The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-08-20

syllable which showed him how a Pop
ulist expected to increase the rate of
wages. We. cannot tell him either, as
we have never devoted any time to
Populistic literature that we can cite
him to any number of books and pam
phlets showing how the restoration of
free silver would increase wages. He
says that wages are a test of prosper
ity. We're they ever lower in this
country than they are today? Various
nostrums for their restoration have
been tried, but have failed. When
recognized remedy is tried the relief
will come; not before.
He says that when we come TO find
out just how Mr.. Bryan expects to
increase the wages of labor, we find.
ourselves in a maze of contradictions
and in a haze of obscure expression
Still Mr. Cochran makes no attempt to
reconcile or refute the contradictions
or to clear away the obscure express
sions. If there was an obscure haze
of expression before, he has turned it
into a. thick and yellow fog.
He knows very well that neither Mr..
Bryan nor the Democratic party nor
any advocate of free silver proposes
to change the standard of value. All
they propose to do is to increase the
circulating medium by the restoration
of silver to that place in our monetary
system which it occupied before il
was demonetized in 1873.
When he states that the issue of
paper money, simply, is no more an
increase of wealth than the issue by
am individual of his promissory note
would be an increase of his property,
he simply states a truth which no one
denies. But he forgot to say who pro-
poses to issue paper money; surely not
the Democratic party or the advocates
of free silver.
When Bourke Cochran says that
this Populist agitation, threatening the
integrity OF money, has been the cause
of the hard times through which this
country is passing and from which it
will not escape until the heel of popu-
lar condemnation is placed upon the
propaganda which undermines the
foundation of credit" he talks nothing
18th, there was a great panic in this
country, and 1T was calculated that the
loss consequent upon it was more than
$500, 000, 900 in less than a week, and
the great dailieS of New York, the
very papers which are today such ar
dent advocates of the gold standard,
declared that it would take years to
restore the confidence that Mr.. Cleve-
land had destroyed; that is, confidence
in American institutions of all kinds.
Cam anyone trace the origin of that
panic to the agitation for free silver?
If the cause of free silver is weak,
Bourke Cochran has absolutely failed
to point out wherein the weakness
consists. His whole reply to Mr.. Bry-
AN is nothing but an appeal to prejU-
dice and sectionalism. He has the I'M
blushing effrontery to declare that the
Democratic campaign lis conspiracy
between professional farmers who want
to pay low wages and the unreconciled
slave holders who would like to pay
no wages" That statement is a gross
falsehood and a waving of the bloody
shirt; there has been nothing like it
in the whole campaign, nor will there
again be. 1t is a. direct insult to the
west, it is a direct insult to the south,
it is a direct insult to the American
people by one who has come among
them from foreign shore, who has
been made welcome, upon whom have
been showered hospitality and honors
All through his speech Mr.. Cochran
has vainly endeavored to make it ap-
pear that the Chicago convention was
a Populistic gathering; he carefully
avoids any mention Of the effect of
the characterization of silver upon its
price; he does not deny that gold has
appreciated; nor does he say that
wages would not increase as the result
of free coinage. The speech shows him
to have ready flow of language, but
not of ideas. Having just returned
from abroad he gave his aristocratic
audience the very latest London view
of the financial question, and that it
was the latest London view fully sat
isfied their American patriotism AS
an entertainment the speech was fair
ly successful; as a reply to Mr. Bryan
it was a dismal failure.