Mexico weekly ledger., 1893-08-24

and Missouri will bear me witness,
the corn crop was such q failure
throughout all the corn states that
the farmers. had little or nothing
on which to winter their swine, and
thew shipped nearly all their hogs
including even their breeding stock,
whether fat or not, to market, and
aver since the country has been de.
oidedly short on hogs. That is all
there is of the exception to the rule
of downward prices, 80 a as nogs
are concerned, and which the gen.
tleman paraded here as an argu.
ment to prove that silver bad los
its purchasing power. But let MIN
make a note of the fact that a sill
yer dollar will buy as much pork
as a gold dollar any day IN the
week.
The demonstration of silver
helped nobody except those own
ing Government funds, and it in
iured everybody else.
The act of 1873 produced meal
culable bankruptcy, suffering and
sorrow throughout the land-par-
ticularly in agricultural states. Inc
people were aghast at the sudden
and awful ruin which so unexpect-
edly came upon them.
For example, a man who owned
s25. 600 worth of property and owed
$4,000 on it and was therefore
worth SIS, 900, went to bed at night
happy in the belief that he was
comfortably fixed financially and
awoke next morning to find himself
a pauper-for 80 great had been
the fall in prices that his s25.Oo
worth of property when sold un-
der the hammer would not bring
enough to pay the ten thousand OIL
his debt.
Hundreds of thousands of as hon
est and industrious men as ever
lived found themselves beggared
and the1r wives and children home
less and sheltefless by the most
diabolical act ever placed upon q
statute book. And though twenty
long, wearisome years have rolled
over their heads since then, tens
of thousands of them suffer from it
vet, and will continue to suffer
from it until they are placed under
| the sod.
The wasting by fire and sword OF
the Palatinate, the black ruin
wrought by the Duke OF Alva in
the Netherlands, the devastation OF
the Napoleonic campaigns, the 81
years war in Germany, the Z years
war which the mighty Frederick
waged against all Europe in arms
for the possession of Silesia, the
Crusades for the redemption of the
| Holy Sepulchre, the ware in which
Marlborough broke the power OF
Louis XIV-none of those singly,
nor all Of these combined. caused
as much loss of property and en-
tailed as much suffering on the
children of Adam as the crime OF
1878. 1t laid its paraiy zing hand
on every human being throughout
the whole civilized world who was
not possessed of a fixed income or
who was not loaded down with
gold bearingG Government securities
There has been no era of genuine
prosperity in this country since
The Bland act helped a little and
the energy of the American r. O.
pie, being unconquerable, has some
times forced a seeming prosperity;
but the trend of prices has been
constantly downward. which, &C.
cording to all political economists,
is an infalllble sign of the sinking
fortunes of a r alton; and there will
never be any substantial, perma-
nent prosperity in this country un-
til the people are furnished a vol
ume of money adequate to their
commercial wants, growing with
our growth, increasing with our
| population.
An old legend ran:
While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls-the world.
To this poetic prophesy. long
since fulfilled, I will add in sober
prose: "When the American farm
er is impoverished and the Ameri-
can lsborer can not fud remuner-
alive employment, the very life
blood of the epublic is being suck
ed from its VEINS" [Great ap-
plause
WHO ARE THE REPUDIAToRs?
The gentle men of the single gold
standard melt and dissolve in eatrs
when they consider the bare posi-
billty of b%ondholders being paid in
what they hippantly denounce as
the 5O-cent dollar; but they have
no bowels of compassion for those
who, if the single standard prevails,
will be compelled virtually to pay
two dollars fer every one which
they promise to pay.
The truth is that we are advocat
ing honesty and justice, and they
are advocating rank injustice and
extortion committed under the
guiss of law. Applause
They declaim grandilOquently
about unfolding national honor
and about the sanctity OF contracts.
They charge us with being repudi-
ationists. Now, VINO repudiated
the contract, the bond holders or
the people2 What was the con.
tract? How was 1t ''denominated in
the bond?" 1t was expressly pro
vided that they should be paid in
"lawful money! - which meant
gold, silver or paper, and this was
just, for their owners paid for them
In paper money worth 40 CENTS on
the dollar. Then. after the a.
was over, and they had the bonds
securely locked up, under the pre-
text of STRENGTHENING the public
credit'-that is the way they put
i,-not of STRENGTHENING the bank
account ofthe bondholders''Tlaugh
to, which is the way it ought to
have been put-they induced a
supple Congress to repudiate the