Eagle River Democrat. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1893-1896, 1896-04-20

the crowd being workingmen. To them
Mr.. Carlisle spoke with his usual force
and directness and he pointed out very
clearly their vital interest in sound mon
ey and the losses that they especially
would suffer from deprecated cur
rency.
Secretary Carlisle dealt in facts. He
had no fne-spun theories to air. He
appealed to experience in America and
elsewhere. He called history as a wit
ness. His statistics were few and plain,
and direct to the question which inter
ests wageworkers. His argument was
based on the broad proposition that gold
and silver money are valuable in proper
ton to their value as commercial COM
modities. He showed that by the law
of 1892, which made the gold dollar
worth cent and an eighth more than
the silver dollar, gold was driven out
of circulat ion. Acts of Congress in
1884 and 1887 turned the tables, and by
making the silver dollar worth trife
more than the gold dollar, drove silver out
of circulation. After the passage of
the law of 1892 Congress made the
gal tender, and these drove out many of
the new American silver dollars. A
similar course was pursued in 1884, when
the coins of Great Britain, France,
Portugal, Mexico and even Colombia
were made legal tender in this country
Labor cannot be boarded" said MIR.
Carlisle, 1.-The idle day is gone forever"
And when he added that good money
was essential to the happiness and COM
fort Of the American laborer and his
family the sentiment was received with
cheers. He then went on to show what
a calamity free coinage of silver at the
ratio of Is to 1 would be for labor. He
had made it clear that inequality in the
values of the metals used for money
would drive out the dearer. He made
it plain that labor would always be paid
system would enable the owner Of a sill
yer mine to get a dollar for so cents
worth of metal and would force the
laborer to accept 81 cents worth of sill
yer for a dollars worth of gold. He de-
clared that the first effect would be to
drive out of circulation the $620,000,000
Of coined gold, and he predicted that
would produce panic such as the world
had never yet experienced. He hardly
thought it necessary to ask who suffered
first and most in times of panic.
But does a deprecated currency make
plenty of money for wage-earners, as
free silver men assert? Secretary Car
isle appealed to the report of an inves-
tigation committee of the United States
Senate. He showed that wages had in
creased during the war, when the paper
currency was deprecated, but it also
showed that the cost Of the neccessarises
Of life had advanced III faf Crater pro
portion. In 1868 the laboring man had
practically pr lost "a per cent. on his wages,
in 1864 10 per cent. and in 1865 A per
cent. The experience of Chill was quot
ed 20 prove that the rule was general
and inevitable. But free silver not only
menaces the wages of the future; it
threatens the savings of the past Wage
earners have billions of dollars intrusted
financial institutions. Cheap silver will
wipe out one-half of the enormous sum.
Secretary Carlisle declared himself for
bimetallism, but with safeguards.
Some free silver advocates tried to Gre
ate scene at the close of the meeting
audience dispersed quietly.