The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-07-24
A TW0-EDGED SWORD.
How DemOnetized Silver Builds Up
India and Bankrupts America.
PLAYING INTO ENGLAND's
HANDS.
Why Our Wheat Is Fifty Cents a
BusheI.

(The Philadelphia American.)
Working in the interest of the trad
ing classes and prompted by selfish
motives, it was, during the greater
part Of the eighteenth century, the
great aim of British statesmen to Sc
cure to the mother country the mon
opoly of trade with her colonies. Fol
lowing the dictates of the traders she
interdicted all foreign commerce with
her colonies, it being her constant en-
deavor to force the thirteen colonies
of North America to trade with Brit
ish traders and with them alone.
The only market legally opened to the
products Of the colonies was the Brit
ish market and they were restricted
for their purchases. There was demand
in France for American products. and
demand in America for French pro-
ducts and the products of the Orient,
but these mutual demands could only
be satisfied through the medium Of
British traders.
At the same time American domes-
tic manufactures were interfered
with and even trade between the diff
ferent colonies prohibited. Thus the
consumer was separated from the
producer, and all were forced to trade
through the Britih monopolist, who
taxed the producer when he bought
and the consumer when he sold.
Against this interference with trade,
this attempt to make them the sub
jects, the drudges and slaves of Eng
land, the patriots Of the thirteen
colonies revolted and threw off the
British yoke.
Thus Britain failed in her effort to
rule the American people without re-
gard to their own welfare and for the
benefit Of British monopolists. The
effort was made openly, was seen and
was foiled. But although baffied in
their first attempt, the English mon
opolists were not disheartened; they
were not ready to surrender the rich
est harvest in the world without a
further struggle. Seeing the impos-
sibility Of succeeding openly and by
force they have worked slowly. care
fully and clandestinely. Their attach
not having been seen, has not been
met, and now they are in the very act
of fastening their clutches on the peo-
pie for all time and making their posi-
tion impregnable.
Yet the American people silently
permit themselves to be led astray by
false leaders! They who pride them
selves on their vaunted freedom and
blood like water for the abolition of
n o n A re
negro slaves, now submit to the ex-
tortions of monopolies and trusts
that control the necessaries of life
with the result that the wage-earners
can only have access to them on the
terms OF the monopoliSt! The same
American people bend their knees to
the worst form of slavery-slavery
much worse than negro bondage, more
heartless, more degrading than chat
tel slavery in its darkest form.
Silently, Americans, men who would
willingly sacrifice life and property for
the maintenance Of the mere name Of
Liberty, aid the British traders and
those with alien interests in America
to fasten the yoke Of slavery on their
necks. Unknowingly they play into
England's hands. What England
could never accomplish openly she is
accomplishing silently and with the
aid Of the very Americans who pride
themselves on their patriotism.
BY the destruction Of our industrial
and financial pendence, our poiti-
cal independence is being under
mined, our people are being reduced
to the condition of the English work
man who has long been preyed upon
by the English creditor classes and de-
graded to condition Of abject slavery
through the unequal distribution of
wealth-a condition eloquently de-
scribed by John Ruskin when he said:
"Though England is deafend with
spinning wheels, her people have not
clothes; though she is black from the
digging of coal, they die of cold; and
though she mas sold her soul for gain,
they die of hunger"
To this condition America is rapidly
being reduced. AT the bidding of the
English creditor classes we demone-
tiZed silver, doubled the burden Of
our debts, and inaugurated a system
that has caused a ruinous fall Of
prices, resulting in the reduction of
thousands Of honest laborers to pau
periSm that few rich aliens might
gain-a system that has deS troyed our
depence by breaking down the protec-
tive tariff Blind to all our true in
terests, the United States, the great
est silver producing country in the
world, discarded silver as money
metal with the result that silver fell
so per cent. So we sell to England
our silver at about so cent on the dol
lar (67 cents an ounce, silver that
England must have to carry on her
eastern trade: silver which goes as
far in China or India to-day as it did
when England was paying us $129 an
ounce, with the result that the price
of American wheat and American cot
ton has been forced down with the
fall in silver. By demonetizing silver
we placed the lever in England's
hands with which to fix the price OF
our products.
"Why," writes Mr.. w. o. Peoples, of
Chattanooga, Tenn, in recent PAM
phlet, why should England be allow
ed to come here and buy our silver
bullion at about 50 cents on the dollar
and ship it to India, and swap the SO
cents worth of bullion for bushel Of
wheat, and thus bring American
wheat down to so centS?"
Is it not clear how America would
directly gain by rise in silver? Why
wheat and cotton rose Immediately
after the recent rise in silver? Yet
we sacrifice our interests that the
creditor classes. not the producing