River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1896-08-20

will be struck down at a blow If the shall
low projects of the Democratic and Popu-
list platforms be realized.
But you have heard from our free
coinage FRIENDS here that other nations
have done this. And there are many good
people who believe that France is doing
Il, and that the Latin UNDERGRADUATES
doing it. Now, l would like to know why
they can't tell the entire truth about this
matter. Let us not deceive each other
and let nobody deceive us. The Latin
union IS composed of France, Belgium,
Italy, Switzerland and Greece. 1t was
formed in 1865 By treaty between those
powers, whereby each agreed until the
year 1880 to tale the coins of the ether
powers at the ratio of 1872 to 1.
But Germany demonetiZed silver: she
had ceased to coin it, and so, in 1878.
those great nations, headed by France
tine, most acknowledgements country
IL the world, and the one which has the
most accurate financial ideas), | say those
countries, after Germany had demone-
tlzed silver in 1873. limited their silver
coinage, and by 1876 they suspended it
entirely. They, those great European
natons-France. the strongest monetary
nation nation in the world. with her allies-un-
dertook with all their power to do pre-
eisely what the free eoiners of the Unit
ed states are asking this government
to undertake in the light of such con-
spicuous failures of other nations.
InvariabIe Standards Needed.
Now, everybody admits-I think the
most rampant free-coiner declaimer
would admit-that the money unit should
remain as nearly invariable a. possible.
Now, | say gold has so remained. Sill
yer has fallen commercially like other
yer has not fallen, that gold has risen;
Now, that is the way you look at il.
You can look at II through the deludng
glass of idealism, and il may appear that
way, but 1t is an optical illusion. Now
let me put an illustration from nature.
The waters of Lake Superior. that great
inland sea which floats so much OF our
commerce and is such an element in our
prosperity. have for many years been
falling, until now they are lower than
they have been at any time for fifty
years, and everything on their surface
has fallen. The waters of Lake Supe-
rior, like the universal, spread-out plane
of humanity, bearing everything upon its
surface-those waters bear the fleets,
vessels and craft of all kinds. and ves-
sells and craft and fleets of all kinds have
fallen with the water. What would you
think of a man standing on the deck of
one of those vessels saying, "This ves-
sci has not fallen; this vessel stands just
where il did, but the universal shore OF
Lake Superior has risen? Laughter
and applausel
Now, ! say, my friends. that since the
Latin union, from 1878 to 1876 aban-
doned free coinage, there has existed in
European nations and the United States
the only practical bimetallism. Let me
repeat this. | feel that | cannot bear il
into your minds too often or too urgently
that these nations, including ours, are
the only nations on the face Of the earth
that have any bimetaliism whatever.
And NV ~ 10
danger line, as we went, and then
teaching of history demonstrated that
there was a dead line, beyond which
silver could not be pressed without the
immediate humiliation of it's companion,
gold, as a useful, working money medi-
UNI. And when any man gets up and
dreams and soliloquizes and philosophers
before me and tells me he knows il won't
be so if we try where others failed, l
tell him that an ounce of fact is worth
a ton of theory, and that something bodi-
ly is worth million of disembodied
ghosts. [Applause.l
What is Ratio?
And get these gentlemen favor. in the
face of these historical examples and
warnings, that the United States shall
make the unit Of coinage the silver dol
lar 81 the ratio of 10 to j.
Now, what is ratio? 1t is not SIC to
81, as some people claim. daughter
Ratio means this: That there shall be
sixteen times more silver in weight in a
silver dollar than there is weight of gold
in a gold dollar. Or, TO put the definition
in another form. that sixteen ounces of
silver, when coined, shall be the equiva-
lent of one ounce of gold when coined.
When gold measured by silver is worth
S16 per ounce, no disparity in value can
exist; but when measured by silver the
ounce of gold is worth $31 an ounce COM
mercially, disparity results. Such is the
present condition, and yet the free silver
men assert that it will be no such thing
in case legislative fiat endeavors 10 make
two and two five instead of the Old
fashioned result, two and two four.
The trouble is that our friends haye
confused the ratio of weight with the
ratio of value, and are trying to confuse
the people with it. The ratio of weight
and the ratio OF value were once the
same, but they have changed. They
changed more than thirty years ago.
Other nations saw it and obeyed the i'm
perial behest OF that change before we
did, and the ratio is now throughout
the world 80, or about 80, to l.
Now say that no legislative fat what
ever-it does not lie in the power of man
q was about to say something more ex-
IRENE than that, which it would not be
proper TO say)-it dies not lie in the
power of man to enact that given di-
mension, volume or capacity shall be a
hairs breadth greater than the laws of
the Almighty have fixed it from the be-
ginning. (Applause.)
1t is necessary that the ratio or proper
ton of value should be invariable. 1t is
necessary for the production of the thing
itself called money, speaking of it in its
great volume, as the volume of money In
the United States. We see analogies
everywhere; we see an analogy in nature.
Take the air we breathe. 1t is a COM
pound substance, made up from oxygen
and nitrogen at the ratio of about "a
to %, and while this ratio lasts it is from
ii we all draw our lives and have our
being. But change TO any material de-
gree and, instead of being the vital, life
giving air, it becomes a deadly and de-
structive miasma.
But the free-coiners assert that unlim-
tied coinage of silver will restore il TO a
parity with gold. 1t has been tried by
many nations of this world. Has it done
it ia a single instance? Not one. They
said the same thing when Congress
passed the Sherman act of 1890. They
said buy of us freely 100000 ounces a
month. or 100000 ounces a year, and
you will see that silver will go up to
81 20 an ounce Immediately. In the face
of clamor, in doubt as to what might We
the result, in WILLINGNESS, lit went too