The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1895-05-31
THEIR CASE DISPROVED.

The unlimited free coinage of l6 to
l silver advocate is queer individual.
In many respects he reminds one OF
Jonas Harrison's story of the Millerlte
preacher, in Edward Eggleston's story
of "The End of the World" "He is
the greatest Teller at figgers l ever
saw" said Jonas, ''yOu can give him
any kind of an example you are mind
to and he will figger out the same an
swer to them ALL" And that answer
was the date he had set for the end OF
the world. And so it is with the free
coinage advocate. No matter what is
the difficulty which confronts thepeo-
pie: what the problem to be solved,
the one thing responsible for all, is
the fact that the free coinage OF silver
was suspended in 1873. This is the
one answer for all the failures OF man.
kind today. Energy, enterprise ana
inventive genius count for nothing
with him. Looking back over history
we find that the world has made
greater progress during the present
century than in all the eighteen
hundred years since the time Of Christ,
and we might say since the dawn OF
civilization. There is no time in all
history that an intelligent, energetic
man would preferred TO have lived in
over today. In this nineteenth CEN
tury there has been an awakening
such as was never known before.
Steam and electricity have revolu-
tionized the world. Inventive genius
has been busily at work, and the mode
of supplying the wants OF man have
not only brOadened, but have changed
entirely. Education has spread, and
with its spread the wants OF man nave
grown, and progress has stood ready
at all times to supply these wants.
The one aim of man has been to sup
DIV these needs of his fellow man at
the lowest possible cost, and for this
purpose he has summoned to his AID
the inventive genius of the world. AS
a natural result machinery has played
a most important part in the work OF
cheapening every human want which
can be supplied through the agency OF
man. At least this was supposed to
be the case until the silver monomet-
allist appeared and undertook to set
a mistaken world Alright.
With one stretch of his silver wand
he wiped away the supposition OF
man, and proceeded to demonstrate
that the growth Of machinery had had
nothing to do in cheapening prices,
but that the whole thing had been
brought about by stopping the free
coinage of silver. According to his
view the large increase in the produc-
ton of wheat and cotton and the les
SEEMING export demand has cut no
figure with the price of those products
in this country; their price, as is al
legged, has been cut in two by the al
legged crime committed against silver
in 1873.
The invention of a machine by which
one man can do as much as hall a
dozen or dozen of his fellow men is
not worthy of passing notice. The
reason the products of that machine
are cheaper is because silver is not re-
ceived and coined free at the mint.
And so they proceed without eLd.
What assumption! And yet that is
virtually the argument they use, for
they attribute all the fall there has
been in prices to the cheapness
of silver. 1t is strange that
intelligent men will be led off by
it, though we note that they are
day by day, until they stop to think
of the righteousness of it al, land then
they call halt and get back again on
to solid ground.
And when an intelligent man re
calls that the two products which the
silveriteS take to illustrate their case
with are those two which are most
largely exported and therefore most
easily responsive to the supply and de-
mand of foreign markets, and never
allude to many other products of the
farm which are as high, and in some
instances higaer, than they were in
1873, it does not take him long to see
the fallacies of the silverites' reason
ing. The events of the past few
weeks, or days even, have disproved
much of the reasoning the silver
monometallist has used to bolster up
his cause. Wheat has shown that it's
price is entirely Independent of the
price of the white METAL and is regu-
lated solely by the amount there is of
it, and the demand there is for it.
And SO we find in everything else. AS
we commence to retrace the road
toward prosperity there is an increase
in the wages of the toilers, and a
gradual strengthening in prices in
many lines, fact which we were told
could not occur until we had the free
and unlimited coinage of silver at the
16 to l ratio.