Omaha daily bee., 1896-05-17
MIR. ROsEwATER's TEN MINUTES.
He Tells why America Bought Cola
In EurOpe.


Mr. Rrvan has asked me to explain to you
why the American people were opiieeu u
Inv gold in Europe in exchange for their
bonds during the last year. l Will just
simply say, because there are so many
Bryans in America. Great disorder')
intended to cast no reflection upon ar
Bryan. simply say it because there are
so many men Just like him in America, men
who are making the stability of our currency
uncertain. SO that the men who have money
10 loan insist upon getting back the kind OF
money that they have loaned. People VINO
have money to loan, abroad and IN America
are discounting the future because OF the
agitation and uncertainty that surrounds our
monetary standard which threatens 10 place
US upon a silver basis.
Three years ago / borrowed upon The
Bee building the sum OF 500 ,o0o. hau
the privilege of renewing that loan at Az
per cent in gold or s per cent in coin, and
renewed II at 5 per cent, because. individ-
ually. i had fears that some time or other
within the next few years gold would go 10
n premium and people who were IN debt
would be suddenly crowded to the wall and
have to pay their gold with gold interest
Uaughter.)
Mr.. Bryan asks this question: why Is
Il that the contracts are being made In
gold?" 1t is simply because of the con-
slant agitation and demands made by the
silver states and the people interested In the
silver mining countries, and because OF the
delusionists who are going about the coun-
try preaching the doctrine of the free and
unlimited coinage of silver. 1t Is because
these people, by promulgating such doctrines,
have rendered the credit OF the country IN
stable, They have destroyed its credit,
and when you talk about gold vacating
houses in Omaha; when you talk about the
idle workingmen wandering through the
streets, why, sir, that merely means that
credit, the great bulwark OF American com
merce, has been undermined.
CREDIT OF NATION DESTROYED.
Credit carries 9S per cent of all the bust
ness transactions of this country, and gold
and silver but 2 per cent. You have de-
stIoyed the credit OF the nation by this con-
slant agitation. You have sown the wind,
and now you are reaping the whirlwind,
My friend. of course, wants to know what
the effect IL of a rising dollar, and he as
pumes that all species of property are equal
IN purchasing and selling power from year TO
year. Why he knows very well that during
the war nearly all the cotton was destroyed
I'm the south and We were importing cotton
from abroad. He knows that a pound of cot
ton sold at that time for Sl.O3. Was 1t be-
cause we had only paper money? Not at
all.
The reason why cotton commanded such a
high price was because II was scarce and
because we had to import II. Suppose
during this season all the wheat OF the
United States should be destroyed by some
unforeseen calamity. Suppose the wheat crops
of Russia and South America and India were
short. Wheat would go up probably to 81
A buphel, and what would that have to do
with oliver? Money would have nothing
more TO do with the price OF wheat than II
would have with the price OF corn or po-
tLtoes. want TO ask him whether he does
not recognize that the real cause, the great
and underlying cause OF our present indus
trial distress. is due first in a measure to
the Industrial revolution through which we
have passed in the last fifty years by reason
OF the Introduction of machinery, and by rea-
son of the lowering OF the tariff. (Applause.)
He ascrlbes this depreciation TO silver. Why
the depreciation OF silver bullion should have
such an effect upon other commodities " a
proposition that is not plain to me. Why
the custom OF men who agitate this silver
question to insist that cotton and grain and