The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1895-05-30
Gems From cariisie,s Speech.

Secretary Carlisles powers of lucid
statement were never put to a severer test
or shone with more brilliancy than in his
great speech on the silver question at Lex
ington, Ky. An acknowledged friend Of
silver yet he stood up among his old con-
stituents and showed so conclusivoly that
silver is only wise circulating medium
as long as it can be maintained at par
with gold that we cannot understand
how any man with sound reasoning fac.
ulties can read his argument and not be
convinced. SO important do we consider
this matter in a country where populism
has gained such foothold, through the
constant preaching of unsound financial
doctrine, that we shall continue for sew
eral days TO make trenchant extracts from
this great utterance.
His first statement to attract special
attention probably was that when tbs
second Cleveland administration came
in 1t found that coined silver was being
! piled up in the vaults of the treasury
at the rate of 154 tons month and
that the accumulation became so great
that general distrust arose, at home
and abroad, over our ability to maintain
so much silver. currency Mt par. Hence
the law suspending compulsory purchase
On the flippant proposition of cross roads
statesmen that the free coinage of silver
is rs simple as shelling peas, the Secretary
says:
The free coinage of silver and the sub
stitution of new unit and measure of
value for the existing one in the busi-
ness transactions of the country is not an
ordinary experiment which can safely be
tried today and abandoned tomorrow If
found injurious because the immediate
consequences of such such a step woud be
so far-reaching and so enduring that they
would continue to be felt for years after
the policy had been reversed. 1t is in
cumbent, therefore, upon those who in
sist upon the adoption of this revolutions
ary policy To show plainly and conclu-
sively in advance not only that it would re-
suit in no injury, but that it would be
positively beneficial, for if not positively
beneficial the change would at least be
wholly useless. This cannot be done by
appeals to the excited passions and preju.
dices to our people, by attempts to array
one class of our citizens of one section of
our country against another, or by loose
extravagant statements unsupported by
facts and reasons. The questions involved |
are too serious, the interests to be affected |
are too large, and the common sense of
the peopleis too strong to justify or even
excuse this course of treatment.
1t may be news to some of our readers
that for many years we got along without
silver money in this country. Says Sec
retary Carlisle:
In May, 1905, President Jefferson stop |
ped the coinage of the silver dollar, and |
during period of thirty-one years there |
after not a single standard silver dollar |
was coined at the mints of the United |
States. Under the act of 1873 and |
the so-called Sherman act, and the act |
providing for the trade dollars, there have
been coined at the mints of the United |
States, and put into circulation, dur
ing seventeen years, 1897, 652, S73 in full !
legal-tender standard silver, as against |
S., 030, 900 coined during the whole pre-
yiOus existence of the governmental
period of eighty-nine years In other
words, there have been coined and put
into circulation among the people, in coin
itself or in certificates issued upon 1t nearly
fifty times as many full legal tender sill
Yer dollars as were produced at the mints
of the United States from 1892 to 1878,
and yet some gentlemen are writing books
and making speeches to convince their
fellow citizens that silver is demonetized
in this country.
What food of cheap silver dollars
would do can be seen from this extract:
The coinage Of silver dollars here has
been limited by law for the purpose of
an excessive issue, and they
have been coined by, the government ON
its own account and paid out for public
purposes as dollars of full value Though