Birmingham age-herald., 1895-05-21
IT WAS THE OPENING GUN.
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 acted without the actual use of metallic money, or it's paper representatives; and as to metallic money itself, whether Tn gold or silver, 1t is not used to the extent of more than 1 per cent in our business transactions. In view of these facts, which are as well established as any other facts relating to our commercial and financial operations how absurd 1t is to contend that prices are fixed by the amount of that particular kind Of cur rency which does not constitute more than one-hundredth part of the whole. In the hroadest and most comprehensive sense the business capacity and personal integrity of each individual constitute part of the effective currency of the com munity in which he lives, because these characteristics enable him to become purchaser of the commodities it has to sell although at the time he may have neither money nor property. Credit is purchasing power, and the man who pos sesses it competes in the markets with the men who possess actual money, and contributes as much as they to the main tenance of prices To assert that prices are fixed by the amount of redemption money alone is equivalent to the asser- tion that if all the silver dollars. subsid- iary silver coin, silver certificates, United States notes, treasury notes, na- tiona1 bank notes and every other form Ol credit were destroyed, iedNlnR nothing but the gold, prices would remain the same as they now area proposition so preposterous upon it's face that I pre- sume no man with any regard for his reputation would venture to make it ex- cept in a disguised form.
 We Are a Wage Working People.
 The great majority of our people rem der service for wages in one form or an other and they are compelled to purchase in the markets everything they eat, drink or wear, and in most cases they are compelled to pay rent for the ues of home for themselves and their fami- lies. Like the farmers they have no sil- yer bullion to carry to the hints to be coined at the public expense; they have nothing to dispose of but their labor anl their skill and as a general rule all, or substantially all the wages they receive must be used in procuring commodities for the personal use of themselves and those dependent upon them. They can not eat, drink or wear the money pail to them for their labor, and it is valuable to them only because they can exchange it for the necesSaries and comforts of life: and there never was time in the history of the world when the workingmans dollar would buy as much of the neces- sarieS and comforts of life as it will buy now, and there never was a time in the history of the world when the working man received more good dollars for the SdfHe dlHOuil OI ldDOF tIldn Ie IecelNtS now in this country. Any policy which reduces the value of this dollar on the day it is earned or on the day it is eX- pended, by diminishing it's purchasing power in the markets, has precisely the same effect upon the holder as if the amount paid for his labor were reduced. If, therefore, the favorite argument of the advocates of free coinage-that the free coinage of silver at the ratio of It to 1 would double the prices of all prod ucts--is correct, the wages of the labor ing man would purchase under that sys tenn only one-half what they purchase now. This would undoubtedly be the case unless wages should also be doubled, which, according to the uniform experience of the past, is a most improba- ble thing. For more than a quarter of a century the working people of the United States have struggled earnestly and persistently, through their labor or ganizations and otherwise, to increase their wages to a point which would en- able them to live decently and comfort ably by expending their earnings for commodities at their present prices, and how long do you think they would have to struggle in the future to raise their wages to a point which would enable them to purchase the same articles when their prices have been doubled? No man in this audience will live to see such a result accomplished, and the laboring n1dn WHO SuppOIlS luS liSc COiiid6C OA depreciated silver dollars must be con tent to live and support his family upon what depreciated silver dollars will buy. My position upon this subject Is that when the laborer receives dollar on account of his wages he has a right to be assured that it will purchase as much in the market as any other mans dol lar or if he desires to lay it Up for use in time of need he has a right to be as- sured that it will be worth as much when he wants to ypend it as it was worth on the day he earned 1t.
 But, gentlemen, the free and unlimited coinage of silver would not secure for the use of the people at any time any addl- ton to their stock of actual money, but would simply give them less valuable money Shan they have now. To call 1O-cent piece dollar and declare it to be the standard of value would add nothing whatever to it's purchasing power; 1t would still require ten of them to pur> chase what real dollar will purchase now, and prices of commodities ex- pressed in dollars would appear to have been increased ten-fold, when, in fact, nothing would have happened except the debasement of the dollar. An actual in> crease in prices resulting from an fn- crease in the volume of sound money in circulation is quite different thing from a nominal increase of prices result ing from the use of a depreciated cur rency and no argument upon the sub ject of prices can be sound that does noa recognize the distinction between them. The proposition of our free-coinage friends is to double prices nominally, but at the same time to have them paid in money intrinsically worth only one-half as much as it was before the prices were doubled, and I confess my inability to see how this would help anybody.
 As to His Personal Record.
 You have been detained too long aI- ready, but in view of the determination exhibited in some quarters to criticise