Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1896-09-04
Plain Talk.
What Could and what Could Not be
Done Under Free silver.

There would be some sense in the talk
which our populistic friends indulge in
when they speak of the power of this gov
eminent, if they proposed to put this power
behind their free coinage. But they do
not. They propose that the man who digs
silver out of the mines may bring it to the
mint and have it stamped and handed back
to him as a dollar, the government having
no responsibility about it. These men
would reject with contempt the proposition
that free coinage was to come with pledge
on behalf of the government to maintain
the parity of the two dollars.
But this feeling is well adapted to touch
the prevailing American bumptiousness,
and well adapted to touch that prejudice
against England which many have But
can we do this thing ourselves? Is it
question whether we will do it, or ask
somebody's consent whether we may, or
ask the cooperation of somebody? Not at
all. tell you what this government can
do alone. 1t can fix its money unit. 1t
can declare by law what shall be the rela
tive value of an ounce of gold and an
ounce of silver, but it cannot make that
last declaration good. 1t is unquestiona-
bly, fully within the power of this govern
ment to bring this country to a silver basis
by coming silver dollars and making them
legal tender.
1t can do that. This government can
say you shall take one of those dollars in
discharge of any debt owing to you for a
dollar, Notwithstanding you may have
loaned gold dollars; but it cannot say, and
enforce its decree-if you should call out
the regular army, our navy and muster
our great modern ships and add the militia,
and put William J. Bryan in command of
them-it cannot enforce the decree that
one ounce of gold is the equivalent of 10
ounces of silver.
Not only that, not France and England
and Germany can do that, unless the mar
kets responded. Why, you may make me
take a silver dollar for debt; but If /
have bought my goods at gold prices, you
cannot make me give as many yards of
cloth for a silver dollar as have been in
the habit of giving for gold one. If l
have gold dollar in this hand, and sill
yer one in that, and you declare that they
are equal, and l can take that gold dollar
to bullion broker and get two dollars for
it, know it is le If / have nothing
but gold dollar and sugar is 20 pounds
for dollar, | will not give that gold dollar
for 20 pounds of sugar. | will take IL
around to a broker and get two silver dol
lars for it and get the 20 pounds of sugar
and have one silver dollar left. SO it is,
my friends. We can coin silver freely, but
we cannot make rs ounces of silver equal
to one ounce of gold, unless it is.
And it is not, unless the merchants take
it at that rate. That is where all this thing
comes in. 1t is trade; it is the merchant;
it is the man who exchanges and deals in
these things that fixes their relative value,
/ 4 l.. IL. L.
the gold dollar will go back to the gold
vault and the gold will go out of circula-
ton. What is another consequence? In
this connection these gentlemen say,
'Why, did not we win the battle at Bun
ker HIP" Didn't we whip the British
at Yorktown? And do you mean to say
we can't do it again."
The logic of these gentlemen--if l may
use such term in connection with such
bladerdash-is that nation that can do
these great things and establish its politi-
cal independence can also be financially
and commercially free. 1t cannot be free
of laws of trade. They can say that 10
muskrat skins are equal to one beaver
skin, but that does not make it so. The
| fur trader fixes the ratio.
What is the next suggestion? 1t is, my
| friends, in the case of free silver, what is
the financial and moral equivalent of a de-
claration that 5O-cent pieces are dollars.
| They might inst as well pass law that 80
| cents is a dollar. That would not make it
| so, would it?--ft would be legal dollar
| but it would not buy dollars worth of
anything. What is the effect of that? The
merchant would take care of himself. A
man keeps store down here on Broadway,
and that law is going into operation to-
night He summons all his clerks and
buys % cents worth of pencils and before
! he opens his store in the morning he has
marked up his goods to the new scale.
He can do all that. But there are great
numbers of people, numberless people who
enlist our interest and some of whom kin
die our sympathes, who cannot use the
pencil. Take the workingman. He can
not go to the payroll with pencil and
mark it up. He has got to consult some
body, He has got to enter into an agree
ment. He has got to get some other man S
consent before he can mark up his wages.
Then there is the pensoner-those that
are receiving pensions from this govern
ment for gallant deeds done in the war and
others for the loss of beloved ones. He
cannot take his pension certificate and
when it reads IS make it read SIG. He
must wait for appeal to Congress, and a
Congress that is populistic in character
would be unsympathetic.
He must make an appeal to Congress to
have his pension raised TO twice what il
was, before he is made equal. What can
the depositors in our savings banks-this
great company of widows and orphans, the
people of small means who are putting by
few pennies against hard time in life
| what % N fhaU do Uhan this cha nUa aomas
Can they take their bank pass-book and
if it says $40 write $40? Not at all. Take
the men who have life insurance. A mar
who has providently taken out policy
that his widow and children might MOI
come to want when the bread-winninf
hand was stricken in DEATH can they
where the policy reads $1,000 make it read
$4,000? No. Can the managers of these
institutions make it right with them? No
This policy coerces integrity.
Ny friends, these men surely do not con
template the irretrievable and extensiv,
character of the disaster and disturbance
and disruption which they are proposin!
for all of us in all our business affairs
great and simple. Take the laboring M
how full of sympathy they are for
My countrymen, never spoke
word to laboring man in my life. Law
never sought to reach his vote or influences
by appeals to that part of his nature tina
will pollute the intellect and the conscience
have believed, and l believe today tina
any system that maintains the prices o
labor in this country, that brings hope int
the life of the laboring man, that enable
him to put by, that gives him stake i
the good order, In the prosperity of tn
country is the policy that should be oil