The Monticellonian., 1895-10-18
senator Vests Address.


 MT. Vest spoke as follows:
 The weakness of any cause Is demon strated by resort to falsehopl and mis- representation. When ] returned from En- roHe recently. where 1 had gone for much needed rest and 10 regain my health, I was confronted on arriving iu New York by statement in gold paper that l had changed my position upon the silver ques= ton and had become q member of the single gold standard party That state meHt was absolutely and uncouditiouailE fake. No syllable had eyer come from my lips which. directly orr indirectly could have given just cause for any such charge. So far from having changed my opinion upon the silver question, l returned 10 the United States more convinced than ever that the welfare of this country and ot the world had already demanded the broad, free and unlimited coinage ef sil- yer
 So far from having changed my opinion. l came back convinced that this great re public WOuld be false to the principles upon which it was founded unless it stood the champion of popular rights, the riedtS CT people against financial greed and mon opuly. If l had changed my opinion l would have faistfed every declaration of my public life. l would have received from the principles of Thomas Jefferson the founder of the Democratic party, and, in my judgment. the greatest statesman who has eyer lived. If I had changed my opinion I could not stand here to-day with out the mantle of shame upon my cheek a8i look into the faces of the people who. thirty-five years ago, heard me defend the principles of the Democratic party. I came back to the United States absolutely satisfied that the only hope of bmetallism was in this country. It's useless 10 look to Europe upon an Issue of ths kind at this time. Mir. Gladstone represented the sentiment of the English people when he declared that the world owed England ten billions of dollars and this deht must be paid In gold.
 In Europe the nobility of capitalists con front tho country. The people are un- known in public affairs, except To be ground down with taxes and made to support the luxury and aflluence of the rich. If they clamor they are stilled with the tramp of armed men; if they murmur. the roar of cannon and the rat tie of musketry cause those murmarings to be hashed. With 3s0000 armed men of a standing army in Germany, constantly ready for battle, and with the ability to put one million men in the army in case Of war, with two millions of soldiers in Russia, country where there is no leg isation and no legislative will except that of the Czar, and in France with 26D,000 soldiers, fed by the people, where the soldiers chronicle shall set his stripe upon the cheek of every peasant; in England with it's primogenitives that have a fixed estate and it's enormous capital controlling foreign commerce, tho people look up to the hereditary mOnarch-a monarch in name. and monarch behind whom Is all the gold power of the world. What chance Is there for popular freedom in countries like these?
 If the United States should now aban- don the cause of bimetallism, the cause would be eternally and irrevocably lost. If there ever was time that we, in whose brain and that of our aIcestry, was first conceived the right of freedom, if we whose Government was based upon the rights of the people, for the people and their children foreVer-tf We should now abondon the cause of bimetallism, the equity of two metals and life-blood of commerce, then, indeed, would bimetal- lism be destroyed forever. No, my friends come back to stand, if no other man stood, as the apostle of the free and un- limited coinage of silver in the United States. (Applause.)
 Cabinet Members Roasted.
 But Justification and misrepresentation have not stopped at personalities. Mem bers of the federal cabinet are now trav- ersing the country making speeches de- nouncing those who were their former as sociates in the silver body as being the enemies of sound money and the adyo- oates of 50-cent dollar. Nearly eighteen years ago they were foremost in the body for bimetalllsm, but to-day they are denouncing the former political associates because they are attempting 10 put a dishonest dollar upon the people of the United States.
 Hon. Hoke Smith, secretary of the inte- rior lately delivered an address at lief ferson Ga, in which he indalged in the following misrepresentation: He said that a certain time in old Virginia tobacco was used as money and that commodities were purchased with tobacco at so much a pound, and 1t was then said that the old Vireinians purchased their wives with the same commodity. NOW" he said, sup pose that some shrewd trader had taken the pound of tobacco and stamped 1t two pou6ds Does anybody think he could thus add to the merchantable and ex- changeable value of that pound of tobac- co?' There was a time, he said, when skins were used as money In Virginia Suppose some man had taken one skin and marked two skins upon it. Would that have given it the sxchangeable value