The midland journal., 1894-03-16
Silver.

"
appeared before congress again and
marched into the Senate chamber last
week, causing new CONSERVATION among
the gold bugs, who thought they had laid
it so as never to be again affrighted by its
appearance. But like Banquo, silver
persists i'll returning to the scene of its
murder, and affrighting its guilty assassins.
| That its 1nurderers acknowledge it to be
ghost is manifest by their naming the
seigniorage a vacuum" The present
ghost is more likely to appear in all its
former substance again i'll the halls of
congress and place its slayers under its
feet, than to disappear forever which was
the dream of the gold bugs, when they
had consummated their foul plot. Moth
ing i'll the way of legislation could give so
substantial an advance along the lines of
prosperity as the reconciliation of silver
by the United States. And it does not
lie i'll the power of any other nation to do
| llllS. llC lClIlOllCllLdllOl vi SllNCl DN llllS
country would have an influence on the
world like placing four thousand millions
of gold money among the nations. The
rehabilitation of silver would Immediately
raise it TO the place of money of final
payment of all debts and interest bearing
obligations throughout the world. Gold
would i,,,na1;ata1,, fall -, ;tc ,>,rc1, ,oc;,o,
power and the price of all property
would advance, and with the advance
money would be invested in new enter
prises and old ones take OH new lease of
life. Labor now starving i'll idleness and
begging from door to door would find
remunerative employment, and the tramp
would almost disappear from the street
and highways. No nation except the
United States possesses the power to com-
n1and this changed condition. The first
and most potent of these reasons is that
about half the silver of the world is taken
from our mines. The second is that with
territory in size approaching that of half of
Europe and an internal commerce greater
than that of Great Britain, France and
Germany combined, vast sum of actual
money is necessary to its proper conduct.
And third our undeveloped resources are
so vast as to defy computation, demand
ing money more than all else to unlock
this rich storehouse of nature. At an addi-
ton of $Ioo, 900, 900 yearly, which is fully
as much as the general demand from
other quarters would permit this country
to absorb as money, several years would
be required to supply the ever growing
demands of business for money This
absorption of silver which our present
money famine demands, would make
silver i'll all other countries scarce and
the demand for the metal would speedily
raise the price of bullion to its coin value
The surplus silver of Mexico and other
South American countries would flow into
the United States in exchange for goods,
and the commerce of all the countries
south of us would Immediately find its
trading points in New Orleans, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, New York and Boston.
To retain the commerce of these nations,
European nations would have to bid as
much for their silver as it would command
i'll staple goods of the United States The
nations of the old world, trembling on the
eve of bankruptcy, would be only too glad
to follow the bold example of the United
States i'll restoring to the money of
final payment their silver, which has
been debased to subsidy coin by the arbi-
trary power of the debt holders of Eng
| land
That such power is within the easy
grasp of the United States, and by no
other nation, any person may readily
understand who will take the trouble to
study the question. That the next coll
gress will remonetiZe silver is one of the
strongest probabilities The choice will
be between the rehabilitation ofsilver and
the establishment of purely American
system of finance, composed wholly of
paper money; a choice that the neces-
sites of the times and the spirit of the
people are driving towards. When the
hour strikes and the choice must be made
it is likely to be i'll favor of silver for the
strong reasons above pointed out There
are also other weighty commercial reasons
which will arrange themselves OH the
silver side. When we control the price
of silver by establishing its coin value
throughout the world, the wheat and
cotton trade of India, Egypt and other
countries would be at our mercy. Eng
land cannot lay them down i'll her mar
kets for less than the price of silver, and
that price will be, must be- the price
the mints of the United States fix.
No country ever had such all oppor-
tunity as the United States has today.
And yet the nation is sinothering i'll its
abundance of everything which make
nations and people prosperous and happy.
Millions of the people, the bone and
sinew of the land, are literally starving
and in rags Give any European nation
the grand possibilities we possess and it
would grasp them with the eagerness and
alacrity which their absence has taught
them to estimate at their true value