Birmingham state herald., 1895-10-11
OUR LETTER BOX.
Help Wantedl


 Editor State Herald:
 After listening to the very ab1a 70, speech of the secretary of the navy last evening I retired to my room to spend a. restless night, my brain in a whirl. my nerves unstrung, trying to solve the many peculiar propositions put forth by him on the money question, and pctur- ing to myself the awful condition things might get into should we re-enact the free coinage laws. The result is I am ''all broke up," and have as yet oeen una ble to get any of his "unanswerable" ar guments through my aching head. therefore appeal to you for assistance, asking that you explain, if possible. the following assertions, which he calls ar guments, viz: %
 He says that if we open our hints to free coinage that all the silver of China, Japan and India will be dumped here and gold taken in exchange, and that just as soon as the law is passed the people of these countries will flash their orders by cable Tor this exchange of silver for gold. Now, l want to know how long 1t would take China to gather up the silver change which constitutes the circulation of that vast empire and ship it to the United States? In figuring out this prop osltion you must bear in mind that China has less than $2 per capita of silver, and all of this Is money of small denomina- tions, and which is absolutely necessary for their own use, and that these small silver pieces are in the hands of over 400, 900 people, in a heathen country, devoid of means of transportation and communication; and yet the secretary of the navy tells us that this will all be sent here to get our gold, and sent so quickly as to make 1t necessary for China to cable the purchase.
 Why cable at all? Why not write, or at least wait until they had the silver ready to deliver? Then again, please ex- plain to me what these people who will gather up these hundreds of millions of silver are going to give the people from whom they buy in exchange for it? Will they give them silver for silver or will they pay them in gold, and where will they get either in such vast amounts and how will they get it? We won't yer; neither will they give up their sil- yer until they get our gold.
 Maybe they will go through the Asiatic continent taking options on each mans mite of silver, then do likewise with us for our gold, both to be paid when goods are delivered.
 But after the honorable secretary had gotten his audience thoroughly alarmed at the prospect of losing our large stock of gold which is now doing such valiant service as circulating medium, he qui- eted their fears by telling them that the silver flood would not come, because, un- der the free coinage of silver everybody who had any gold would hoard it and refuse to part with it under any circum- stances, and that being "out of circula- tion' would place us on silver basis. Shades of Josiah Patterson!
 Then again, the great secretary of the navy tells us that the volume of money cuts no figure in the prices of-commodi- ties; that we don't need any money, any how. Confidence is all we need He de- nied that prices of everything had de- clined since 1873, and cited mess pork and oats as the two commodities to prove his assertion. He said that mess pork sold for $9 barrel in 1879, and has steadily advanced since that time to $14 per bar rel. and at no time since 1879 has it ever sold as low as $9 per barrel. It is true that mess pork did reach $14 per barrel in 1893, but we are all familiar with the methods used by Armour, Swift, Cudahy and other manipulators who cornered the market and forced it up for a time and how, when the pool collapsed, pork went down again. Today's quotations show it to be worth only $S.S7h per bar rel. He stated that oats were worth 34 cents per bushel in 1879, and has main- tained this price since that time with slight fiuctuatfon of 2 or 3 cents at va rious times. Today's quotations of oats shows them to be worth TEA cents per bushel.
 Can you blame me for being in such wrought up' condition after spending sleepless night trying to reconcile such wild assertions?
 There were many other statements as glaringly incorrect as the above men, toned, but as I am suffering from ex- haustion, and from the fear of having my life insurance paid in appreciated silver dollars. I will have to close. a, least until you convince me that such arguments as were dosed out last night will ever change vote.
 AMERICAN BTMETALLIST.
 Hoods Sarsaparilla acting through the blood reaches every part of the system. Cold Weather Gone.
 Wards coal yard can furnish coal and
 wood on short notice. They have the best coal for summer use in the market. Buy from them and you will not com