The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1896-09-18

this country once or twice a
day until last Tuesday, think II was
Mr.. Bryan declared that in 1873 silver
was at premium, and fixed the value
Of the silver dollar at $1.04, and then
he argued that the decentralization of
silver worked contraction of the cur
rency, from which the people of this
country are suffering now.
well, my friends, don't quite un-
derstand how a coin that was at pre-
MUM could have been current. The
very idea of coin being;at a premium
shows that it'could not have been cur
rent and could not have formed part of
the currency; and II it did form part of
the currency, how could its demoneti
cation have so contracted the currency
of which ii did not form any part?
| II merely mention this in passing so
as to apply the rule of common sense
and common experience to some of the
declarations with which Mr. Bryan
has filled the bulk of his talks that he
has directed to the wiseacres Of the
country. We find him in one part of
his speech declaring the condition
which made the circulation of a silver
coin absolutely impartial, and in the
next we find him complaining of the
characterization of coin which, accord
ing to himself, did not circulate.
| Economics Ia InteIlieibIe
Now, we have heard him talk about
standards of value. We have heard
him say that the gold standard was
conspiracy against humanity. 1 don't
myself quite know how a standard
could be conspiracy any more than
horse could be a conspiracy. But Mr..
Bryan said it, and assume that he has
some conception of economics that
lustifes the assertion. And let me say
right here to you, my friends, that in
the discussion of this currency ques-
hon and kindred subjects for the last
four years populist orators have so per-
verified economic expressions that they
have become the terror of the ordinary
man.
| "a standard of value is simply the
measuring of the value Of all commodi-
ties by some one commodity, whatever
1t may be. A standard Is always the
measuring of some one unit that you
accept for the standard. If, for In
stance l selected the chairman of this
meeting and we all agreed that we
would test the height of every man in
the room by the height of the chairman,
everybody would understand precisely
what was meant If we said man was
above or below the standard. 1t would
mean that he was higher or that he
was not so tall as the chairman. The
selection of the chairman for that
standard would not add one inch to his
stature, nor would it take one inch from
| 1t. Now you can see, my friends, that
that would be simple and easy meth
ID of giving to everybody pretty clear
intellectual conception of the height of
the person I was trying to describe;
that would be single standard, and
that would be sensible method of
measuring.
Now, l assume the chairman has got
a 5-year-old son, and, suppose, in order
| to make a double standard, according
clare that there should be double
standard height and it should consist
of the chairman and his 5-year-old son,
10 you think anybody could make very
much of a statement that person was
above or below the standard?
Double Standard Illustrated.
Now, that is precisely what the pop
| ulist wants to do when he asks you to
make double standard of value. That
is, to arbitrarily fix upon SO cents
worth of silver to make 100 cents
| worth of gold, and to say there should
be a double standard by which COM
modities should be measured. If you
have silver standard you can under
stand that, and you can measure the,
value of commodities in silver just as
well as you can by gold, but you cannot
measure the value of commodities by
both any more than you could measure
the height of man by the height of
the chairman of this meeting and the
height of his 5-year-old son, calling
both a double standard of height
'In this country we have established
years ago, in 1884 and not in 1873, the
gold standard, and the gold standard
was established by the concurrence of
the leaders of the democratic party,
and the bill which created it and estab-
lished 1t was fathered and championed
through the senate by Thomas Benton,
the friend and spokesman of Andrew
Jackson.
Now, it is well that we should I'M
derstand what the issue Is between the
populist and the democrat in this cam
paign on the money question. Mr.. Bry-
an would tell you 1t is the remonetiza-
ton of silver. 1t is not anything of
the kind. If the proposition was mere
ly to remonetize silver and to make
silver standard by which future debts
could be measured, by which future
values could be ascertained, very diff
ferent proposition would be presented
| from that which Is involved in this