The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1896-05-30
Judge Bennett Defined His
Position on Finance.
FAVORS SILVER
He Holds That Silver Is the Money
of the Western Farmers.
Is Not a Protectionists But Tavors q Rev
enue Tariff or wooI-WnI Work for
Oragon's Interests If Elected.

o. | large audience that assembled Tuesda
!, night to listen 70 Judge Benefits pre-
,e, sentation OF the principles he espouses
= many who could not be seated havin!
turned away disappointed. for all TIL
:" Dalles desired to hear their favorit,
~ candidate discuss the, political issue
=, - of the day. The roStrum Rad beer
handsomely decorated with roses and
-" bunting, presented by Mrs. Wingate
and gave a most cheerful appear
ance, when Judge Bradshaw arose and
Introduced the speaker, who was
u greeted with rousing applause as he
i appeared on the platform.
Judge Bennett spoke for two hours,
confining himself principally to the
:, financial question. His address was
indeed logical and replete with argu-
ment so concisely stated that his
position on the money question
cannot be misc nnstrued, and was pre-
sented in so forcible a manner as to
carry conviction. He said in part:
. "Fellow citizens, I advocate free
silver for the very same reason that
makes such statesmen as Senator
Daniel, Senator Morgan and Senator
Vest. and those among the greatest
minds of the United States advocate
the same doctrine; because I believe
that the prosperity of you, my neigh
bors, and of all the people of this
country Of ours, depends upon that.
Now you know, you who have known
me during all these long years, that
whatever say tonight, 1 am going to
believe. I am going to say nothing
for the purpose of carrying away your
Judgment, am going to offer you no
argument knowingly construed or de-
vised for the purpose of deceiving your
reason, am going to only offer you
the arguments of my mind, that have
convinced me are absolutely convict
ing that there is only one thing for
the Western man to believe in, and
| that is in free silver.
"Now, fellow citizens, want to say
| to you to commence with, that you
may divide the people of the world
into two classes, and put in the one
class all the people who own money,
I and the people who are creditors. who
have money owing to them; and you
put in the other class the people who !
have property but no money, and the |!
people who owe debts. These two
classes comprise the whole people of
the world, and there is conflict be-
tween their interests on the money !
question. One class wants dear money, !
and the other class wants cheap and
plentiful money. The man who has
money or who has money owing to
him, wants dear money, so that his
money will be made to represent just
as much as possible of the wealth of
the world; if his money is made dear,
and the purchasing power is increased
he can buy twice as much as he did
before, and the man who owed the
debts wants money plentiful, because
to pay the debt as it did before. If be
has certain amount of money, he can
buy twice as much property as he could
before. When money goes down, the
wealth of the property owner, and the
debt over is increased; when money
goes up, the wealth of the debtor goes
down, and the wealth of the money
man. that has money owing to him, goes
up. Now, it is absolutely obvious that
there is clash between these two
classes of people. The creditor wants
dear money-the dearer the better.
They would like to have dollar as
big as cart wheel, and every bit of it
gold, because then every dollar owing
to them would be increased so many
times, and when you increase the
purchasing power of the dollar, you
increase just as much as you increase it
the size of that dollar. Now that is
the reason why the people of the West
and the people of the East differ upon
this question. The people of the East
have a great deal of money loaned out
over the country, and therefore, they,
like the English money-lenders, want
dear money. The Western people on
the other hand, haYe not much money,
but they have property, and they owe
debts, and the result of it is that they
want cheap money SO that they can
pay their debts without selling so
much of their property to pay them.
Now there is clash of interest,
and you see it exemplifed. And the
fight has been between the East and
the West. The money-lender, and the
owner of the money, is in favor of dea.
money. And the property owner, and
the man who owes the dept, is
naturally in favor of plentiful money,
so that it does not take so much money
to pay his debts.
"One of the arguments that the gold
standard men make is that there is IAN
reproduction of silver. Now that is
not so, for the simple reason that
there has been no over-production ofsil-
yer; there has been no increase in the
production of silver relatively TO gold.
AS LuCIO uio DCCu hu lhGi CotoC LII pnO |
commerce and civilization and busi-
ness transactions of the country, gold
has increased faster than silver. Since
1S49 the production of gold in the
world has increased II to silver's !.
The production of gold has increased
3 to silver's 2, or faster. Now you
can see that instead of the silver dol
lar being worth less than the gold
dollar, according to the laws of
natural production, the bullion ought
to be worth II or II pounds of silver to
one pound of gold, instead Of taking 80
pounds, as il is at this time. The only
thing that has caused it has been the
legislation against silver. l. is not
natural change. 1t is unnatural. 1t
was caused entirely and wholly by leg
islation, because there has been no
oyer-production of silver.
Before 1873, there was about S7,0O0.-
600, 900 of metallic money in the world.
About one half was silver and the
other half gold. Together, they
fori-ed the basic or primary money of
the world. Some countries, it is true,
had gold for their basic money, and
other silver while still others had