The Meeker herald. [volume] (Meeker, Colo.) 1885-current, 1895-02-23
Silver WIN be the Issue in ,ee.

oiIFeF VIII De the Issue Ill '96.
A few weeks ago, says the Aspen
Times, Hon. j. S. Clarkson, of Iowa,
chairman of the national Republican
committee, passed through Denver on
his way from the Pacific coast. AT that
time he was reported by ths Denver
newspapers as declaring in favor Of BIZ
metallism and that that would be the
issue in 1896. In an interview in The
Daily Iowa Capital, published at his
home in Des Moines, he announces that
he will stand by the sentiments ex-
pressed in the Denver interview. He
goes farther and makes more clear his
position in favor of free coinage. In
this interview, among other things, he
said:
The issues of the approaching presi-
dental canvass will be pronounced
along the lines of industrial problems
and the currency question. J am de-
cidedly in favor of bimetalIic stan
dard, and believe not only in the free
coinage of silver, but do not believe
that congress had any right whatever to
demonetize it. 1t is just as essentiol as
gold as circulating medium. No man.
| care not how eminent, need tell
me, with the expectation will
be convinced, that the commerce
of the world can be conducted
upon a gold basis when COM
merce is increasing many fold every
year while the production of gold, if in
creasing at all, is doing so almost i'm
perceptibly, and 1 can produce better
authority to sustain my belief than can
any monometalist or single standard
advocate. The currency will be the
leading issue in 1896, and it will eventu-
ally be settled by the good common
sense of the common people of America.
What the nation needs is more money
and silver; the metal out of which it
will be coined is one of Americas IS
greatest products and will give mighty
impetus to American industries and
American business when it is once
more restored to its proper place as a
part of the money of the country. The
great empire west of the Missouri river
is united in demand for its restora-
ton, and l imagine that the people of
Iowa and the Mississippi valley are
rapidly awakening to the Importance
of the question of again placing silver
in ethe position from which it was de-
throned twenty years ago. Without its
potential influence as medium Of ex-
change the government will be compel
led, in order to retain the gold basis de-
lusion, to issue hundreds Ut millions of
dollars in bonds and tax the people
many millions of dollars for the benefit
Of the gold gamblers CT the east, in
order that the country may have money
with which to transact its commerce.
This is wrong and will have to be
remedied before prosperity can return.
No, the American people will get no re-
lief under the present administration if
President Cleveland can defeat it, since
he seems to be bound with hooks of
steel to the gold advocates and equally
hostile to every popular reform. No,
my present attitude on silver is not the
result of sudden change, for L have al
ways maintained that it should be given
the same consideration as gold in the
domain of money. l stand by the senti-
ments expressed in my Denver inter
view. and l will be found propagating
those sentiments in the future on every
proper occasion"