Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-03-03

i y
passage OF several penal laws to, do
this, and records on the same page
their utter failure. Laws of trade
will assert themselves; they are as
imperious as the laws'of nature.
Throughout this whole controve :
sy it has been assumed and urged
upon the public by the advocates OF
free silver, that great wrong WAS
done the debtor class by the act OF
1873, in that it required them to pay
in dearer metal debts that had
been created in cheaper; that in all
the preceding years silver was
equally with gold the money of the
country and the basis of contracts.
There is no greater fallacy.
In proof l submit a few figures !:
From 1898, the date on the first coin
age, to 1873, a period of eighty years,
there were coined in full legal'tender
silver only $84, 1852, 3l9, against coin
age of gold during the same period
of 1871 ,656, 54l, about one in silver to
nine in gold. From 1884 to 1878, Il
period of thirty-nine years, there
were coined in full legal-tender silver
only $4S, AT ,242, principally in, halves
and quarters for use as change,
against coinage in gold during the
same period of $769, ,651, about
one dollar in silver to sixteen in
gold. During the twenty years from
1858 to 1873 the coinage of gold and
full legal-tender silver was about
one hundred dollars of the one to
one dollar of the other. Thus you
see, from the establishment of the
mint the coinage of gold has been in
largely increasing ratio as COM
pared with that OF silver.
How completely these facts lcon-
tradict the reckless statement re-
ferred to above--a leading argument
of free silver advocates-I will trust
you to judge. They show, too, that
for forty years the people have net
wanted silver beyond their necessi-
ties for change, and that this latter
day cry for it is not in their interest.
It's hard to understand how anyone
of common intelligence can fail to
see that an act of Congress authoriz-
ing the free coinage of seventy cents
into legal tender dollar would be q
gigantic fraud, working incalculable
mischief to the whole country. The
evils that flow from a protective
tariff, great as they are, would di-
minish to insigniticance in the pres
ence of the evils such a measure
would turn loose. But leaving pre-
diction, listen to what celebrated
historian, recounting the realities of
the past, has to say of the evils of
debased currency: "While the
honor and independence of the State
were sold to foreign power, while
chartered rights were invaded, while
fundamental laws were violated,
hundreds of thousands of quiet, hon.
est and industrious families labored
and traded, ate their meals and lay
down to rest in comfort and security.
Whether Wings or Tories, Protes-
tants of Jesuits were uppermost, the
grazier drove his beasts to market
the grocer weighed out his currants
the draper measured out his broad
cloth ; the hum of buyers and sellers
was as loud as ever in the town the
narvest-home was celebrated as JOY
ously as ever in the hamlets; the
cream overlooked the pals of Ches,
hire; the apple-juice loaned in the
presses of Heretordshire the piles OF
crockery glowed in the furnaces OF
the Trent and the barrows of coal
rolled fast along the timber railway
of the Tyne. But when the great
instrument of exchange became thor
oughly deranged, all trade, all indus
try were smitten as with a palsy
Put one hundred cents into the
dollar, making, in the language of
the New York platform, "every dol
lar as good as every other dollar"
and no one will have ground of COM
plant. Why not? ENQUIRER.