The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-08-13
SILVER IN THE GREAT WEST.
A Trip Through that Section Opens a
Gold Mans Eyes.

Iron Works, of Chicago, now in Boston,
has just returned from a business tour
in the West, through Colorado Nebras-
ka and Kansas, in the very heart of the
silver country. Mr.. Hoyt's views of the
political conditions of the country are
not so rosy as the tenor of the dis
patches which are already predicting
a recession of the silver tide. He says
Anybody who imagines that there
will be a decrease in {the silver senti-
nent west of the Missouri river, and,
| might almost say, west of the Mis-
siSSippi river, recISons without his host.
talked politics with every one / met
there, of all classes, and found the
opinion all one way. And the people
are perfectly honest about it. | tell
you, you can't Imagine the hardship
Of the farmers life unless YOU have
been cut there The last two years
they~didn't raise a crop, large or small,
large enough to pay the interest on
their mortgages. This year they have
splendid haryests, but what good are
they when they can't get anything for
them, they say. We may believe that
there is something wrong about the
distribution, but the farmer does not
see it altogether that way. He cannot
get money to move his crops, and the
silver men at his ear have no difficulty
in persuading him thattherefore there
is trouble with the money itself. 1t
may be true that most of the farmers
own their lands. but / have found it
just the contrary. Most of them are
in debt, and largely in debt, and barely
able to pay the interest.
Let me tell you the story of a coll
lege friend of mine who settled ten
years ago as a farmer in southern Wis
consin, which is one of the garden
spots of the country. He had inherited
good farm, but he sold it and bought
a larger one, giving a mortgage. For
five or six years he prospered and was
reducing the debt fast. Then came
duller times, but he still paid
the interest on the mortgage.
For five or SIX years he has not
been able to pay even that. Now, this
man is, or was sound money man.
He was educated in that belief. He is.
and his wife is, too, college bred. He is
hard and level headed. There isn't.a
corporation in the country keeps it's
books in better style. | have looked
over them, and | have found what he
tells me, that in ten years the value Of
IL.
quaTtered. And economic. why"
he said to me with tears in his eyes,
we don't spend as much on nicknacks
ard pleasure in year as you do in
week! We don't spend anything! And
we work from morning till night
Now, this friend of mine is not a sill
yer man. He is not convinced thor
oughly by arguments, but he says that
any change viii be welcome to him.
1t cannot he worse. 1t cannot be worse.
There are thousands just like him. 1t
is wrong Ito underestimate their force.
These formers are terribly in earn
est 1t won't do to call them whis-
kers and Anarchists just because they
cannot afford to keep shaven and are
unhappy. They are far from being
Anarchists. Why, they're chiefly New
England or Eastern boys descendants
Of good old Puritan stock, whoaleft
your overcrowded section and went
West to open up the land. That's
what has settled Denver and Colorado
Springs, too. You don't want to make
any mistake about those people being
fools or bacl1woodsmen. They've as
sharp as steel traps, and Denver is a
typical modern American city. You
cannot imagine the growth of the sill
yer craze, if you can call it that. have
been astonished to watch its strides
right in Chicago, my home. | was edu-
Gated up to gold standard, and have
always believed in it, but | am free to
confess that | have been rather shaken
in the last two weeks. | have heard
silver talked on all sides. Out there
a gold man never opens his mouth, If
there is one. When / got back home,
even my partner, who had always been
a strong gold man, had changed his
opinion, and assailed me with pro-sIi-
vel arguments. ''-Springfield Repubh-
can (Goldl.