The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-04-17
cARLIsLE's CHICAGO SPEECH.


Secretary Carlisle has been to Chi
cago and delivered his long-talked-of
advanced no new arguments, made no
new Illustrations; but this is not to be
wondered at when it is remembered
how thoroughly threshed out the sub
ject has been in the past two or three
years.
The secretary's speech was addressed
particularly to the laboring class. He
announced that labor cannot be
boarded, which is self-evident, but he
should have followed that statement
up by another, that where labor is for
sale it cannot be bought unless there
is capital with which to purchase it.
In the ordinary acceptation of the
word, capital means money, and money
means gold and silver. Paper money
is but a promise to pay in either or
both of these metals. From this it
follows that to reduce the metallic ba-
sis of the circulating medium is to
reduce that medium correspondence
Not to give silver the rights of free
coinage is to do this very thing.
Mr. Carlisle went over the old ground
that if we had free coinage of silver
it would drive out the $500 900 In
gold we now have That is merely his
ipse dixit and is not susceptible of
proof until tried. To prophesy is the
easiest thing in the world to do and the
hardest thing to prove or -dlsprove
Admitting, for the sake of argument,
that his statement is correct, he still
fails to explain how, with the currency
contracted that amount, the silver dol
lar would only be worth fifty cents
If anything in finance is certain it is
that whatever a country's money may
be, any very considerable contraction
of it appreciates it, or depreciates
commodities. Whichever way one may
choose to look at the matter, the re-
is the same.
AS was inevita BILE, Mexico was cited
as horrible example of a free silver
country. With much superciliousness
the secretary said that Mexico, with
constitutional government very sim
liar to our own, with an area of 767, 900
square miles and a population of only
about 100000 with almost marvellous
resources awaiting development, and
offering most inviting field for the
investment of capital and the employ
ment of labor has the silver standard
of value, gold not being in use, and IL
cheap money is blessing to the labor
ing man he ought to be prosperous and
happy in that country"
The argument is neither good nor
Ingenious Are the Mexicans so ener-
getic a people, so pushing a people, so
inventive and industrious a people as
the Americans? Then if the secretary
had desired to be frankly honest he
would have informed his hearers that
of these Il, 600, 900 Mexicans, only 10 per
cent are of pure, or nearly pure, white
race 43 per cent of mixed race, and 80
per cent of dndian race. After telling
them this he would have told them
that of the mixed and Indian race only
a very small proportion can be regard
ed as civilized. So much for his Mexi-
can argument.
To judge from his speech, the secre-
tary conveyed the idea that the $780,
597, 900 deposited in the savings banks
of the United States was so much gold
held by them He said that if the
free and unlimited coinage of SILVER at
16 to 1 were established, "a very large
part of the money deposited in these
various kinds of savings institutions
will not even be paid in deprecated
silver, but will be wholly lost, because
such reckless monetary system
would precipitate a financial panic,
which very few, If any, of the deposi-
tories could survive"
They wouldn't be able even to get
deprecated silver" simply because
there is not so much in the country.
If at any time and for any cause the
depositors decided to withdraw their
/ eighteen hundred millions of money
from the savings banks, would not the
same result depicted by Mr.. Carlisle
follow? His argument is that to have
enough money to pay all deposltors
upon demand, will precipitate panic
A panic so precipitated is better than
one resulting from lack of money to
pay them
The secretary's great solicitude for
the welfare of the laboring classes is
rather amusing than anything else.
Rightly or wrongly, Mr.. Carlisle has
earned the unenviable distinction Of be-
ing the friend of the capitalist class;
that the bond issues negotiated in Sc
cret by him as secretary of the treas
ury were at least as much in the in
terest of the bond-buying gold-bugs as
in the interest of the government.
Then his laudation of his own bond
issues as having saved the govern
ment's credit and the people from
wreck and ruin, is offset by the
aphorism, "self praise is no praise .
And there are not wanting good, hon
est, intelligent people who are of the
| opinion that these same bond issues
have injured the governments credit
more than helped it. We cannot but
think that perhaps Secretary Carlisle's
! solicitude for the welfare of the labor
ing man is much the same as that OF
the wolf for the lamb.
Tom Reed is getting to be himself
again. w. E. Curtis, in the Chicago
pooord saws the sneaker was discourse