The leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1895-1905, 1895-08-27
CRAZES AND CRAZES.
Sam p. Jones Tolls What He
Thinks of tho Silvorite.
The i6 to I Advocate Handled withoat
Gloves by the Eloquent Southern
Preacher - Some Plain, Hard
Truths Bluntly Spoken.
COPYRIGHT. 1906

| The orld takes on q craze every few
Years.. The skating rink craze struck
America about twenty years ago. Then
followed the grccnback craze. Next
we had the subtreasury craze. Then
the silver craze, followed closely, aide
by side almost, by the bicycle craze. 1t
is like a stampede Of Texas cattle.
Sometimes nothing disturbs them.
Again, any little thing will stampede
them. The stampede spirit has to be
in them. When once started nothing
can stop them. II the prccipice is
reached those behind push the leaders
| over Such is the case with the free and
| unlimited sixteen to one-ners. They
will soon get upon the brink of obscur-
ity and push the leaders and promoters
OF the heresy before them. They, how
ever, stand some chance of reaching
Heaven. God has made special provi-
sion for fools and children. Silverites
will get in on the former bench. But
some of them are SO prejudiced that if
Gabriel blows golden trumpet they
viii just lie still and say: mo, am
not going to move" Their trouble is
above their eyes. Their heads need
working on,
| have thought some over the causes
and cures of the various crazcs Very
few really busy, industrious, intelli-
gent people take hold upon any of
these crazes. The skating rink craze,
| IL l remember right, was run largely
by the same gang that runs the foot
ball and the baseball to-day. The
greenback party and the subtreasury
crowd were composed largely of the
! calamity howlcrs who are running the
| free and unlimited coinage of silver
| gang to-day.
| / have lately made tour through
Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
| The silver craze is both epidemic and
indemic out there. 1t is like small
pox, for the less brains man has the
more he clamors for the free and un-
limited coinage of silver sixteen to one.
They know not whereof they speak.
Their brains, if they possess any such
commodity, must certainly not be con-
nected with their tongues. Their
mouth is like n pcpper-box pistol-it
goes off anywhere they touch it. They
will lend no ear to reasonable and
sound ideas, and are never affected by
| them. They pass in at one ear and out
at the other, for the very good rea-
son that there is nothing Inside to
stop the words. Men could have their
heads split open, filed with sawdust
| and sewed up and make a better show
ing and advance more sensible argu-
| mcnts than these independent unlim~
| tied free silver heretics. 1t is like
| smallpox-those who don't die of it
will eventually get well. 1t is like small
| pox in another respect-nonc ever have
it but once. Mississippi has it now
tremendously bad. Every candi-
date from constable to COVER
nor announces himself first as
| in favor of the free and unlimited
coinage of silver sixteen to one, ard
| they don't propose to argue the ques-
tion either. l said to some of them:
"The most difference between you and
q billy-goat is a matter of hair and
horns!" If you catch billy goat by the
| whisl1ers and tell him to hold still, you
| want to give him an idea, he shakes
| his head as much as to say: '.If you
don't turn me loose III butt you down."
and when he gets loose he walks off
and goes to eating grass and dog-fen-
| mel. He don't want ideas; he wants
grass. Hes hungry. So with the
average silverite. You catch him by
the lapel Of his coat and tell him you
| want to give him some ideas on the
financial question, and before you can
| get an idea half advanced he pulls
loose and gets him paper bag of pea
nuts and glass of red lemonade. He
don't want ideas; he wants something
to eat. Hes hungry.
/ advised them not to go to sleep
lying on their sides, that their brains
would all run ont of their ear. But if
they did, they would put them back
next morning with a teaspoon.
When times of depression and
stringcncy come, then the calamity
howlers get in their work. For
| instance, the old farmer whom met
in West Virginia-a strong sixteen to
| onc-ner--said the decentralization of
silver had ruined him; for thirty years
ago he could have gotten eighty dollars
| per acre for his farm and was getting
| two dollars bushel for his wheat, but
since congress demonctized silver his
land had gone down to twenty dollars
| an acre and his wheat to sixty cents a
| bushel. Now, If that good old follow
would take trip into the northwest,
the granary of the world, which has all
been opened up in the last thirty years,
and see the millions of bushels OF grain
raised there and the great trunk lines
| OF railroads hauling the wheat from
| the northwest to Baltimore, Md, for
fifteen cents bnshel, more or less,
| that good old silverite of West Virginia
would find out what hit him. The
cheap lands of the northwest which
produce forty bushels Of wheat to the
acre have surely cheapened his land as
we'll as his wheat. But nothing could
make him believe, in the narrow world
| il which he lives, but that the dem
onetization of silver had done the work.
They cry: "Bimetallism," Double
| standard y and so on. Suppose on that
hypothesis we make diamonds and cut
glass the standards. Let congress pass
: law making cut glass and diamonds
| Of equal value. A diamond as large IS
! rrain OF wheat is worth one hundred
dollars. A piece Of cut glass that SIZE
| Is not worth the one hundredth part o.