Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1895-05-24
THEY ARE NOT A UNIT
WHAT ONE REPUBLICAN THINKS
OF SILVER
ChaS. +. fiShbaCk's Opinion of the
Position of His Party OR the
Great QuestiOn-He Thinks that
TO Hesitate II TO He Lost.


what at variance with the opinion
OF his party followers. Mr.. F. ha
been in the front ranks of the Reput
lican party, up to this time, but ii
safe 10 predict that he will not b
there in the next campaign. The in
terviewer says:
Grave political matters have alread,
began to occupy the attention of ;
good many more men besides blatan
mouth Populist, as these street corne
financiers are often called, and it wa.
but a short time after friendly greet
ings had been exchanged until the
conversation drifted into financial pol
itics. Have you something to say
concerning politics?" was asked Mr.
Fishback.
Il am not avcrse to giving my views
on the political situation, and especi.
ally to those, whom l believe will
quote me fairly" said he. "But one
question is at issue at present, and
that is free and unlimited coinage Oi
silver. The tariff and all other here
tofore national issues have paled into
insignificance in the presence of the
silver question. There is something
radically wrong and all liberal and fair
minded Republicans cannot fail but
see it.
"The old Republican ranks are
being daily thinned out and it is not
the bankers nor the wealthy classes
that are leaving, but it is the men,
who represent the bone and sinew OF
the country that you find in the ranks
of the Populist to-day. Silver was de-
monetized in 1873, which gave gold a
value twice as great as before. In
other words, it gave few men cor.
ner on the finances OF the country. a
dollar in gold would buy no more
than it did prior to the demonstration
of silver, and yet, it took twice the
amount of silver, and actually twice
the amount OF security to obtain
money, and also twice the amount OF
labor or energy to pay off ones obi
cations. Since 1873, tramps have be-
come numerous. This came from the
fact that the few, who had . corner on
gold, could form trusts and thereby
raise the prices on the staple articles
of life, and persons who were accus-
toned to a plenty we're unable TO
longer maintain this. Only few
days ago, a great trust was formed in
coal oil, and now the poor cannot use
1t is a luxury. Later still a great
beef trust has been formed and poor
laboring men can no longer eat beef
at their daily meals. The big sugar
trust is we'll known and men finding
themselves no longer able to support
their families with the elixers of life,
begin a tramp, tramp, tramp from
town to town and from section to sec.
ton looking for work, which they
never find. The farmer, neither, es-
capes from this blighting curse-the
corner on money-for his products
have gone down SO low that he can
not realize enough out of it to pay for
raising. North, South, East and West
are alike. In the North, the farmer
sells his SEC wheat, which should
bring $1.27, and in the South the far
mer sells his 4 cent cotton, which
should be Is cents, and so with every
product"
"Can you tell why wheat has gone
down with silver?"
al think that is an easy thing to
see into when explained. You see,
the United States is the silver produc-
ing country of the world. Well, India
uses silver money and she buys her
silver from the United States and pays
for it in cotton, this of course gives us
an oversupply Of cotton and necessari-
ly sluts the market and the price oi
cotton goes down. Now in this coun'
try that uses silver, a rupee buys q
bushel of wheat. A rupe is the same
az our silver dollar. Our silver has
been demonetized but before it was il
took $1.27 to buy enough silver to
make q rupee with which to buy 9
bushel of wheat, which made the
wheat sell for the same amount. Now
it takes only 36 cents to buy enough
of our silver to make a rupee, which &C
counts for our 80 and 36 cent wheat
So you can readily see that the de-
monetization of silver is directly re
sponsible for low prices. both in whea
and in cotton, to say nothing OF th'
other evils. The United States will
its guarantee of 46 lesser powers Cal
make anything "sound money" NJ
! other nation on earth is so we'll finan
c;ally backed as this government. U
our entire National trade, So per cent
of it is done among the various Stale
and Territories, while only 4 per GEN.
ia done abroad. This to me is sutf
cient proof that we need not be de
pendent on any other government
sell our produce.
"Tbe tariff under the present law
not adequate to meet the wants Oh u
government, hence the present ae
ministration is piling up an enormo.
gold debt upon us, which means iol
to the country, if some immedia!
stens are not taken to put an emo
IL. This annual deficit can on'y
stopped by placing silver back on