The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1892-09-03
The Greenback Party.

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The GreenbAck Party.
The gold-bug press of Nevada
says the Silver State, from long
continued habit, lies in season and
out of season, by day and by night
about General Weaver, in the hope
of catching a few honest votes fol
a goldbug candidate for president
1t parades the fact that Weaver ran
for president in 1880 on green
back platform, and then lyingly as.
serts that he is opposed to silver as
money. The following is the money
plank in the greenback platform
All money, whether metallic or paper,
should be issued and the volume con
trollcd by the government and not by or
through banking corporations, and when
so issued should he full legal tender for
all debts, public and private. That the
bonds of the United States should not be
refunded, but paid as rapidly rs practi
cable according to contract. To enable
the government to meet these obligations
legal tender currency should be substi
tuted for the notes of the national banks,
the national banking system abolished
and the unlimited coinage of silver, as
we'll as gold, established by law.
Here we have the explicit decla-
ration in favor of "the unlimited
coinage of silver, as we'll as gold, es-
tablished by law" There is no
straddling of the question in this
plank. 1t was not constructed to
be construed in the east as being
against silver, and in the west and
south as being in favor of it. But
it is plain and explicit declaration
in favor of The unlimited coinage
of both silver and gold, and can be
construed in no other way in any
section of the country. Every
branch of the Farmers Alliance and
of every labor organization repre-
scented in the Omaha convention,
sixty-tive thousand in number, has
an unequivocal declaration Of prin-
ciples. In the Omaha convention
nearly every branch of organized
labor in the United States was rep
resented by 1852 delegates in the
aggregate. There they organized
the Peoples party, and again re-
newed their fealty to the cause of
silver in the following language:
1--WE demand the free and un-
limited coinage of both silver and
gold at the present legal ratio Of 16
to l."
This plank requires no unabridg-
ed dictionaries or encyclopedias or
argument to ascertain it's meaning
1t means one and the same thing in
Nevada and New York, in Florida
and Minnesota. 1t is not like the
Minneapolis platform-made to be
construed to suit the policy of the
unscrupuluous and dishonest poll
ticians in their efforts to deceive the
people by constituting itin one place
as a free coinage plank and in an
other as a gold standard plank.
Even Mr.. Bartine claims that the
Minneapolis plank can be construed
to mean free coinage. AS well
might he undertake to construe the
of the United States as
establishing a kingly despotism in
stead Of a republican form of gov
eminent.
Not only was the greenback party
of 1880 in favor of the unlimited
coinage Of silver, but all the ele-
ments which composed the Omaha
we're in favor Of it, and
not only this, but they nominated
General Weaver. who stands to-day
head and shoulders above every
other free coinage man in the the
work for the white metal. He has
made more speeches in its be-
half than any other man. He has
done more to arouse public senti-
ment in its favor than all the friends
of silver in the silver-producing
states combind. lie is the first
man in congress who raised his
voice against the crime of 1873, and
the first to warn the country
against the caIamitous results
which have flown from that infamy.
For sixteen years he has on the
stump, lecture rostrum and With
his pen been pleading for the free
and unlimited coinage Of silver.
Notwithstanding all this, the
lean, lank and scrawny party tom
tits in Nevada advocate an electoral
ticket for Harrison and Cleveland
arch traitors to the people;
these base, fawning sycophants Of
the English and American plutoc-
racy; these base slaves and pro-
motors Of gold trusts, combines,
corporations and communistic
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