The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-05-07


class nations and place the United
States on a commercial level with Mex
leo and China Proclaim as we will.
that sixteen ounces of silver are
worth an ounce of gold, England s
negative, uttered every day in Lom-
bard street, overthrows every PROPOSE
ton based on that false utterance."
The above is an unconscious admis-
sion of the two evils against which the
advocates of bimetallism are contend
ing, and the malevolence of the mono
metallists lies not so much in the adj
mission of the absolute control of Lom-
bard street, of which the American
people unfortunately have had ample
proof, but because behind it lies a set
[led political policy which would rem
der the control perpetual.
The assertion that bimetallism is an
attempted Reputation of half our debts
is corollary b the first, although no
notice is taken of the fact that the half
SO affected is spurious, and been the
work of a political conspiracy dating
from June, 1867, between the Ameri-
can oligarchy and Lombard street. In
word the success of the monometal-
lists means nothing less than a COM
plete entail on the entire aggregate of
American products and property.
Estimates of the national indebted
ness vary from thirty-fve to forty
billions The latter represents a per
capita of $3.50 for each man. woman
and child in our population of seventy
five millions, or an average OF about
$500 for each family. This is simply
potential bankruptcy. and it is the per-
petuation, and even increase of this,
that monometallism is seeking to i'm
pose as a perpetual entail on the
profits of American industry, including
absorption of taxes, and the threat is
scarcely concealed that worse will fol-
low if the demands are not acceded to.
During the war such bonds as we
could float in Lombard street were
taken at from IS to So cents on the dol
lar, and most other municipal, corpor-
alive and miscellaneous obligations
were foated on the same terms. The
successful issue of the war caused
these obligations to appreciate to the
equity of the greenback level. which
was also slowly approaching to the
coin level.
But natural appreciation was not
fast enough for Lombard street. and
in June, 1867, the secretary of the
treasury, Hugh McCulloch, began the
first act in the succession of conspira-
cies through which the government be-
came participes crininis in the rob-
ha1-1r Of re nv icfo ant
and rapid contraction of the greenback
money in the face of a rapidly in
creasing population and expanding
business. This policy was favored by
'f1nanciers'' of the eastern cities, but
as earnestly opposed by manufacture
ers and holders of their products. and
it's farmers and 1aborers of the west.
At this date the aggregate indebted
ness was 1886 per capita, on the basis
of 73-cent dollar. The financial issue
rapidly took political form and the
liberal Republicans under the leader
ings of Horace Greedy combined with
the Democratic party and fought the
campaign of 1872 on that issue, but
We're defeated because the ''nigger''
question offered the same cause of dis
traction to the public mind that the
tariff question held during the last
campaig n-both were curtains, and
intended to be such, to obscure the
real issue upon which the veal or woe
of the entire nation depended.
With the renewed lease of power in |
volved in Grants. reelection in 1872, |
fa1f
cure ground, and silver was surrepti-
tiously demonetized, as the first act |
in the resumption of specie payments,
which therefore was caused to mean
gold coin payment. Meantime the ex-
pected climax occurred in the panic
Of 1873, and the values of all property
declined. By this time the
per capita of Indebtedness had reached
1923, the most of which had been
caused by the conspirators to increase
n value from a natural basis of 70
cents to an artificial basis of SO cents
IN the dollar. Specie resumption, long
'oreseen and discounted, was practi-
ally accomplished by 1876, and the
Scent debts were made payable on a
basis.
The bugbear on the one hand and
he reward on the other, through
Which the enormous discomfort was
'efuddled by the conspirators, was the
ear of imitation in the one case and the
romise of easy credits in any amount
nd on long time. on the other.
The public did not see that an easy
redit system, no matter how accom-
lished, was a process of imitation, and
he more so as the real basis of it all
-gold-was too trivial in amount to
erve as such except by wild reach
imagination. By 1878 the country
ntered the period of its widest ir-
alton. and this had grown so far by
ariff and other bolstering as to
mount to craze of wild speculation.
By 1892 the amount of transactions
Tere represented by 81 per cent in
redit, and but three per cent in gold.
liver and paper money combined, and
ne aggregate of Indebtedness, instead !
having been reduced by mono
letallic resumption had increased to {
,33 per capita. The frenzy of money
spread to every hamlet and
ffected nearly every Individual I
were created by fake :
indicates on credit capital, not to
'eate industry specifically, but by 6
recess of bonus to bolster up town lot
1oms. Railroads were uselessly para
l111