The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1894-05-18
CONGRESSMAN COOPER.

letter seems to us to be most remark
able one. We venture the assertion
| that no country lass nor lassie could
have written with more freshness and
simplicity. Its guilelessness is charm
ing.
In voting against the "uncondition-
all repeal of the Sherman bill Mr..
Cooper seems actually to believe that
he was adhering to the platform on
which he was elected and the Chicago
platform on which MIR. Cleveland was
elected, and seems to be possessed
with the strange hallucination that
| the welfare of the country demanded
it. Not to have repealed that meas
ure would have been, he says, ruinous
to Florida. The young Congressman
says he foresaw that delay meant a
lower price for every box of oranges
and every pound of cotton, and, a
| diminution of the tourist trade; and
more startling still, he says the final
passage of the bill ended the panic;
and, without any ifs or ands in the
matter, hesays that every farmer and
business man in Florida is better off
for his speech and his vote.
People of Florida! do you believe
| this statement? Is there farmer or
an orange grower in Florida who feels
himself better off to-day than he did
last August? If there b. such an one
We want. him to stand up and be gazed
upon.
We deny the statement in toto that
farming is more profitable to-day than
| it was nine months ago. or has bet
ter outlook in this state, or in any
state in this union, and in support of
this assertion we producesthe proof as
it is not our habit to make idle state
ments.- The last summary statement
of imports and exports issued from
the treasury department about the
very time Mr.. Cooper was writing his
letter shows decided falling off of all
kinds of products and the Reviews.
| of both Dunn and Bradstreet show a
continuation of business depression in
all parts of the country. The treas
ury statement shows the average price
of wheat to have been fraction over
| II cents less for nine months ending
March 81, 1894, than for similar pc
riod in 1898; oats were fraction over
81 cents less and corn 81 cents less.
Our loss on breadstuffs were nearly
SIG, 100000. The Dubuque Telegraph,
in commenting upon these figures,
says that the loss to the Iowa farmers
alone in nine months fer the luxury
of keeping up the single gold standard
was thirty millions of dollars
The recent assembling of the repre-
sentatives of three thousand orange
and vegetable growers at Orlando, and
their utterances there, tell dismal
story of the present condition of these
industries in Florida, and unless some
protection is secured, they present
most hopeless outlook for the future.
Why, if any man had gotten up be-
fire that convention and told them
that they had been benefited by Mr..
Cooper's speech at the death-bed and
his vote over the corpse and at the
burial of silver, he would have been
laughed to scorn, or else we are badly
mistaken.
Any man, it seems to us with any
remaining reason, ought to know that
if Mr.. Cleveland would veto the segn-
orage bill, against the adoption of
which only seven democratic votes
were recorded from the whole south,
that he would veto any bill providing
for the free coinage of silver unless the
silver dollar was made as big as the
wheel of log cart
Mr.. Cooper says that it is the inten-
ton OF his bill to conform to the dem
ocratic platform instead of the popu-
list-platform which calls for the free
coinage of silver dollars at sixteen to
one, even though such a so-called dol
lar should be worth only fifty cents.
Are we to conclude that Mr.. Cooper,
because the populists have adopted
the standard fixed for the silver dollar
by democrats for the past one hundred
years, will turn his back upon
that standard and make it twice its
present size, simply to please John
Sherman and his bond holding allies?
And if the ratio is to be changed every
sixty or ninety days; the half dollar
of to-day to be as big as the dollar OF
yesterday, what to do we'll have to
be sure. The thing is as ridiculous as
it is preposterous.
Of public and private debts we owe
SAC, 900, 100000; our foreign trade
amounts to 100000, 900; our domes-
tic trade 500, 600, 900, to meet these
vast requirements can any one reason
ably deny that we need larger vol
umn of money, and if we are to rely
upon gold alone, with the whole
world adopting gold as the only stand
ard, thus creating still larger de-
mand for it, will this not Immediately
appreciate its value; will not its pur-
chasing power become vastly greater
and in proportion as its appreciates,
will not every other species of proper
ty depreciate? 1t can not be other
wise, and in that proportion the great
body of the people will become poorer.
and it will not be many generations
hence before few men will own the
whole earth.
The men who are making prodige-
Gus strides in this direction, and soon
will be enabled to girdle the world
with picket fence and have posted