Mexico weekly ledger., 1895-08-01

ISolu NOW, L ass6Tt anu
challenge the investigation of every
thoughtful and intelligent man into the
subject, that the wages of labor are as
high to-day as they were in 1873, while
the prices of food, clothing, fuel, lights,
implements, building material, drugs,
chemicals and house furnishing goods
are much lower. This important fact
must be brought home to the wage
Garner, and when it is the country may
rely on the working men to maintain
at the ballot box the integrity of our
currency and to @ That every dollar
they earn is equal in purchasing pow
err to any other dollar. They will not
be misled by the sophistry of the DEM
agogue who would make them believe
that silver is the money of the poor
and gold the money of the rich, but
they will hold fast to the doctrine that
the money of the rich and the money
of the poor, the money of the banker
and the money of toiler, shall be equal
in exchangeable value and purchasing
power at all times and in all places.
I prefer the gold standard because
l am in sympathy with the cotton pro-
ducers of the South. 1t is not a mat
ter of choice with them. They have
either to abandon the production of
cotton, or make it to sell in the open
markets of the world. Sixty eight
per cent of all the cotton the Southern
people produce is sold to gold coun-
tries. If we become a silver standard
country, then will the cotton produc-
ers become the victims of the money
changers of the world. The process by
which the cotton will be exchanged
for gold, and then silver, will be an
expensive me-. Not only would the
vacillations in the price of silver be an
element of risk which would affect the
price of cotton, but the producer
ing gold for silver.
/ prefer the gold standard because
am a tariff reformer. For 20 years, in
common with my Democratic breth-
rem, l have protested against the
wrongs of protection. | have felt, in
common with all our people, the
grievous burden of being compelled to
sell our cotton in the open markets of
the world, and then buy the necessar-
les of life in a restricted and protected
market. At last we have lifted, in a
measuse, these burdens from the
shoulders of the people, and now they
can buy the necessaries of life cheaper
than ever before. Should we go to a
silver basis it would necessarily result
in an increase of duties, and would
have practical effect to undo all we
have accomplished in the way of tariff
reductions. Tariff reform and sound
money are inseparable. They are the
keys to the open markets of the world
and point the way to the commercial
liberty of our people.
| am for the gold standard because
free coinage would not only bring the
entire country to a state of extreme
distress, but would enable the banks,
in whose vaults the gold would be
boarded, to pay their depositors cheap
silver dollars; and the great insurance
companies, who are carrying more
than four billions of insurance on the
lives of the people, to pay their poll
cies in money worth about so cents on
the dollar, in comparison with the
money in which they collected the
premiums from the insured. These
companies have, for years, been in
vesting the premiums received from
the people in gold assets, and it would
be monstrous wrong and injustice for
the Government to enact a law which
would enable them to discharge their
obligations to the people in a money
less valuable.
Again, when the standard value is
certain and uniform a dollar in the
channels of trade will more certainly
and frequently perform its functions
as money. The appliances for speedy
transportation and the transmission of
intelligence have brought the COM
mercial nations more closely together
and the facilities for carrying on both
domestic and foreign commerce and
making exchanges are much greater
than formerly, and therefore business
is conducted more largely by means
of credits and without the use of me-
tallic money. And finally the rapidly
increasing output of COLDS an obstacle
in the way of establishment of the BIZ
metallic standard. The production of
gold in the world for the year ending
July 1, 1896, amounts to the unprece-
denied sum of 5000, 600 900. 1t exceeds
by s55, OO0, 900 the greatest output for
any year during the flush times in
California. 1t exceeds the production
of gold and silver for any year during
that period. The worlds production
of gold for the last three years
amounted to $685., 521 900, and it ex-
ceeded the worlds output for the first
40 years of the present century $780,
000, 900. Owing to the recent discov-
cries of gold fields and the increased
anu ulOTS cCOuOIIIC idSiiUASo vi
treating the ores, it is confidently pre-
dicted the worlds annual output will
exceed $3.50, OoO, 900 at the beginning of
the next century. While the gold
standard countries will, as heretofore,
continue the use of silver very largely
as money, and they will doubtless
more intelligently and scientifically
provide for it a place in their eircula-
lions yet for the reasons l have given
l have seriously doubted if the COM
mercial powers would ever be per-
suaded to abandon the gold standard,
l am for gold in preference to the
silver standard because the experience
through which the country passed
during the recent panic teaches that
the establishment of the latter would
'|$ThOuSdndS OF WOm6n8