we had bet
ties let the present law alone for a
while, and as it now coins a little
more silver (perhaps $5,0O0,0OO per
year, than all our mines produce and
as all the profits IN it now goes to the
Government (the whole people, no
reasonable complaint can arise, but
speaking my mind l would cease to
coin light weight dollars and from
and after say the end Of the fiscal
year would aim to put as nearly as
possible 100 cents worth Of silver into
each silver dollar leaving the minis
Of the United States. | would give
an honest dollar to an honest people
l believe that money to a country
is what tools are to mechanic, and ]
would supply the people of the Unit
ed States with as good money as any
nation on earth has, and it will be
very easy to do it. 1 would preach
the doctrine that anything calling ii,
self dollar, and worth less than one
hundred cents in the markets of the
, world, is cheat and a swindle, anC
f that the "cheap" dollar is only an
other cunning device for fertilizins
the rich mans field with the poo
mans sweat.
l had slight stroke of paralysis
which frightened me very much
: My health was poor and the doctors