The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1896-08-06
THE MONEY QUESTION.
IT Comes Home to Every Man in the
Whole Country.


The presidential campaign should be
one of education. The campaign is going
TO be made upon the proposed change of
the money standard, and people, in order
| to vote intelligently, will want to know
what it all means They will want to
know, each for himself, how he will be
affected by the proposed change, and every
man must decide for himself.
In this money question there is no prin-
cipe involved. All the great interests
for which democracy stood have been
brushed aside, and there is no question
| for discussion except how Il victory of the
silverites, which means the adoption of Il
silver standard, will affect each individ-
ual. 1t is Il question Of money only, and,
when politics resolves itself into money, it
appeals only to the selfish interests of peo-
pie. Devotion to country or to principle
| ceases to have any influence. and each
voter will ask: where do | come in :;
how will the silver standard affect me-
If" answers each individual, 1T will
| benefit me. | will vote the silver ticket
If it will not benefit me, and at the same
time it will not hurt me, | will still vote
it in order to have a change. But if it
| would damage my financial interests, L
will vote against it."
Such is the situation in which every
voter in the Union is placed, and in order
| to be able to vote intelligently on the sill
yer question, every citizen wants to know
how his interests are going to be affected
This money question is such Il peculiar
one that every man must look at it from
his own standpoint. He can not afford
| to be persuaded by somebody else who is
going to be benefited and naturally wants
| everybody else to vote with him, and help
him get that benefit. No man should per-
nit anybody to mislead him in this mat
| ter: he must find out on which side his
own financial interests lie and then vote
on that side Let il he understood that
there is no patriotism in this matter, 1t
| is not Il question of party principle. The
| leaders are taking Il perfectly selfish view
| of the entire affair, and it behooves the
peopc-ycs, every mothers son of them
| to take also Il thoroughly selfish view, ana
| then act on il.
The Picayune will endcavor to pre-,
sent the matter in Il way so plain ana
simple that anybody can understand II,
| and then all who properly inform them
| selves will know Just where their inter-
ests lie, so far as the silver contention
is concerned. 1t will first be necessary
to give a few facts and figures. There
| is great deal of talk about silver dollars
being the money of the people, the dollars
of the "daddies' of the constitution.
1873, period of 81 years. there were
only coined in the United States SOIL
32S silver dollars. They were so few
| that they soon went out of circulation,
and it is doubtful if there is in the state
of Louisiana a single person who ever
| owned a United States standard silver
dollar that was coined between 1893 and
1878. 1t is not likely that anybody i'll
the state ever saw one. Therefore,
nothing is more absurd than to talk about
the dollars of the 'daddieS." Very few
of the daddies ever had or saw one.
But since the beginning of 1878 and
down to 1896, there have been coined
more than 400,000,000 of these dollars.
But they are not in circulation. because
the people will not handle them. They
love to talk about silver dollars, but the
people are so averse to them that nearly
all that have ever been coined are still
in the vaults of the treasury, the people
demanding paper notes in their stead. In
the meantime the value of silver has so
rapidly declined that whereas in 1873
the amount of pure silver in a standard