The Portland daily press., 1895-06-14
THE SILVER QUESTION.
The Hon. George IF. Talbot Begins Dis
cussion of 1t With Plea for Decent
Treatment.

To tie Editor of he PRESS:
Before entering upon the discussion of
a question of public interest writer, like
a speaker, wants some assurance of
quiet and candid, if not respectful and
sympathetic attention. He may be con-
tent to dispense with the American hand
clapping and the English "Hear Hear p
but he is quite likely to lose his presence
of mind and the thread of his ideas, if
not his good temper, when his carefully
med1tated statements are received with
derisiye shouts of Fool. Fanatic, Crazy
Man p and his weightiest arguments
are answered with volleys of deceased
cats and showers of stale eggs.
L have witnessed in my day several ex-
citing social and political controversies,
carried on with the zeal and spirit to be
expected of lf-governing people, re-
| quired by the very freedom they enjoy to
| settle for themselves vital problems
affecting their public welfare and the
progress of their civilization, concerning
which the thinking community enter
tanned radically diverse opinions.
had believed and SO expressed myself,
that the temper, in which measures and
| policies affecting the commonweal have
been debated, had considerably improved
| in our times, and that the oral and writ
ten discussions of questions now upper
| most, like those which separate the Free
Traders and the Protectionists, the Pro-
hibitionists and the Local Optionists,
have been characterized with far less
resulting in broils and lifelong feuds-
than those in which our fathers were en-
gagged in the beginning of the century
now nearing its close, before a people,
| morbidly jealous of their rights and lib
critics, had learned liberality and charity
in the presence of hostile opinions.
But is it that the purse is SO much
more sensitive than the conscience that
what may be called the money question,
whether as between the issue of the paper
currency by the government or by bank
ing corporations or between a mono-me-
tallic or bimetallic basis of the national
currency is discussed with all the con-
temptuous epithets, and all the ferocity
OF temper, that made the referendum to
the masses a century ago mere appeal
to inveterate prejudice and hatred?
Now then, as our new Australian bal
lot law recognizes the right of every par
ty, however small or eccentric to a fair
chance in the scrubrace for votes, pro-
tects the voter, and even incurs the ex-
pense of his ballot, so we silver-men ask
for our day in court, for place among
the categories Of political theorists of the
times, for chance to deploy our argu-
ments before the jury of the law makers,
and for protection from abusive epithets
and some assurance that no machinery
shall be put in operation to deprive us of
our personal liberty or inveigle us into
lunatic aSylums.
ARROGANCE OF OUR OPPONENTS.
The bumptiousness of our over conf
dent opponents on the money question is
never more extensively displayed than
when they propose to open an education
al campaign to enlighten our ignorance.
We are expected to learn with much sat
isfaction, that Mr. Noodle, whom we
have never heard of, has gone to Michigan
o r to Kentucky to carry on among the
voters of these precincts as educational
campaign" Our daily newspaper brings
us crushing answer to all "cheap-mon-
ey theories" kindly furnished by some
gentleman, who has been all his life en-
ployed in running a local bank, and
whose reading has been strictly confined
to the money articles of the commercial
papers, and which is made to be the un-
doubted expression of public opinion, be-
cause all replies to its facts and argu-
ments have been dumped into the waste
basket.
Why do not the Second Adyentists get
up an educational campaign among
the High Church scholars of Oxford, or
among the Evangelical Faculties of An
dover and Princeton, and show them
how they have misinterpreted the Hebrew
prophecies, and failed to discover the time
when the catastrophes of world confiagra
tion are to come off? Why does not
4Lo+
still lives and teaches, get up an "educa-
tional campaign" to convince the modern
scientists of London and Paris that the
sun and not the earth "do move?''
Educate means to lead out. +" In a
small way have been trying all my life
to educate people, that is, to lead them
OUT of their opinions and into mine. l
have to confess as the net result that
they won't educate worth a cent In
spite of all my reason and rhetoric, they
remain doggedly of their own way of
| thinking, and, would it be believed?
sometimes the conce tied fellows are able
to give reasons for the faith that is in
them which I am fairly staggered to an
swer.
1 respectfully commend to cur antag-
onists, who speak and write on the gold
side, the better manners and more intelli-
gent appreciation of the mono -metalists
| of London, who begin the memorial they
| last week addressed to Sir William Har-
| court with these respectful words: I'VE
have observed with regret the growing
| agitation in favor of what is called bimet-
alism, the more so since the theory has
obtained the support of persons of emf
nence and authority"
| So then in England, that for more than
eighty years has been trying to drive the
world to the disuse of silver as money,
'Ethe agitation for its restoration is
growing and has obtained the support
of..persons of eminence and authority"
A QUESTION ABOUT WHICH EDU-
GATED PERSONS DIFFER.
President Walker in his standard work
on Money" says the question of Sim
gle or Double Standard is really, like the
question of National Bank or of Pro-
| +octinn Iarcrol1r n ,,olitical c11octior Il