The San Francisco call., 1895-05-21
His Views on Sound Currency
Aired Before a Large
Audience.
NEED OF THE GOLD CURE
The Salvation OF the Country, He
Says, Rests on the Limited
Coinage of Silver.

UdTN VI lllc OUAlCu PtopOo NASAA'
J. G. Carlisle. opened the discussion OF the
question of sound money here tonight in
a quaint lecture hall called Central Garden.
The hall is in the middle Of beer gar
den.
1t is a theater-like structure, with
small stage at one end, where the song and
dance artists are wont to enliven dull
hours. The rush to hear the speaker was
tremendous. An attempt was made to re-
serve seats for ladies, but it was given up
when the pressure for admission by voters
was felt.
The beginning of the address was de-
layed by street demonstration of con-
siderable magnitude. 1t was s:25 o'clock
when the crowd at the doors parted and
Mr.. Carlisle, escorted by Congressman
Berry and accompanied by M. E. ingalls,
and General Michael Ryan, entered the
hall.
Shortly afterward the working clubs en-
tered to the tune of "Old Kentucky Home"
and Dixie" followed by the plaintive
"Auld Lang Syne."
Twenty minutes later Hon. A. S.
Berry introduced the speaker in
a brief speech, in the course of which he
under most difficult circumstances, admin
istered his high Office. After tumultuous
applause, again and again repeated, the
Secretary began his address.
Mr.. Carlisle prefaced his remarks with
brief introduction, in which he assured his
audience, "That I am not and do not ex-
pect to become candidate for any Office
in the gift of the people, or their repre-
sentatives, and that do not appear in the
State in the interest of any candidate"
"There has never been a time" con-
tinued the Secretary, "since the close of
the Civil War and the settlement of the
questions growing out of it when passion
and prejudice exerted such a powerful in
huence in controlling the action of the peo-
pie upon political and economic questions
as they have during the last two years. A
great wave of depression has swept over
the whole industrial, commercial and
financial world, more injurious in its eff
fects in some places than in others, but en-
failing great loss and distress nearly every
where. 1t did not begin twenty years ago,
as some of our friends are in the habit Of
asserting, but less than five years ago. It's
first serious effects were felt in Argentina,
| where the people and the Government,
notwithstanding the warnings of expert
ence in all ages, determined to try again
the experiment of cheap and inflated
currency
The Secretary reviewed the acts of the
last Republican administration and de-
clared the present administration found
the financial affairs of the Government in
a most unsatisfactory and precarious con-
1 difioy, Hr
| wise legislation has already produced its
| inevitable results, and whatever criticism
the impatient spirit of a disappointed and
restless people may have prompted them
| to make upon the present administration,
am sure impartial history will place the
| responsibility for what has occurred where
it properly belongs, and am willing to
wait until it is written.
Whether we shall continue to preserve our
| existing monetary system, under which all the
| dollars in use, whether they be gold, silver or
paper, possess equal purchasing power in the
| market, or provide by law for the free and
unlimited coinage of silver dollars containing
4121l grains of standard silver, and make them
! the units and measures of value in the ex-
| change of commodities and in the payment
| of debts, is by far the most important ques-
| ton that has been presented for the considera-
| ton OF the American people during this gen.
GRAFTON, and that question now confronts us.
1t is incumbent upon those who insist upon
| the adoption of this revolutionary policy to
show plainly and conclusiyely in advance not
only that 1t would result in no injury, but
that it would be positively beneficial, for if not
positively beneficial the change would, at
| least, be wholly useless.
| This cannot be done by appeals to the excited
| passions and prejudices of the people by at
tempts to array one class of our citizens or one
| section of our country against another; nor by
| the use OF ofextravagant statements unsupported
by facts and reasons. The allegation, even il
1t were true, that great crime was surrepti-
tiously committed in 1873 or at any other
time does not prove, or even conduce to prove,
that the free coinage Of silver at the ratio of 16
| to would be beneficial to the country under
the conditions now existing. But, gentlemen,
1t is not true that the act Of February IL, 1873,
| which made the gold dollar the unit of value
and dropped the standard silver dollar from
the coinage. was passed by stealth or that its
purpose or effect was to deprive the people of
the use of any coin then in use or then in
| existence in this country.
The plain truth is that this act of 1873,
which has been the subject of SO much appre-
hension and denunciation, was simply q legal
recognition of monetary condition which had
existed in fact in this country for about thirty.
nYe years, or ever since short time after the
passage of the coinage act of 1884. The value
OF the United States note or greenback was
always measured by gold, and not by silver
and commodities had a gold price and paper
price, but never a silver price, because silver
except the half-dollars, quarters and dimes
coined under the act of 1853, had been out Of
use here for more than twenty years before the
commencement of the war, and even these sub
sidiary coins had not been in use for eleven
years prior to 1873.
Our own monetary history has already fur
nished two most striking illustrations of the
| operation of the law under which the coins
which are overyalued by statute always drive
out OF circulation the coins which are under
valued. Our own experience had again de
| monstrated what the history of the world al
ready showed-that whenever the coinage law,
of any country permit the free coinage OF botl
metals, with full legal tender qualities
at ratio of value which does not conform sub
stantially to their intrinsic or commercial
ratio in the markets Of the world, both kinds
4 of coin cannot be kept in circulation at tht
same time.
4 There was never in our whole history one
third as much legal-tender silver in use in tn,
United States at one time as there is now, anl
it is used without depriving us of all our gold
/ which was never done before. Silver is no