Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1895-03-06
1VOIRER POLITICAL PARTY.
The SilveritsS Come Before the People
With a Scheme.
They Propose te Relegate Everything
to the Rear
And Give Silver Full Sway in the
Next Campeign-An Appeal to
the People to Leave the OLD
Political Parties Long Enough
to Enthrone Silver at Sixteen to
One.

American Bl-meldlllC League.
A statement of the issues on which
the new party will organize.
The money question is now indis-
putably the dominant issue in the
United States and will remain so until
settled and settled rightly. Other
questions, however important, must
wait for this, which, to a greater or
less extent, involves all others. The
issue is between the gold standard,
gold bonds ana bank currency on the
one side, and the bi-metallic standard,
no bonds and government currency on
the other.
FirSt-On this issue we declare our
selves to be unalterably opposed to the
single gold standard, and demand the
immediate return to the constitutional
standard of gold and silver, by the res
tOratiOn by this government independ-
emily of any foreign power, of the un-
restricted coinage of both silver and
gold into standard money, at the ratio
of 16 to l, and upon terms Of exact
equality; the silver coin to be a full
legal tender, equal with gold, for all
debts and dues,
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE.
Second: We hold that the power to
control and regulate a paper currency
is inseparable from the power to coin
money; and hence that all currency
intended to circulate as money should
be issued and its volume controlled by
the general government only, and
should be legal tender.
Third: We are unalterably opposed
to the issue by the United States of
interest bearing bonds in time of
peace, and demand the payment of all
coin obligations Of the United States as
provided by existing laws, either in
gold or silver coin, at the option of the
government, and not at the option of
the creditor.
ADDRESS.
To the People of the United States:
The signers of the Declaration of In
dependence held that decent respect
for the opinions of mankind required
that reasons should be given for dis
solving the bonds that had bound the
Colonies of Great Britain. So we who
find it necessary
TO SEVER OUR RELATIONS
with the political parties with which
we have heretofore acted and form new
alliances in a common cause, deem it
proper that some of the reasons which
impel us to this action, should be sub
miUted to a candid public.
The monetary reform for which we
contend, as above set forth, in our
Judgment. is so vital to the common
welfare and so necessary to a return to
conditions of prosperity in this country
as TO preclude longer delay in the in
auguration of a movement, the pur-
pose of which is to bring together all
who believe in the necessity of the pro-
posed reform, for this object and this
alone. Those in favor of the gold
standard are and have been united in
purpose and action. Party liEeS do
not divide them when this issue is
raised. Differences on other questions
are then laid aside and together they,
in we'll beseeming ranks, march all
one way"
On the other hand, those who are IN
favor of return to the constitutional
standard of gold and silver, are split
into as many divisions as there are
parties. Silver Republicans from the
West and South, to the great delight
of the leaders of the Republican party,
insist on contending for their cause
only within the lines of that party;
and Southern and Western Democrats,
earnest silver men, equally to the
DELIGHT or THE LEADERS
of the Democratic party, continue the
contest on their part, only within the
lines of the Democratic party. In
other words. the advocates of the bi-
metallic standard, through the unre-
stricted coinage of silver as we'll as
gold. now contend for their cause in
organizations which are controlled by
the gold party.
And. fellow citizens. this great cause
will never be won without united ac-
tion. II will never be won unless those
who believe in it come together and
elect a Congress and a PRESIDENT on
this issue.
II cannot be expected that Republi-
cans will abandon convictions of life
time on other questions and go into
the Democratic party in a body, or
into a wing of that party. Nor will
Democrats give up convictions they be-
lieye to be essential in government and
go over to the Republican party or to
a division OF that party. Nor is 1t
possibIe to induce Republicans and
democrats together to go into the Pop
Mist marty. for the reason, If for no
other that the platform of that party
contains declarations, and the party
advocates theories. to which they can
MOI give their assent. But we must IN
some way come together on this issue
or the cause is lost and with 1t the
INDEPENDENCE OF THE PEOPLE.
If is believed that this cause can be
Won in no other way and that to con-
time TO contend for it only within the
lines of existing parties is to cost de-
feat at the outset and to lose the battle
in the end.
The purpose of this movement is not
n array section against section nor
class aeainstclass; nor to require
ANYBODY to give up his convictions on
o+bar onestions. nor to sever his party
raIations for any other purpose than to
mite in a common cause, the cause
of iustice against injustice, of prosper
- ~. inetead of adversely, Of continued
emnloyment OF labor instead OF forced