The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-07-16

ratio which all the civilized nations Of
the world have long since discarded.
81 do not believe that any one govern
ment can fix the value upon any two
metals and name ratio which will be
accepted by the people of the world, or
of the country itself SO that the two
metals will be used side by side Conse-
Quently, if our nation alone should at
tempt any such action it would simply
place our country upon a silver basis
and the attempt would end in silver
monometaIlism. If we are compelled
to decide between gold monometaliism
and 81 yer monometallsm, then l am de-
cidedly in favor of adopting the standard
used by the civilized nations of the
world.
II do not believe that silver has ever
been demone lied anywhere in the world.
1 believe that the law of 1873. which Mr..
Harvey's book denounces as crime
was honestly conceived, openly advO-
Gated and passed by the American con-
gress after full deliberation and because
the people at that time who held seats
in the American congress believed that
such law ought to be enacted.
ST do not believe in the teachings of
this book, that this nation is on the verge
of financial ruin, or that starvation is
staring our people in the face. l believe
if our nation should adopt the course ad-
vocoted in this book it would seriously
injure the entire wage earners of the
United States. I believe we would de-
stroy the confidence of the business men
of the world in our inte gritty as a nation
and that we would precipitate such
financial panic as our country has never
before seen,
81 shall deny most emphatically that
the great mai jority. of the people of this
country are ia debt, and shall insist that
three fourths of the American people are
today creditors and not debtors and that
consequently the system which MIR. Har
vey advocates would work great injury
to the vast majority of American citi-
zens
81 will state still further that if this
book about which we are going to debate
is true, then l am all wrong. 1t seems
to me to be devoid of business sense
from beginning to end, and l shall enter
upon the work of attem pting to prove
that. and hope to be able to do it in
| language that shall be so plain and ex-
| plicit that my fellow citizens will be sat
! isfied that l have accomplished my task
! understand me, in n few words: l be-
| lieve that the American nation should
! have just as good money as any nation
uses on the face of the earth. l believe
that every dollar paid to poor man for
AS the dollars paid to men who are rich.
1 would have the money which measures
values the most stable that can be de-
| vlsed and would insist that buyers and
! sellers, lenders and debtors should as
near as poss BILE, be required to use the
same measure of values and should in
sist that repudiation in all forms is dis
| graceful and dishonoratle in the case of
nations, corporations, or individuals.
'What our people need is good credit,
good money, good principles and sound
business sense. Visionary schemes and
debased money never yet made nation
prosperous. The quality of the money
used in any country is far more import
ant than the quantity. The lava should
be drawn to protect the man who earns
money as well as those who owe money.
A man who works faithfully and lives on
his daily earnings. should never be sac
rificed for the benefit of men who live on
what they borrow. But all these things
will be more fully explained as the con-
test progresses"