Mexico weekly ledger., 1893-08-17
HON. W. IL. kENNAN's VIEWS.
lie RayOrs Himetaliism Bat Wants
SILVER and told Dollars to he OF
Equal Purchasing PoWer-His
speech at the Silver Meet
Ing on Saturday.

GENTLEMEN: | have been reading
and thinking within the past few
weeks and | find that the silver
question, as it is commonly called,
is an intricate one. The people of
the great and growing west are very
partial to silver and are generally in
favor of double standard with the
present ratio of 16 to 1. | am
strongly in favor of double stand
ard, provided you make the silver
dollar equal to the gold dollar in
purchasing power and keep both
gold and silver at par-that is, keep
one equal to the other. If the
true ratio is 16 to l between gold
and silver, then that ratio ought to
be fixed; but if it is not, then the
true ratio ought to be found and
by law adopted. Some insist that
we can take the present Bland dol
lar, 16 to 1, though not equal to a
gold dollar, and by reason of having
the government stamp, it will per-
form the office of a dollar that is
coined equal. Such dollar we
can use at home, but can we use it
all over the world? l answer, we
cannot, for the reason all the ma
tions of the world, including Eng
land, Germany, Norway, Sweden,
Denmark, Holland, Russia, Aus
tria, Hungary, Roumania and
the Latin Union, composed
of France, Italy, Belgium,
Switzerland, Greece, (and recently
India) have adopted the gold
standard, using sub-ordinary silver
coin only as change, leaving the
United States, Mexico and the
South American Republics the only
countries in the civilized world that
continue to purchase and coin sill
yer into legal tender money. Ma
tions are like individuals; in order
to exist and prosper they must
necessarily have commercial inter-
course with one another. They
must sell to and buy from one an
other Telegraphy and the modern
appliances of steam and electricity
have brought the nations Of the
world close to one another and
made them next door neighbors.
And in order to carry on the trade
which is SO necessary for the sus-
tenence and prosperity of each ma
ton, the money that must be used
in making the interchange of COM
modities must be of equal purchas-
ing power; thence it logically fol-
lows, if we must coin and use the
silver dollar we must coin it of
su fficient value in order to give it
purchasing power equal to the gold
dollar, which is the standard of every
9th er nation on the globe; for if we
do not make the silver dollar equal
to the gold dollar in value and pur-
chasing power, and continue to
coin silver dollars in unlimited
quantities of less values, the gold
being the dearer of the two
metals, will cease to be used and
silver will be the only money, and
when we undertake to pay our ma
tional and individual obligations
in. foreign countries, they having
gold standard, we will find our
selves with deprecated currency,
probably not worth more than go
cents on the dollar. Mexico is in
this condition. She has unlimited
coinage of silver. She is forced to
buy from other nations, mostly from
England and Germany, gold stand
ard countries. Her gold supply is
exhausted. She is forced to offer
her deprecated silver at a ruinous
discount and the Mexican merchant,
in order to get even, has to mark
up his purchases and make his
customers pay the loss caused by
reason of a deprecated currency.
India was in the same condition.
For one year alone her loss on ex-
change was 7S,000,0 ,0O0rupees-in
our money $50, 100000. She
could not bear the loss any longer,
and in order to be in line with the
countries with which she traded,
she adopted the gold standard.
We would rather that the nation
had not adopted the gold standard;
but finding it so, we must adapt
ourselves to the existing condition
in order to maintain our national
as we'll as our individual credit and
save to ourselves a heavy loss by
making both silver and gold equal
in purchasing power.
James Williams, a tramp, is now
in Jail charged with burglarlzing the
residence of Hardisty brothers, north
east of Mexico. Squire Winscott
bound him over to the grand Jury.