St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-08-13
: JUST TIE SAME OLD GAME.


There is an affinity of sentiment and
"a community Of purpose between the
owners of the silver-producing mines
and the manufacturers OF the country
who derive, or imagine they derive.
benefit from the obstruction or ex-
cluSion OF competing imports, that
leads them to adopt the same
methods to gain their ends. Both
have the same selfish object OF
increasing the price of their products.
anu each keeps this purpose coaked
behind pretense of the welfare of the
public. or Of portions of it. The one has
been so successful that the other thinks
it can use the selfsame implements.
Each has as the basis of operations
profound and, unhappily. warranted
belief that all the people can be fooled
some of the time.
The protectioniSts, dropping in later
years their patriotic pretense of build
ing up their industries so as to make
this country independent ola il otherna-
tons, took up the pretense that their sole
desire was to enable them to pay their
help better wages; to prevent their
falling to the level of wages in Eu-
rope. We all know how successfully
they played this; successful in giving
them power to virtually tax the con-
Sumers OF their goods. and successful in
retaining i'll power for many years the
party that gave them the power. Al
though the pretense has worn SO thread
baresthat the more intelligent of their
dupes see the real purpose behind the
mask. there remain yet many thought
less people who believe that wages are
dependent on the taxation of imports.
The owners of the silver mines are
playing the same game to catch the
votes of the farmers that the protec-
tionists played TO corral the votes of the
workingmen. From combination Of
causes, partly cessation of demand
through the denial of access to
the minis of the nations, but far
more from an increase of pro.
duction, their bullion has fallen
in twenty years from being worth 81 80
all ounce in the market, or Sl.29 all ounce
Tor mintage. to 62 cents. That they
should wish 10 have the value restored
is but saying that they are human.
Farmers would like 10 have the price
of their produce restored to that
+ it commanded twenty years ago.
Money lenders would like to have
interest rates where they then
were, and house owners would be
GLAD to have rents up among the fancy
figures of the seventies. But il farmers
and lenders and landlords are content
to take the prices made by the operation
of the natural forces of trade, the silver
miners are not. They want to get S1.29
an ounce for their silver. and they have
gone Systematically at work 10 get it by
the same means that their fellow pro-
tectionists found so efficient.
They do not say with blunt frankness
that they want the people of the country
TO agree TO pay them the former rate for
their bullion,no more Inan did the man
ufacturers avow that what they wanted
was chance to make people pay them
more for their goods. The miners are
too shrewd to put forth claim that
every one in his senses would reject.
So they raise great hue and cry about
the sacredness of silver; its an
tiqulty; its use as "the dollar of
the fathers" Indifferent to the
fact that the fathers had none. They
point 10 the falling prices of all produce
and the simultaneous fall of silver and
cry: behold the operation of cause
and effect" Their logic runs: The price
of silver has fallen. The price OF all
other products of labor has fallen.
hn fol nf hoc
that Of the others. The other syllogism
is: When silver was freely coined at
16 to l other values were equal to
its. When free coinage was denied, all
values fell. Therefore, to restore all
values restores free coinage.
To the farmer they say" Restore free
dom of silver coinage, and the price of
your produce will regain its fora er
status" TO the workingman they say
the restoration of industry depends Oh
that of free coinage. AS the protec-
ZIONIST made England his hugaboo,
so does the silver miner. 1t is
England, the creditor nation, that
destroyed silver that she might
get the dearer metal in payment of her
investments and loans. 1t is England
that wants cheap food for her people
and cheap labor for her manufacturers,
and because of this has debased silver
that the destruction of half the worlds
money" might double the value of the
other half English free trade having
ost its terrors. English enmity to silver
is made the bugaboo.
And, as in the case of the protection
lists, these schemsrs for their own gain
have caught thousands of voters with
their sophisms who honestly believe
that fallen values are due solely to the
denial of free access of silver to the
minis at the old legal ratio, and that
all that is needed to bring back the
good times" is to restore silver.
Old parties wrangle and divide,
and new QUE espouSes the
cause of the miners. and trade
is disturbed and investments checked
| and enterprise is paralyzed; and
back behind the scenes the miners
sit chuckling over the progress of their
selfish schemes, and tip the protection
lists wink, and, in the frankness of
their seclusion. admit to each other that
Carnegie was right and that the Amer
lean people are mostly economic fools.