St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-04-30

sales. Nor did this wretched condition
of affairs show any signs of improve
ment until the partial restoration of
silver to it's money functions took
place in 1878.
81 am told on this question that sill
Yer bullion as marketable commodity
at this time commands a top price. My
answer is that if gold had been con-
spired against, persistently assailed by
foul means as well as fair,
STABBED IN THE DARK
and in the daylight. and in the back
and under the fifth rib, and wherever
else a dagger could be planted for
nearly a quarter of a century past, it
would be in a far worse crippled con-
dition than silver. No other form of
money on the face of the earth could
have withstood, as silver has done,
such malignant, unsparing crusade
as the last twenty-five years have wit
messed in this. country. 1t still holds
its place in the affections and conf
dence of the people. Battered, bruised
and tattered as it has been, yet it
will buy today all that gold will buy
and pay all the debts that gold will
pay, unless a special contract has been
made for gold. The American people
will never give it up and the sooner
the minions of aggressive, insolent con-
solidated wealth and the arrogant apos-
ties of gold recommendation realize and
act upon this fact, the better and safer
1t will be for them in the future of this
country. In every state and territory
from the Western side of the Ale
gheny mountains to the Pacific coast
silver has been known and Endorsed
by people for three-quarters of a cen
fury, not merely as sound money, not
merely as honest money, but as land
office money besides. With it their
homes were bought and paid for, and
not much patience now remains with
them or their descendants for those
who stand and stigmatize the great
white metal which has done it's work
so well.
"And the need of the white metal in
the hands of the people is even greater
now than ever before. There is scarce
ly speck of gold in sight of the labor
ing classes. In round numbers there
are nearly four thousand millions of
gold money in the world, and about
the same amount of silver With sill
yer demonetiZed the plain people, the
wage-workers, and those who raise
and sell the produce of the soil will
handle specie money no more forever
and will catch even a glimpse of it but
seldom. Gold will be boarded and hid
away in the vaults of the great mag
mates of wealth, and the people in
their business will be put on their half
rations of paper money, to which the
shrlnkages and contraction from "a
basis of bimetallism to a basis of
monometallism will reduce them.
II WISH TO IMPUGN
the motives of no one and to avoid
hard words in discussion as far as
possible, but the time has come when
speech, though temperate, should be
very plain. Party platforms from this
time forward will not be framed to
cheat on this subject, whatever may
have been done heretofore No dubi-
Gus phraseology or straddling planks
on the question Of silver will be toleI.-
ated in the next national conventions
that are to take place in this country.
Words will mean what they say, and
men will be nominated whose lives and
records will constitute a guarantee
that the principles declared will be
carried out Nor are the people to be
imposed on any further by the ominous
air with which the money lords and
money lenders pirate about the terrors
and disasters of being put on silver
basis by the free coinage of silver
If the free and unlimited coinage
or silver as full legal tender money
ana as standard of statutes, and the
unit of account and payment, without
a word of international agreement on
the subject, will put this country on a
silver basis, then we were on such a
basis every day and hour from the
passage of the first coinage act in
April, 1892, until the decentralization
act. of February, 1873, a period of
eighty-one years, during which we
rose from weakness to the foremost
rank among the nations of the earth.
L commend to all croakers in regard
to silver basis a careful reading of
the act of April q 1892, formulated bv
Hamilton and Jefferson and approved
by Washington