The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-10-02
WHY THE SOUTH SHOULD BE
SOLID FOR SILVER.

The general disgruntlement of the
gold standard managers as the several
silver parties in the South amalgamate
their issues and unite in favor of GER
tain electors would be amusing if it
were not trife pathetic. The gold
standard statesmen have made such
large and recent investments in the
products of politics in the South that
they can not for the life of them UNI
derstand why there should be any diff
fcultv about their securing the elector-
al votes they require. Having no con-
sciences themselves they can not ac-
credit the people, of the South with
any save that peculiar sort of con-
science accredited by Shakespeare to
| Launcelot Gobbs in the Merchant of
Venice and which has since come to
by a synonym for case hardened cor
ruption. Believing that all men have
their price the animated dollar mark
who is conducting the Mckinley cam
paign of corruption can not compre-
bend why the huge sums he has plac-
ed in the hands of that past grand
master of bribery, Mr.. Mathew STAN
ley Quay have failed to prevent fusion
of the friends of silver and so rendered
McKinley's calling and election sure.
Mr.. Mark Hanna is a marvellous pro-
duct of prurient plutocracy and he is
shrewd and intelligent man. The cam
paign fund he has acquired is enor-
nous and he can we'll afford to make
it worth WHILE for a good many
Southern Statesmen out of job" to
don the dollar marked motley of his
campaign of crime. But Mr.. Hanna
has not the intellect to see the sub
stantial benefits the South has to
expect from free silver and if he had
he has not at his command any sum
sufficient to compensate the South for
the losse it has sustained by the adop-
ton of the single gold standard. For
Mr.. Hanna's benefit and that of his
fellow plutocrats we viii show him
few reasons why the South is solid
for free silver and how even If our
people were the corrupt things he
thinks them, it would be beyond his
power to purchase their allegiance
now. The United States Bureau of
Agriculture gives the value of the prin-
cipal crops of the 5000 square miles or
500 900 900 square acres comprising the
Southern States at $737, 40s lab for the
year 1894. This was about $33 per
capita for the entire population of the
South. These products were sold at
prices which we have shown from time
to time in this campaign by the unim-
authorities as Sootbeer of Germany,
Sauerbeck, of England, Wharton Bar
ker, of the United States and others,
to have been from As tor7Q per cent less
for the year 1894 than these same ar
tic1es commanded in 1873, when the
free coinage of silver was suspended by
the United States; the standard silver
dollar stripped of it's legal tender pro-
perties and the whole burden of the
worlds work thrown upon the insult
fcient gold basis. Rightly to under
stand the extent of the loss thus in
ficted upon the people of the South
let us take one or two examples. The
wheat crop of the South in 1894 sold
for S39,09 ,S24. At the minimum price
of SO cents per bushel it took 75,188,123
bushels to produce this sum. At SO
cents per bushel, the mini
mum sum for which it sold in
1873 this same quantity of wheat in
that year would have brought
SOC, GA, 429. SO, net loss on wheat alone
in a single year of $27, 1896
The cotton crop of the South sold for
| $3.50, 100000 in 1894 The minimum
market price in the New York Cotton
market for spot niiddling upland
cotton was 5A cents. The minimum
| price for this same cotton in 1873 was
| 21sk cents. AT these figures the cotton
| required to produce $3.50, 100000 in 1894
would have sold for 1888, 535, 1853 in 1878,
difference of sos, 535,353, a
sum so stupendous as to almost APP
pail thought; a sum vast enough ito
| have paid almost the entire National
debt, of the United States, as that debt
| existed before the recent issues of
bonds to subsidized syndicates. IF
these figures seem extreme, we will
take other products.
The hay crop of 1894 in the South
was sos, GA, 231; the oat crop $40,296,-
sol; potatoes $12,893,392; corn $780,,
| o14,975; tobacco $40, ,374; rice 49,,
100000; bucl1wheat $372,64s. Take the
prices on each of these products in 1873
as given by the market reports COM
piled by the New York Produce Elk
change, and take the prices on the same