The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-07-28
The Want of the Purchasing
Medium Often Destroyed
Character.
HoRR INTERRUPTED BY CRIES.
One More Day VIII Wind Up the
Great Debate Between Cham
pions of Gold and Silver.
Copyright 1895 by Azel F. Hatch.)

port of the Finance Committee OF the
United States Senate for the purpose of
showing that gold had not appreciated
since 1873, and challenged his opponents
sincerity in basing his arguments in this
matter upon Sauerbeck's tables, which are
compiled by an Englishman ard based
upon English values.
In his reply to the charges, Mr.. Harvey
scored one of the hardest hits that have yet
been placed to his credit. He produced an
article written by Mr.. Horn in answer to
a correspondent, which had appeared in
the weekly and monthly editions of the
New York Tribune, in which Mr.. Horn
scoffed at the idea which he has frequently
advanced in the present debate that human
labor formed a trustworthy standard of
value. Mr. Horr's reply to the correspon-
dent, as quoted by Mr.. Harvey, concluded
with the words: "Your system seems so
absurd that / can hardly treat it soberly."
In reply to the charge that he had I'M
fairly based his arguments upon foreign
table, Mr.. Harvey produced a comparative
statement showing that his arguments
would have been even more forcibly en-
phasized by the Aldrich report to the
United States Senate, and further stated
that his selection of Sauerbeck's figures
was based upon his belief and the gen.
orally accepted opinion that they were
more authoritative.
Mr.. Harvey said he was accused by his
opponent of finding fault with men and
conditions for the reasons, as he charged,
that the silver people delighted to do so.
Mr.. Harvey continued:
HE has touched a phase of human
nature on which volumes might be writ
ten, and it is a hope of all who take an
active interest in the promotion of civiliza-
ton that the time will come when there
will be nothing but content and happiness
on this earth. But to reach that period
we must remove the obstacles in the way.
The argument he makes has been used IN
ages to fortify and defend the many.
There is one instance in this country when
that argument was made, and the answer
to it was the Declaration of Independence.
Later the King issued an amnesty
proclamation offering peace to those who
would lay down their arms, and the in
sidious tongue told the people they were
pessimists to further arraign the condi-
lions under which they were living. The
answer to that was Yorktown. You can
not deter men who know their rights and
dare maintain them by an argument that
is intended to lure them from the subject
to which they invite your intelligent
analysis. Mr.. Horr's inappropriate Ian
guage consisted of words that might be ad-
dressed to slaves, but not to free men,"
Mr.. Harvey, in defending his use of the
Sauerbeck table to show the decline in
prices of staple articles since 1850, at
tackled the Aldrich table, which he said
was made by committee of the United
States Senate, and that one of the men
who helped to make it was Edward Atkin-
son, whose bias could be judged by the
fact that he lad recently said over his own
signature to a Chicago paper that the
proper way to deal with a silver man was
to hit him over the head with club.
Yet that report showed a decline in
prices of 80 per cent below 1872 and s per
cent below the price of 1860 The Aldrich,
Sauerbeck and Soetbes tables show that
prices are lower now than in 1850. All the
tables proved the enormous purchasing
power OF money when exchanged for prop
erty and the small amount of money
property will buy when exchanged for
money.
Mr.. Horr accused his opponent of being
tricky in quoting one sentence from the
article which he had written for the New
York Tribune and assuming that it
showed the gist of the whole article.
What he said in reference to the mans
theory being ridiculous did not relate to
his measure of value at all. 1t was his
attempt to substitute paper dollar based
on nothing with which to do the business
of the country. Mr.. Horr added:
t'That is where Harvey will land yet
The disease that he has never dies out.
He has reached the last stages of it. That
is the trouble. What he wants and what
these people are after is to destroy all
property and to put this Nation on So
cialist and anarchist basis" Cries of
MOI
Mr. Horr-That is right; knew you
would understand that.
Mr.. Harvey-I submit right here that
there is not one scintiIla in this debate
that authorizes you to say that.
Mr.. Horr-I say there is one scintilla in
it and 1 say that up TO date you have got
applause from this audience, your part of
it, only when your arguments tended to
show that you think the whole society of
this country ought to be destroyed. [Cries
of "No."l 1 know what / am talking
about. Now, as to banks, why is it that
Mr.. Harvey feels called upon to enter into
a trade against banks and to indulge in
such a torrent of abuse against bankers?
1 hardly conceive of greater, more
wicked Misrepresentation of facts than
have crept into the talk he has given
us up to the present moment. Why do
you keep insisting that this country has
nothing left, and that all we have left we
owe to foreigners? Why do you try to
prove to the people that we are on the
brink of precipice-future ruin? Look
at the facts. No nation on the face of the
earth has been as prosperous as the United
Stated since 1878. As far as the United
States are concerned, know he is mis-
taken.
Mr.. Harvey presented his opponent with
a table of failures in the United States
during the last thirty-eight years, and de-
clared that the credit system of money,
with its tax of $500, 600 annually, would
account for every dollar in these failures.