Birmingham age-herald., 1895-05-24

Morris of Louisiana Rufus Hardy of Texas, Daniel Miller of Maryland w. R. Mayo of Virginia.
 There was no response when the states of West Virginia and North Carolina were called Just as the committee had been completed the tall form of Secretary Carlisle emerged from the stage. In an instant delegates and spectators, women and men, were on their feet and mighty shout went up. It was succeeded by yell yet dear to southern hearts and then again with a volley of cheers, with way ing of hats and canes and other accom- paniments. The ovation continued for several moments and was renewed when the secretary of the treasury was for mally presented.
 Silence having been with difficulty re- stored. Mir Carlisle began his speech, the delivery of which occupied precisely one and a half hours. He spoke with un- wonted energy and made references to his notes. He was listened to with pro> found attention, the audience being ap parently anxious to grasp and follow the trend of his argument and the mass of figures with which it was supported and there were few interruptions of ap- proval until toward the close Then when with the quivering fore finger, he de- clared that the hard earned savings of the poor ought not to be sacrificed to the avarice of the wealthy mine owners or the ambition of aspiring politicians, his hearers fairly went wild, and when in his peroration he urged that there could be no prosperity for one section at the expense of the other, but that all must stand or fall together, it looked for moment as though the enthusiastic au- dience would storm the platform.
 When the speaker concluded he was given a final ovation and a recess until o'clock was al once taken.
 Night Session.
 The committee on resolutions went in to session at the Gayoso hotel with Judge Rose of Little Rock as chairman, and when the convention reasSembled at S30 o'clock 1t was presented with the fol- lowing platform and resolutions:
 The people of the southern states who believe the maintenance of a sound and stable currency to be essential to the prosperity of the whole country and the welfare of the people in all divisions of life, do. through their representatives in congress, assembled at Memphis on May 2S, 1895, make the following declaration of their matured convictions:
 l. Believing a uniform and certain standard of value necessary to the agri- cultural, commercial and industrial de- velopment and prosperity of our com mon country, we favor the maintenance of all our money whether gold, silver or paper on parity to the end that each dollar, whatever may be it's composition,
 
 paying powers with every other dollar.
 2. Profiting by the experience of Wash ington, Jefferson and Hamilton and the teachings of the great students of mone- tary Science from the time when John Locke wrote to the discussions of the present day, we accept the truth of the principle now universally recognized and applied in the commercial world, that the bimetallic standard cannot be main tained where the ratio fixed by law for f..OA ,11C .sI.. not correspond with the market ratio of the two metals; and that wherever and whenever the legal or coinage ratio va ries from the market or commercial ratio to any appreciable extent, the dollar, whether of gold or silver, which thereby becomes more valuable as bullion than as money will go to a premium and retire from circulation.
 We saw this principle applied in our own national experience, when under the act of 1792, which fixed the coinage ratio at 15 to l. gold retired from circu- lation because of a slight decline in the price of silver in the open market, where by the bullion in a gold dollar became worth a few cents more than the bullion in silver dollar and was therefore sold as commodity, because it was worth more as bullion than as money, and again under the act of 1884, which fixed the ratio at 16 to 1, when the silver coin retired for like reason. We are, there fore, opposed to the free, unlimited and independent coinage of silver at the ra- tio of Is to l. when the market or com mercial ratio is more than 30 to 1 and the difference between the bullion value of a gold and silver dollar is about 30 cents on the ground that such action, instead of restoring the bimetallic stand ard, would inevitably result in silver monometallism.
 3. At this time there is no country in Vyhi inh ,rtx f,,i., q. I.. lie standard and neither is there any country where the free co1nage of silver obtains which is not on a silver basis Each country, on account of it's inability to adopt independently any bimetallic standard, must elect for itself what it prefers, the gold or the silver standard We therefore favor, in the absence of international cooperation, the retention and maintenance of the existing gold standard, because change from the gold to the silver standard would have the effect to repudlate all public and pri- vate obligations to the extent of the diff ference between the bullion value of the gold and the silver dollar; because when ever such change should be seriously threatened 1t would cause an immediate attempt at collection and liquidation of all debts in anticipation of the result it would produce, because such transition from the gold to the silver sbasis would destroy public and private confidence and would involve the country in such panic, confusion and distress that the products of agriculture and the wages of labor would be unremunera- tive; the business of commerce would become unprofitable and our people en- gagged in industrial occupations would be thrown out of employment; because there is not a progressive and enlightened country in the world that has not elected