The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-05-03
ECKELS DECLAIMS.
The Comptroller Talks About
the Money Question.
Says the People Must be Educa-
ted on It.
Sill NEp IS EEAMICM
SILVER is FIATISM.
Nations Good Depends on Sound
Money Ideas He Says.

with their guests of the evening en-
joyed the banquet given at the Hotel
Cadillac last night in celebration of the
completion and dedication of the new
Detroit chamber of commerce. The
principal address of the evening was
made by Comptroller of the Currency
Eckels, in response to the toast Cur
rency," as follows:
ut is impossible within the brief
limits of a conventional after dinner
address to more than touch upon the
sentiment which has just been an
nounced and to which [ am asked to
respond. I shall, therefore, content
myself with giving expression to such
general views as seem to me to be per-
tinent to single phase of the cur
rency question, as it to-day engages
public thought and commands the peo-
pies attention. I am sure all will
agree that it is the most impor-
tant problem with which the
executive and legislative branches
of the government have now
to deal, and as such. demands
that there be brought to bear to its
solution a craftsmanship as wise as it
is patriotic, and as honest as it is wise.
Its discussion has been precipitated at
a time when the country is emerging
from period of financial and COM
mercial depression, widespread and of
long continued duration. It finds
every avenue of trade giving evidence
of renewed activity; mill and factory
again in operation and agriculture
promising to those engaged in it's pur-
suit abundant harvests and appreci-
ating prices. 1t presses itself upon
the 1abOrer now no longer idle,
but busy with the employment
which has come with the settlement of
questions which have long vexed the
public mind, and after ample demon
stration of the ability of the govern
ment to maintain untainted tho public
faith and the nations credit. If under
such circumstances the cause of those
who stand against the schemes pro-
posed to rid by means of law people
from making proper payments of their
just debts, and give them riches
through legislative action cannot
be sustained, the experience of
all monetary history will be re-
versed. If this contest shall
end. otherwise than in the triumph of
that which is right in theory and sound
in principle it will be because the
American people have lost much of
that good sense and honesty which a
great writer declared, though some
times permitting an agitation for some
thing wrong and mischievous, always
when the danger point is reached
brings forth a mass of opinion, which
though ordinarily quiescent, at such
time forces itself into activity, puts
down the wrong thing and perempto-
rily demands the right thing instead
81 believe we have come to a point
in this discussion of our monetary sys-
tenn and agitation for complete
change in our standard of value when
this mass of opinion should not only
be aroused, but should make itself an
active force in putting an end to the
currency vagaries of which the free
silver movement as to-day presented is
the elimination. If commercial and
industrial revival Is to continue;
recurring loss to every citizen
to be prevented; national and in
dividual financial credit and integrity
maintained and ultimate disaster avert
ed, there must be no longer spirit of
hesitation in those who know the bane-
full effects of the thing proposed. There
can be no political ends to be served,
no party considerations to be advanced,
of sufficient import to warrant any
man in long debating as to the position
he should take when the financial hon
or of our country is at stake and the
prosperity of a great people threatened.
THE American people cannot too
quickly recognize that they are in the
midst of a propaganda, skillfu1ly and
zealously being carried on with the
end in view of revolutionizing the
country's existing monetary system.
Those who now direct the free silver
idea, map out the policy of its advo-
Gates. and control their action, have
ceased playing with words and put
from them the professions which
heretofore have characterized their
utteranees when urging the cause
for which they have stood. Their
demand to-day, interpreted in the
light of their acts, is that the United
States shall at once abandon its pres
ent standard of value and substitute
therefor, irrespective and without the
cooperation of any other country, a
single silver standard. Nowhere is it
suggested by the sponsors for this
latest tenet in the silver creed, that this
nation shall even undertake to maintain
at home a double standard. Nowhere
is there promise given of an attempt
through international agreement to
make every dollar of silver which shall
be coined the equal in value of every
dollar of gold which comes from the
mint and fairly interchangeable there
with. They no longer give recognition
to the fact, attested by every monetary
union formed and conference held, that
no nation can isolate itself from those
with which it has commercial dealings,
and maintain independent of them a
distinctive standard of value. It is not
even designed that the dollar coined
shall approach in intrinsic value the
value which it purports to carry, but
instead a ratio shall exist between
coins of the same denomination which