The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1892-07-09
IGNORANCE OF THE SILVER CUES
TON.

The TRIBUNE must aver that since free
silver coinage has become an issue it has
not seen a line in a gold bug exchange
which can by the most violent construc'
ton be tortured into a reasonable argu.
ment in favor of a single gold standard
1t is furthermore constrained to say that
there is a greater accumulation Of dense
ignorance upon the part of leading jour.
mails in the east concerning the silver
question than there possibly can be upon
any other question before the American
people. We have looked for months
yes, for years-in the gold-standard
newspapers of the larger eastern cities
for well defined, clear-cut arguments
showing that free silver coinage would
prove a detriment to this country or that
reasons do not exist for a trial Of its
practicability. We have looked in vain.
We have seen it stated and restated
that free coinage would unsettle-de-
moralize the business of the country,
but the statement has never been &C.
companied by facts and figures to prove
it. 1t has been iterated and reiterated
that free coinage would disarrange all
values and produce a monetary panic,
but not a line has been written to sup
port the declaration. 1t has been as
serted and reasserted that free coinage
would drive all our gold out of the coun-
try and make it the dumping ground for
foreign silver, but not a scintilla of evil
dence has been brought out in support
of it.
All these newspapers are regarded as
great journals. And so they are. They
have large monied corporations behind
their backs. They sank thousands, some
of them hundreds OF thousands of dol
lars before they were placed upon a pay
ing basis. They are in the centers of
%populous states. They have an immense
field in which to work They have i'm
proved it and have become great news
papers as the world measures newspapers.
They are out of debt. They are absorbers
not producers of money. They take it in;
not give it out. They, and the great
money pow er behind them, want dear
money-gold, and the dearer it is the
better it is for them. They can buy
more with a little.
But they are great newspapers. They
publish all the news that can be picked
up all over the world. They have cor
respondents everywhere and some of
them have wires of their over which
they receive the happenings of the hour
and the day. They can afford all this
for they have an immense circulation.
People take and buy their papers be-
cause they are good newspapers. They
grow rich and fat on advertising. One
column in a New York newspaper brings
the owners $4,000 a year. But they
are great newspapers.
But, dear reader, when that is said, all
is said. Their opinions expressed upon
the editorial page are the opinions of
men-sordid, money making men, who
stand behind the newspapers. They buy
brains as one buys brains at a restaurant
at so much a plate. Some Of them are
sharp-some deep. All are educated
and all are supposed to be well versed in
the great questions of the day. 1t is
presumed they are, for are they not edi-
tors of great newspapers!
But take them all; the editors of all
the great dailes of the great cities of the
east and we will pick up the first gray.
shirted miner in Montana we meet and
show a man who knows more about the
silver question than all of them put to-
gether if their writings truthfully evil
dence their knowledge OF it. And yet
the masses of eastern and northeastern
labOring men and farmers accept the
opinions of their great dailies as law and
gospel. 1t seems to be enough for them
to know that their favorite daily paper
denounces free silver coinage. They yell
against silver in harmony with it. The
glamour of greatness blinds them to
reason. What fools these mortals be-"