The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-08-29
A Practically Dead sentiment.


Controller Eckels is a remarkably
shrewd observer Of political events and is
an excellent judge Of the prevailing sen
timent in respect TO any public question.
In New York. on Sunday, speaking Of the
silver sentiment. he said: The sentiment
in favor Of the free coinage OF silver is. in
my estimation. practically dead"
Evidence is cropping out all the time that
Mr.. Eckers view Of the situation is about
correct It is certainly regarded rs cor
rect by those who are closely connected
with great financial and business inter
ests, because they are going ahead max
ing contracts just as If there wasn't a
shadow Of a doubt that the present stan
dard Of value would be maintained. and
the silver organs and leaders indirectly
admit that it is correct by the nonsensi-
cal arguments they are advancing in be-
half OF free and unlimited silver coinage.
When cotton was cents a pound and
whear50 cents a bushel they noisily and
aggressively announced that the gold
standard had caused immense declines in
the prices Of all values. When it was
pointed out that the price Of corn, the
greatest crop Of the country. had not de-
clined, and that the wages of labor were
higher than ever before. they simply an
swered by making more noise about the
prices of wheat and cotton. and they
practically refused TO admit there were
any other products. and when they were
told that there had been q great overpro-
duction of those two products they howled
about the money sharks and Wall street
shylocks.
The advance in the prices of wheat and
cotton without any advance in the price
Of silver deprived them Of their best ar
guments, and then they began to talk
about the slump" in tax returns. de-
ciaring that the gold standard was re-
sponsibIe for it. But that declaration did
not do them any good, because it was
quickly shown that there had been a
steady increase in the amount of assessed
property under the gold standard from
1873 to 1892, and that the hard times fol-
lowing the panic of 1898 may have caused
a depreciation in values in some localities
satisfactory to the silver organs in this
state, and they continued to Charge that
the denial Of free coinage to silver had
caused the slump in the tax returns in
Georgia The fact that some of the coun-
ties made larger returns this year than
last they simply ignored. When, how
ever, 1t was announced that the amount
of property returned for taxation in Mis-
souri, was SsO.OOOOOO greater this year than
last-Missouri, the home of the silverite
Bland and where the silverites are numer-
Gus and aggressive-the silver organs
dropped the tax returns argument and
again took up their howl about the
British gold standard" "Wan Street
Shylocks," and other such rot.
No wonder that Mr.. Eckels says the sill
yer sentiment, in his opinion, is practically
dead. There was nothing to keep 1t alive.
Thinking men, when they began to ex-
anime the claims made for silver. saw
how utterly baseless they were.
The politicians at first thought silver
was going TO carry the country, and they
tumbled over each other in their efforts
to get themselves noticed as silver lead
ers. Now most of them are not so anxious
to be noticed in connection with silver.
Their yawp for silver is no longer heard,
and pretty soon they will be among the
loudest shouters for sound money