The Washington times., 1895-05-29

their savings. When you strike at the
banks and trust companies and railroads
you strike at the great body of the poor,
and he who strikes at that is an enemy OF
his country"
SMITH ON SOUND MONEY
Hon. Charles Emory Smith. who spoke
on THE workingman's interests" said,
among other things: THE demagogue ap-
peal for so-caIled cheap money is es-
peciaIly addressed to labor, in the hope that
it may delude and mislead the honest sons
of toll: but there is no portion of the
people so profoundly interested as the
workngmen in maintaining honest money
Barring the immediate effects of the
recent depression, there has never been a
time when labor was so well paid as
since 1890. There has never been a time
when the wages OF labor had so much pur-
chasing power.
There has never been a time when the
rewards Of toll bought so much of comfort,
so much of the necessities and enioyments
of life for the workingman and his family.
The free coinage advocates tell us that
some imaginary crime perpetrated in
1873 has inflicted incIlculable injury on
all classes, How has it inflicted any
injury on the wOrkingman, when for every
S14S that he earned in 1873 he earned
S160 in 1891, and when every dollar of
every dollar of his S14S in 1873?
ESPECIALLY DISASTROUS TO LABOR
How has he suffered when he is paid
more dollars, and every dollar will buy
more food, more clothing, more comforts
of all kinds? VIII some one silver ex-
tremist answer me that? The free coinage
policy would be disastrous to all inter
ests, for there is nothing which so dis
turbs all the exchanges OF t.ade as the
unsettling of the standard, of value; but
IL would be especially disastrous to labor,
for labor would suffer all of the hard
ships and share none OF the transient COM
penSations
The very argument that free coinage
would double prices means that it would
give us currency only aalf as valuable
The wages of labor, though nominally the
same, would lose half their purchasing
power. The only way in which it could
make itself whole would be to insist that
its wages should be doubled, and does
experience or reason furnish any hope that
this could be accomplished?
lon the contrary all experience demon
strates that in periods of inflated and de-
based currency wages do not rise in pro-
portion as the currency depreciates. Dur
ing the war we had a deprecated paper
currency. Gold went to premium of 200
General prices followed but wages did
not In 1865 the average or wages IN gold
value was only two-thirds of what it was
in 1860.
SLOW EXPANSION IN WAGES
1.-THE purchasing power of the general
level OF wages was less during the years of
our heavy paper Initiation than it has been
at any other period for thirty-ffve years,
and it was less because wages were the last
thing to follow the artificial expansion,
and never kept pace with it, To diminish
the purchasing power of the dollar that is
paid to labor is equivalent to cutting down
its wages, and that is precisely what free
coinage would do.
But 1t is said that silver is an American
product, aud we ought to defend and up
hold it. Certainly, but is that any reason
why the government should take fifty
cents worth of silver from the silver miner
and give him dollar for it?
1.-The annual value of our silver produc-
ton is about 500, 100000. The annual
value of the products OF our Industries and
our agriculture is about $13, GOO 900, 900.
Can you tell me any good reason why the
government should pay the producers of
fifty millions double in order that the pro-
ducers of thirteen thousand millions should
be compelled to accept fifty-cent dollars?