The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1895-05-17
A SILVER PLATFORM
ADOPTED BYA CONVENTION or
DEMOCRATS IN CHICAGO.
Delegates Selected TO tho Springfield
Monetary Convention.

purpose OF selecting BOB delegates 70
tho Springfield monetary convention
June 9Th, assembled in Chicago Satur-
day morning.
After organization and spoech-mak-
ing, q platform declaring in favor OF
the free and unlimited coinage Of sill
Yer at rs TO / and against an inter
national agreement was then adopted,
with but few votes recorded against IT,
Act to Platform.
The platform adopted was as follows.
"Ihe democratic party in its nation
al convention and the democracy Of
Illinois have uniformly declared in IA
vor Of the use of both gold and silver
as the standard money Of the country.
Silver and gold have constituted the
money Of the democratic party, the
money Of the American people and the
money Of the whole commercial world.
1t was by the use Of both that the
world progressed and that our people
prospered. As long as the minis of the
world, or even one great nation, we're
opened the free coinage OF both metals
silver and gold, in obedience to a ma
tural law, maintained a substantial
parity. That law is that the privilege
of coming either metal into debt-pay-
ing money, makes demand for which
ever metal tends TO be the cheaper.
This natural demand decreases the
value of the greater metal and thus an
automatic and natural stability is OBJ
tanned. It is the history of centuries,
and this natural law maintained the
parity Of gold and silver at substanti-
ally their coinage ratio, even when the
ratio of their production Auctuated vi
olently. When the worlds production
of gold was three times that of silver
and when against it was only one-t third
of silver, still the bullion value Of the
metals under free coinage was rela-
lively the same.
Not until silver was denied free
coinage at the minis did its value and
that of gold begin to diverge, and we
maintain that the apparent deprecia-
tion of silver is really, to a great ex-
tent the appreciation of gold. Gold
has become dearer because the i'm
mense added demand for gold conse.
quent upon the demonetization of sill
yer has made it dearer. This is evil
denced by the increased purchasing
power of gold, and the general decline
Of the prices Of commodities since
1878.
''There never has been and is not
now enough gold in the world to do
the business of the world. The total
amount in existence is less than four
billion dollars, and amounts to only
about $3.50 per capita for the popula-
ton of the world.
''To make any single metal the
standard of value is to choose stand
ard which must fuctuate in obedience
to the laws of supply and demand.
GOO monometallism and silver mono
metallism are, therefore. both unsound
systems; but gold monometallism is
fraught with peculiar dangers because
its burdens fall on those who are least
able to endure them. Bimetallism
furnishes a standard more stable than
any other, because each of the two
metals automatically prevents or
counteracts the undue appreciation Of
the other. The gold standard is dis
honest and oppressive because gold
lends steadily upward and makes the
debtor pay more than he owes. Upon
the republican party rests the respon-
sibility Of the closing of our minis to
silver and the practical supremacy Of
gold monometallism, and we adiure its
members in the name of patriotism
and humanity to forsake their false
guides, and to join with us in prompt
and thoroughgoing measures to cor
rect the evil which they have brought
into existence, and to return to the
double standard approved by Alexan-
der Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.
"There are other abuses of the cur
rency system which must also be re-
moved until we stand upon the firm
foundation of the precious metals aa
the basis of our money system-every
dollar of equal intrinsic worth, and
no money founded upon mere prom
ises to pay, not backed by gold and
silver.
eve deny the statement of our adj
versaries that we favor reputation Of
50-cent dollars and insist that the OPP
GRAFTON of the natural law Of supply
and demand the gold and silver dol
lars, when freely coined at the ratio
of 16 to 1, will adjust themselves at {
practical equality, just as they did be
fore 1878. There is not and never ha
been in the United States a fifty-cen
} silver dollar, and the only reason that tn
bullion in a silver dollar can be said t,
be worth 80 cents is because that bull
ion has been excluded from the mint