Cottonwood report. [volume] (Cottonwood, Idaho) 1893-1901, 1896-07-31

mount issue at this time
Mates is indisputably the |
<<56Y2 III @}f8h 1t is between the gold |
nfiard, gold bonds and bank currency |
13n one side, and the bimetallic standard, |
|ho bonds and government currency ON the
|0fher.
con this issue we declare ourselves to
|ke in favor of q distinctively American
financial system. We are unalterably OPP
posed 70 the single gold standard and de-
tfiand the Immediate return to the consti-
'futional standard of gold and silver by
the restoration by this government. in
of any foreign nation, of the
unrestricted coinage of gold and silver
as the standard money at the ratio of 16
to /, and upon terms of exact equality as
they existed prior to 1S73-the silver coin
to be a full legal tender, equally with
gold, for all debts and dues, public and
private; and we favor such legislation as
will prevent for the future the demone-
tzation of any kind of legal tender mon
ey by private contract.
1--WE hold that the power to control and
regulate a paper currency is inseparable
from the power to coin money. and hence
that all currency intended to circulate as
money should be issued and it's volume
controlled by the general government
| only ard should be legal tender.
1--WE are unalterably opposed to the is
| sue by the United States of interest-bear-
| ing bonds in time of peace, and we de-
nounce as a blunder worse than a crime
| the present treasury policy, incurred by a
republican house, of plunging us into
| debt by hundreds of millions in the vain
| attempt to maintain the gold standard by
| borrowing gold, and we demand the pay
ment of all coin obligations of the United
States as provided by existing laws, in
| either gold or silver coin at the option of
| the government and not at the option of
| the creditor.
1.-THE decentralization of silver in 1873
| enormously increased the demand for
| gold, enhancing the purchasing power
| and lowering all prices measured by
| that standard, and since that unjust and
inexcusable act the prices of American
products have fallen upon an average,
| nearly so per cent, carrying down with
| them proportionately the money value of
| all other forms of property. Such fall
| of prices has destroyed the profits of
legitimate industry, injur,ng the producer
| for the benefit of the non-producer in
| creasing the burden of the debtor, swell
| ing the gains of the creditor, paralyzing
| the productive energies of the American
| people, RELOCATING to ideness a vast num-
| Der of willing workers, sending the shad-
| ows of despair into the homes of honest
| toilers, filling the land with tramps and
| paupers, and building up of colossal for
| tunes at the money centers.
In the effort to maintain the gold STAN
| dard the country has within the last two
| years, a time of profound plenty, been
loaded down with 1852 100000 of interest
bearing debt under such circumstances
| as to allow a syndicate of native and
foreign bankers to realize a profit of
millions on a single deal. 1t stands con-
fessed that the gold standard can only
| be upheld by so depicting our paper cur
rency as to force prices of our products
below the European, and even below the
| Asiatic level, and enable US to sell in for
eign markets, thus aggravating the very
evils of which our people so bitterly com
plain, degrading American labor and
| striking at the foundations of our civ
ilization itself. The advocates of the gold
| standard persistently claim that the
| cause of our distress Is over-production,
that We have produced so much that 1t
has made us poor, which implies that the
true remedy is to close the factory,
| abandon the farm, and throw a multi
| tude of people out of employment, a
| doctrine that leaves us unnerved and
disheartened and absolutely without hope
for the future.
I'VE affirm to be unquestioned that
| as over-production and at the same time
| tens of thousands of our felloW-citizens
remaining half clothed and half fed, and
who are piteously clamoring for the COM
| mon necessities of life.
'1nasmuch as the patriotic majority OF
the Chicago convention embodied in the
financial plank of its platform the prin-
| ciples enunciated in the platform of the
American bimetallic party, promulgated
at Washington. d. c., January %, 1896
and herein reiterated. which is not only
| the paramount but the only real issue
in the pending campaign, therefore, rec
ognizing that their nominees embody
these patriotic principles, we recommend
that this convention nominate William
j. Bryan of Nebraska for president and
Arthur Sewall of Maine for vice presi-
| dent"
Second, that over and above all Other
questions of policy, we are in favor of re-
storing to the people of the United States
the time-honored money of the constitu
tion-gold and silver; not one, but both
the money of Washington and Hamilton
| and Jefferson and Monroe, and jackson
and Lincoln-to the end that the Ameri
can people may receive honest pay for ar
honest product; that the American debtor
may pay his just obligations in an homes
standard, and not in a standard that hal
appreciated 100 per cent above all the
great staples of our country; and to thu
end, further, that silver standard coun
tries may be deprived of the unjust ad
vantage they enjoy in the difference IL
exchange between gold and silver-an ad
vantage which tariff legislation can TO
overcome. We therefore confidently ap
peal to the people of the United States t.
leave in allegiance for the moment all 9th
er question. however important and evel
momentous they may appear, to sunde
If need be all former party ties and affil
iations and unite in one supreme effort t
free themselves and their children from
the domination of the money power;
power more destructive than any which
has ever been fastened upon the civilized
men of any age. And upon the consum
nation of our desires and efforts we in
yoke the gracious favor of divine provi
dence."