The herald., 1896-09-29

The candidate at once entered upon ana
his discourse devoted him
self to a discussion of the financial is
sue upon the lines followed in previous
addresses that he has made on his tour.
He took for his text these words from
book by Prof. e. Benjamin Andrews of
Brown University of Providence: 1T
is always assumed or admitted that the
initial import Of money would be /oney
with a unit having general, steadfast,
purchasing power"
In this definition Mr.. Bryan said Prof.
Andrews 'plants himself upon solid
rock"
''If one of our western men," Mr.. Bry-
an added, advocates bimetallism and
calls attention to the injustice OF the
gold standard, they say he lacks the ed
ucation which is necessary to compre-
hend the beauties of the gold standard,
but when some learned man like Prof.
Andrews advocates bimetallism and de-
nounces the gold standard with an en-
phasis which cannot be surpassed In
the south or west, they say much learn
ing hath made him mad
Men who are so absorbed in th> Wor-
ship of the dollar that they cannot give
time to study the questions which sur
round humanity, will sit back with a
'holier than thou expression, and pity
the man who has got beside himself in
the study of the money question. You
cannot find a correct definition of an
honest dollar in the speech of any advo-
cate OF the gold standard who is talk
ing this year. You ask one OF them
what he means by an honest dollar. He
tells you that he menas sound money.
Ask him what he means by sound mon
ey, and he tells you that he means non
est money. And the chances are that
you cannot guide him outside of that
circle, because in most cases he has no
suspicion of what he thinks an honest
dollar. He will tell you that an honest
dollar is a dollar you can melt without
it's losing anything
why, bless the ignorant heart of the
man that gives that definition" said Mr..
Bryan, "he does not seem to understand
that the very characteristic which he
praises in gold Is a characteristic given
by law, and that the gold dollar and the
bullion in the dollar are worth the same
because by law you can convert the bull
lion into dollar without change at any
time you want to-"
Mr.. Bryan argued that there can be no
legal difference between the bullion and
the coinage value so long as one can be
converted into tthe other at will. He
continued:
Some of our opponents have been CAL
culating how much money they can
make under free coinage by buying sill
yer for so cents and having it coined into
100 cents. Now, my friends, if any of
you held silver bullion would you sell
it to anybody for half price and let the
producer take the profit? OF course not.
And yet you hear this argument every
day by those who seem unable to COM
prehend even the plainest rules as pre-
sented in the money question. My
friends, if we differ as to the merits of
our policy, we might then discuss the
respective merits of opposing policies.
but the Republican party does not pre-
sent any policy to the American peo-
pie. (Aplause.)
"The Republican party does not pre-
sent financial policy and say that the
proposed policy will benefit the country.
The Republican party simply proposes
to maintain policy which the Republic
an platform confesses to be bad, and
which 1t promises to get rid of and sub
stitute bimetallism. But the Republican
party promises to maintain that policy
until foreign nations shall come to our
relief. Every person who believes that
we must get down on our knees and ask
the aid of the foreign nations before we
can legislate on the money question
ought to vote the Republican ticket. But,
my friends, if you believe that the United
States can have financial policy of its
own, suited to its own people, minister
ing to the needs of those who live here,
then you can only express yourselves
when you act with those who advocate
Independent bimetallism at 16 to l with
out waiting for the aid or consent of any
other nation on earth. If the financier
who wants the government to issue
bonds has right to use his vote to keep
the government issuing bonds all the
time and piling up debts on the people,
then you have to pay those debts and
have right to use your ballots to pro-
tect yourselves against this bur-
den. If the banker cannot only use his
vote to advocate and support the finau-
cial doctrine which he wants, but at
tempts to use the vote of every man who
borrows money at the banks, attempts
to use his power as amoney
loaner and coerce the men who
patronize him, then you who
are terrorized under that sort of a sys-
tenn have a right to use the Australian
ballot and rid the country of it's bondage.
And ] say to you who are employees, if
your employers are so much indebted at
the banks that they have not the power
to speak out in their own defense, if their
obligations are such that they must keep
quiet lest their throats be cut by these
political patriotic financiers, then, my
friends, you las employees, have right
to step in and rescue your employers
from financial bondage. l want you peo-
pie to remember that in this contest we
have arrayed against us all the COM
binations of wealth. We have none OF
those on our side. The coal trust is
against us, and it can raise the price Of
your coal, and then, when you have paid
that price, the coal trust contributes a
portion of what you paid in order to in
sure the continuance of that trust. The
great banking institutions which are
contributing so literally to the Repub-
lican campaign fund can afford to do 80,
if they exact from you enough money in
advance to pay for the contributions
l.,