The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1895-05-17
The Danger Confronting the Peoples
Party.


the Peter Cooper greenback movement
went on the rocks and was wrecked. A
free silver movement was injected into it
and the party was diverted from its main
object onto the silver movement The
democrat party then, as it gives signs of
doing now, declared strongly for the re-
monetization of silver and fusion with the
greenbackers. When the gold conspir-
ators became convinced that the popular
tide was too strong to oppose, a Bland
was found to make a compromise when
on the very eve of success. A bargain
was made with the gold monopolists for
the government, in place of free coinage,
to purchase and coin not more than
$4, DOC, 900 or less than $2, 900, 900 month
of silver.
This defeated the free coinage, without
its advocates apparently being aware OF
the fact, while the silver movement had
wrecked the greenback party by swallow
ing it up in the democratic fusion move
ment in favor of restoring silver to free
coinage.
When compromise was engineered by
the gold trust in the Bland-Allison law
silver was made commodity with the
government as the chief bear in the pit
This was all the Jew bullion traders of
London wanted, and from that day they
continued to quote the price of American
silver as low as the firms dared to put it,
gradually pushing the price down week
after week Having managed to secure
the administration on their side, insured
only the minimum sum of $2, 900, 900
dollars coined monthly.
Having defeated the greenback move
meut and destroyed the party the national
banks breathed easy, and the silver free
coinage movement switched off, one of
the chief sources of speculation among
London bullion traders was American
silver.
Having everything i'll their own hands,
contraction of the currency, lowering
prices Of property and creation of debts
private, corporation, state, national,
municipal became the chief end and aim
of the gold money monopoly. This des-
perate game had SO impoverished the
people that 1890 precipitated another
struggle for free coinage. A still more
fatal compromise was made with the silver
cause i'll the hand of that prince of blum
derers, "Dick" Bland, in the Sherman law
A political cycle has brought the people
| face to face again with conditions re-
sembling those of the Bland-Allison
period, greatly magnified, and the silver
movement is shaping itself in very SIM
liar way. The rank and file of the demo-
crat party are declaring i'll favor of free
| coinage of silver, while distinct party
under the name of Bimetallic party is
| making a strong demonstration on the
enemy's flank, and in due time the flank
movers are in hopes of committing one of
the old parties to free coinage, when they
will throw all the strength they can CON-
mand to that party, and if some compro-
mise cannot be patched up like the Bland
and Sherman laws, the gold ring and its
Sound money" banboozle will adopt
free coinage, and if the Peoples party is
committed to the one financial plank
theory of free silver at the front it will be
hopelessly wrecked.
1t is fact very noticeable that about
all the old greenback leaders are endeav-
oring to run in their old silver and green
back groove, as instance General Weaver
and others. They are oblivious of the
fact that public thought has travelled far
beyond the old Peter Cooper policy of
only arresting the destruction of the
greenbacks.
The Peoples party aims to substitute
for the greenback and all other govern
ment paper national legal tender money
not redeema6ie, but primary.
The Bimetallic party which has taken
entire direction of the silver campaign,
aims to give silver the same standing as
gold, by declaring it a primary money!
a redemption" money. This is no more
than adding more gold to the present
gold coinage, by making silver, too,
as it always had been before 1873, a
money of final payment" ''redemp,
ton" money. This would tend to relieve
the pressure of debt to some extent and
raise prices, but the power to control
the money of the world, and
especially of this country, would
remain in the hands of the money
trust. This trust will consent to the re-
monetization of silver through its two old
parties when it finds itself unable to stem
the popular tide that is rising in force
against it, but it will offer this concession
for another important concession which
will be the destruction of the greenbacks
aud the paper money of the future to be
bank paper. The entire Bimetallic,
Bland, ct. al, company would agree to
such a compromise" They are all
final payment" money men.
The money trust could we'll afford to
consent to the RECOMMENDATION of silver on
the "fnal payment" principle with forty
billions of debt i'll their hands resting on
the back of the industrial class of this
country alone, and twenty-eight billions
of national debts on the governments of
the world. An addition of the silver to
Lar. ~FA Al.