The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-10-08

and we nave plenty or both. Remenl- Der, however, that this does not touch the question whether the whole world could circulate gold and silver together at a ratio agreed upon by all, for that the world has never yet tried. It ought to be added to this that the production of silver has so increased in late years that the problem is even more difficult than 1t was ever before.
 Tt seems very clear if we are to credit history and experience; if we are to steer clear of metaphysics; if we are to cease to evolve things out of our inner consciousness and begin to pay attention to facts which have hap pened, that, if we coin silver at to l, when it's market value is S2 to 1 we should certainly go to silver standard, and that standard will be below our present one. We may safely argue this question upon the fact that what the Chicago convention and it's followers ask us to do is to leave the gold stand ard not for double standard, but for another single standard, and that lower one What will be the effect while we are doing it?
 "All debts will shrink, and, therefore. all debtors will be happy. All creditors are rich men, else why do they lend money? Corporate cooperation has been borne into the world and unites poor and rich into one chain of destiny, whence there is no separation. Money is no longer lent by rich men alone. Aggregated poor men, the poor with their savings, do the lending and men of enterprise who employ labor do the borrowing, and in turn lend out in small sums by way of credit to the whole nation of rich and poor alike.
 How can you select out of this mass thus entwined, the poor man, and dover him with release, while you fasten on the rich man his undin1in- ished burned? You can never do it. It you strike the mass with the clumsy hammer of free coinage, rich and poor alike will be or one red burial glent The life insurance companies, which do business in New York alone, have accumulated for the benefit of policy holders and their beneficiaries, $1 JAP, ' GOO, 900, an amount $16,000,000 greater than the national debt. How can such companies pay the beneficiaries in any money they do not get themselves
 Flight millions and half of men are | insured in thirty-four companies alone. l Nearly two millions more are insured in small benefit associations. This l beautiful business of reducing debts one-half will strike ten millions of men, and in time will strike thirty millions of women and children. am quite well aware that these are corporations, but they are mutual ones and made up of nothing but human beings. They may not have souls, but the policy holders have. So also have they votes. l After this what shall speak of may seem small, but this free coinage will be very searching. It will leave un- I touched nothing in the wide range of human endeavor. Fire insurance pol icies also must suffer. This time also l it is not the rich corporations, but the l insured If your house doubles in dol- lar price, the insurance will keep sta- tionary and your two-story will thrust l two more stores uninsured through the | policy. I will not comment on savings l banks, for they are so clearly open to | plain view of everybody that sensible men will not forget them. What oth- l CTS pay them they pay to depositors. They are only trustees and are only | responsible for what they get, and lf you, as depositor help pass law which gives them only 50 per cent, that same law will give you the same 50 per l cent and no more. It is not necessary to pose as a friend of the wage earner in order to point out to him what this means for him. It means lower wages, nothing less than that.
 Now. I contend that the whole world suffers when the wage e-earners and sal ary-earners suffer, and suffer more than when all other classes are affiict- ed. Hence I do not want to see a, de- preciating currency, for that means depreciation of salary and of wages, and consequently depreciation of that fund which, in the form of purchasing power. sets mills in motion, pays wages and salaries and makes business. l could go on to multiply examples, for | the disarrangementS would cover the | whole field of human effort. All your great manufacturing establishments almost at a standstill now What would they be while this new adjustment is going on? You can easily see if you will leok around,
 "Jf a. shadow can do so much harm, can deal out so much sorrow and de- struction what will the substance do? When I contrast these last four years with the years that preceded them it seems as if we lived in another land and were almost another people. Think of these glorious years between 1860 and 1892 We fought a great war, unhappily among ourselves, but with honorable results, for the good of the human race We passed through years of trouble and of pain. We had our period of depression and a long hard climb out of the evils of Q disordered currency and of reckless expenditure. We lifted ourselves to great heights of national credit.
 Prom 1869 to 1892, notwithstanding all our troubles and the weary years between 1873 and 1879 we paid our debt at a. rate of sixty millions a. year, re- ducing it from $2,1S2, 100000 to $5S5,0 ,000.- 900. lowering our interest charge from s125, 900, 900 to $22, 100000, and showing an astonished world that government by the people the like of which was never surpassed on earth. When think of these great achievements and those glorious years whatever doubts may come whatever sorrows we are endur- ing know beyond all denying that the