Birmingham age-herald., 1894-09-08


 oppression of tue people. On these ioun- dations we 'build our house;" on these
 issues we go before the public. For them
 we have Thought the good fight;" to them
 we have kept the faith, ''and of them we
 have no fears" Fl
 SECRETARY HoKE SMITH SPEECH.
 In opening his remarks tue secretary re-
 viewed the financial troubles of the past
 eighteen months, and congratulated the
 south, as well as Georgla, upon the excel
 lent showing made. The attention or the
 commercial world had been attracted, and
 he predicted for this section period of de-
 velopment and marked prosperity such as
 never before was experienced. The Cotton
 and States International exposition Wonld
 prove of great assistance in this work, but
 the attention of capital once secure IS con
 fdence must also be won, and it w.s there
 fore of the utmost importance to the future
 welfare of the state that in the coming
 election the people of Georgia should show
 to the worli that the wild theories of the
 populists had no foothold among them.
 Calling attention to the experience of the
 great states of Kansas and Colorado under
 populisLic rule, the secretary asked who
 would wish to see Georgia follow the lead ership of Jewelling or Waite. Bad as was the record of the third party in the west, the crazy theories of their leaders Ia congress were enough to stagger compre- hepsion and shock the thoughtful men. They sought disbursements amounting Tn the aggregate to over S35, GOO ,000 900. The
 people Of Georgia could not afford to in- dorse such party.
 The state would be disorganizsd locally and discredited before the world if it ap- | peared to have even listened to their i'm | practica ble theories. Few of their beliefs were worthy of discussion, but there was one which seemed to have proved attrac- | tive, although when carefully investigated | it must be classified with their other theo- | res as almost equally wild and impractical ble. He referred to the free and unlimited | coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to l by l the United States alone, and declared It to | be plan utterly at variance with sound l business principles and fraught with ln- | calculable evil. He did not wish his posi- l ton misunderstood.
 HE WAS THOROUGH IMETALLIsT, | strong in his faith, and no one could be more unalterably opposed to the adoption | of single gold standard. Such a course | would bring about a contraction of the | currency, calculated to cripple industries | and 10 lessen the demand for supplies. The | injury inflicted by single standard cur | rency had been recently demonstrated
 abroad and the evil effect had been felt here upon tho products of this country l raised for foreign consumption. He be- l lieved these evil effects could be lessened 1 by preserving the present per capita Of the 1 currency, but when three -fourths of our | great cotton product goes abroad three- l fourths of the injury could not be reached except by the success of bimetallism In the l places of consumption.
 The secretary described the eight differ | ent kinds of money now used ln this coun- try, ,and maintained that the instant any one | of these went to-a premium It would be- | come commodity for private sale aud con- | traction would follow, but by preserving | them upon an equality, and by an increase | equal to the growth of business and popu- | lation, contraction would be prevented. | This could be accomplished, first, by chang l ing the bullion in silver dollar 80 as to | require
 l ONE HUNDRED GENTS WORTH OF SILVER l in every dollar; second, by international l agreement, which, if secured, would pre- | vent the necessity of changing the ratio;
 third, by calling in all money of small de- | nominations, Say BIO and less, not consst-
 ing of silver, and giving silver the right of | way. l He especially urged the repeal of the 10 | per cent tax on state banks as remedy l within control of the United States of great | value.
 He sketched the history of silver coinage | in the United States and deduced from it several conclusions, which he held to be 1 irresistible:
 1. The people of the United States have l the use of seventy times as much silver as | money of full legal tender at present as | they had before 1873.
 l 2. The depreciation in the value of silver | is due to causes other than it's treatment in | the United States. It is, therefore, evident l that silver at ratio of 16 10 l, if unlimited l coinage was attempted in this country,
 must either flood our mints with enormous quantities of silver, which would at once | depreciate the value of our money, or it would be coined only in reasonable quanti- l ties, and then could not substantially affect | the mercantile value of the bullion through l out the world. In either event we would | be forced to the exclusive use of dollar | worth only 8 little more than half the
 present dollar. It would cause the settle- l ments of all contracts at the rate of 50 cents l on the dollar. It would require the reor- 1 ganiZation of all prices to be adapted to | the new depreciated currency. It would l compel change of all legislation in fix
 ing salaries: It would necessi,
 the private and governmental business | of the United States to meet conditions caused by a degraded dollar. The con | fusion incident to such changes could l scarcely be described. Commercial disor- | der, business wreck and ruin must at once l be precipitated. No panic from which our | country ever suffered has been comparable | to the one which would be inflicted upon l the industrial interests by such action.
 States would not be able to maintain it's | various moneys upon parity, but that we were upon the point of being forced to the | silver standard with results similar to those just described, materially contributed to | the panic of last year. For the condition of the treasury, which led in part to this | fear, the secretary held the
 REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION RE6PoNsI- BLB.
 The whole administration of Mir. Har- | risou, with the exception of the first year | (which received its impetus from the ex- l cellent financial conditions existing at the l close of MT. Cleveland's term), was one of | falling revenues, increasing expenditures and heavy exportation of gold. Mir. Cleveland retired leaving surplus in the | treasury of $230 ,348 900. Four years of re- publican misrule reduced the surplus to