Mexico weekly ledger., 1896-08-06
Tom Reeds Idea.
HE SAYS SILVER MEN HAVE NOT
BEEN GOOD PROPHETS
IN THE PAST.
An Appeal to the Republicans of Maine
to Stand by Their Old Colors-
His Opinion of the Dem
ocratlc Party.
From the st. Louis Post DISPATCH.

From the st. Louis Post Dispatch.
ALFRED, Me-, July 2s.-Thomas r
Reed spoke here to-day to a larg
audience.
Mr.. Reed addressed the large gath
ering as follows:
'If l were going to give good ad
vice to the people of the whole Unite,
States, / should take this time to do il
Just now there is a good deal of frotl
and foam in the air, and some time
really needful to disclose clearly t,
every eye how much of it is really tn,
result of the temporary breeze whicl
stills at nightfall, and how little Their,
is of that heavy ground swell which
shows that great elementary forces
are at work. However, suddenly al
this rush and stir has set itself into &C
ton. Two months ago no man of any
standing would have risked his repu-
tation as a prophet by limiting the
slightest doubt of Republican success.
Four years of actual trial of the oppo-
sition, under the guidance of its best
and twice trusted leader, has left no
shadow of question as to the public
duty.
"Ifowever far the Republican party
might have fallen short of perfection,
nevertheless all men felt that it was
the best party just now to draw nigh
to for whatever is to be left to us of
sound government, commercial sue
cess and business prosperity. On that
we r all agreed, some of us, who
were Democrats, regretfully, for all
hate to be classed with the unsuccess-
ful, whose condemnation is at hand,
oven if we gain by the changes others
of us, who were Republicans, cheer
fully, but without exultation; for we
know how hard the task must be to
rebuild out of the ruins of the last four
years the stately national happiness,
prosperity and self respect, wherein
our people lived until that %unfortun-
ate election of 1892.
"Two months have slipped away
time to ripen a strawberry,
much less a system of finance-and
there IRE those who tell us that all
have changed; that these very
men who were being arrayed for de-
cent burial had burst the cerements of
the grave and TRANSPORTED by some
new arrangement of crowns of thorns
and crosses of gold were to lead us to
new happiness and ever repair all
the damage they themselves had
wrought. Now this may be SO, but to
it does not seem probable. Human
in every walk of life
teaches us that those who have blum
dered will blunder again, and that the
wisest course is not to employ q ship
captain who has not yet emerged from
last shipwreck, but the safe sailor
who has never lost a ship, a passenger
Or a letter, but who has sailed safe
every sea. He may have lost
and sails and even been rudder-
lees for hours, but if he has every
time come safely to shore better have
him than all the landsmen who are
forever shouting what they IA do
and never dare to tell what they have
lone. Boosters r worth nothing.
Talk dies IN the empty air. Better a
pound of performance than a ship load
Of language.
1.-TWO months ago, as l have already
'aid, everybody conceded the election
Of the Republican ticket. What has
happened since then? Have the four
years of history been blotted out?
Not II scrap of them. Is your cor
lition better? Rather worse. We are
III in a bad way, and something must
done. Let us see what is proposed
by those gentlemen who, within the
asst two months, have discovered a
lew cure for all the ills flesh is heir to
Ind who propose, as they did four
vears ago, that they all hold prosper
ty in their grasp.
''Their remedy is the coinage of sill
yer at 10 to 1. What does that mean?
whenever gold and silver
stood together it has been at the
market value. When we tried to
make gold and silver circulate to-
we have always married them
according to their market value. To-
we find them, not 16 to 1, but 81
o 1, and they are going, they say, to
lit silver to twice its value, not by
he universal sense of mankind, which
lone makes values, but by the statute
# the United States, single handed
the civilized world. Why
hould the United States try to do this
lone? I won't discuss the question
whether the free coinage of silver will
aise it to par or not. Very few peo-
lie claim that it will, and If they did,
could not believe it.
81 was told in 1890 by two of the
lost sincere as well as the ablest sill
men that the purchase of $500, 600
unces a month would raise silver to
ar, and when we did buy it silver
'ent down like lead. Silver men
ave not been good prophets in the
asst.
"What we want is not more money,
ut more capital = money always
omes with capital. We have money
ow, more than we can use, lying
lie. We have Just exported a lot Of
/. Money is the transferer of capital
a hay rack and horses is a trans-
,rer OF hay. More hay racks will
make more hay, but more hay
i'll require more hay racks and Is sure
get them.