Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1894-10-04
TIE FIGHT ON SILVER.

Gov Brown, of Georgia, States tho Silvc
Question In Some Plain Words.
During the congressional campaign
in Georgia in 1878, in which the ques
ton of gold resumption was leading
one, Gov, Joseph &C. Brown, at the re
quest of his constituents, wrote u ring
ing letter, which the Atlanta Gonstitu'
ton summarizes in late edition as
applicable to the present situation.
Gov. Brown stated that he was OPP
posed to the decentralization Of silver
and to the immediate forced resump'
tion of gold payments. He believed in
both gold and silver as the true basis
of our currency, and held that the
banks and the government should be
required to redeem their bills in gold
or silver, or both, 1t was his opinion
that an immediate return to specie pay
ments would put the debtor class en-
tirely at the mercy Of the creditor
class, 1t would cause shrinkage OF
values and ruin the debtors TO require
them after certain day, before the
DNIiOAl VI lllitlllpl Nhn bNbA1 w yul III
gold the debts contracted on an intla-
ton basis. Such policy would work
general ruin to the debtor class because
it would give those who had boarded
gold an advantage which they would
be certain to use in speculation, lie
referred to the fact that in England,
after the Napoleonic wars, there was
forced resumption on particular day
The result was almost universal bank
ruptcy. He who held mortgage on
his neighbours land for one,half its
value foreclosed and sold it, and there
being little gold in the country he got
it at his own price, The same result
would doubtless follow the resumption
act here.
He was most decidedly in favor Of
repeating the net of 1878 stopping the
coinage of the 4l9l5 grain silver dollar
and leaving it no longer legal tender
in sums exceeding 49, He would sweep
away all legislation against silver, and
make both gold and silver legal
tender, as they were before the act. If
the output of silver from the mines
had increased, the demand for it had
also increased, The demonstration Of
silver in Germany had brought depres-
sion and distress upon that country,
while France, under bimetallsm, was
prosperous He was not afraid that
we would be flooded with silver if we
had free coinage, because if we had
more than we needed the hundreds of
millions of people in the silver-using
countries of the east would absorb it.
And then the governor put these point
ed questions:
but why should the United States,
which is now producing more silver
than any other nation on earth, seek
to demonetize it and to reduce its value,
thereby losing the great advantage
which she should realize from it in her
commerce with the eastern nations in
competition with England and Ger
many, who use the gold standard?
Why not hold onto this advantage, and
gain firm foothold on the trade of
China and India au1 the hundreds Of
millions of population of Asia, who
prefer and use the silver standard?'
The repeal of the demonstration act
and the restoration Of the 4l9]1 grain
silver dollar as legal tender would
take from gold the fictitious value that
had been given to it by anti-silver leg
islation, and the two metals would
readily adjust their relative value, and
silver would not be u deprecated cur
rency, but would be equivalent to gold
in its purchasing power. AS neither
gold nor silver is an irredeemable cur
rency, he did not see any danger of get
ting too much Oft. In our depressed con-
dition the laboring and debtor classes
needed more gold and more silver in
circulation. To strike down silver
would be in the interests of the hoard
ers of gold and the creditor class, Nor
would it be unjust to the bondholders
to make silver legal tender. When
the government bonds were issued
they were redeemable in legal tender
greenbacks. 1t was the legislation
after the war that made the bonds re-
deemable in coin.
Gov Brown went on to show that as
our population expanded we needed an
expansion and not a contraction of the
currency. 1t was unjust to men who
had made debts when they had album
dantmeansto pay them to force the re-
sumption of gold payments and con-
tract the currency, thus leaving them
unable to meet the demands of their
creditors. Such a policy, if continued
few years, would enrich the few and
turn the masses into hewers of wood
and drawers of water.