Owingsville outlook., 1896-08-20
All Democrats Were Once
"GOld-Bugs."


The Ohio campaign was opened
by Senator Sherman at Columbus
last Saturday. The bulk of his
speech consisted of calm, unan-
swerable logic on the silver issue
and a statement of historical and
recorded facts that are incontro-
vertible. 1t is free from partisan
ism and is so dignified and judicial
as to scarcely arouse the antagon-
ism of an enthusiastic silverite even.
He shows that Thomas jefferson
was unquestionably the same sort
of a gold bug as Grover Cleveland,
John G. Carlisle and all sound
money Democrats are, for Jefferson
suspended the coinage of the silver
dollar in 1906; and none were
coined for 80 years after.
He shows that Andrew jackson
was a gold-bug, because he hearth
ly favored the law of 1884, passed
while Jackson was President, which
law was in avowed purpose for the
establishment of the gold standard.
He shows that all Democrats in
1858 were gold-bugs, for they had
the President { (Pierce) and a ma
jority of each house of Congress,
and the law of 1853 was enacted,
making fractional silver coins a
legal tender for not exceeding S.,
and allowing them coinage on the
Governments account only. This
left gold the only full legal tender
in practice, for the silver dollar
had disappeared from circulation
and no concern was felt for it. The
House committee chairman stated
the purpose of the act of 1853 to
be "to make gold the standard
C " Nobody then cared a par
IT, .or the coinage of the silver
dollar.
In 1873 the unconcern continued.
The act of 1873 had been first in
troduced in 1870, and everybody in
Congress had the fullest opportu-
nifty during the nearly three years
it pended to learn all about the So
called "crime of 1S73," for it was
long and amply discussed in every
particular. Therefore when the
bill passed without particular op-
position it proved conclusively that
nobody cared anything about the
silver dollar and all favored the
continuance of the single gold
standard by law, since it had been
the standard in fact, and inten-
tionally so on the part of Congress,
since 1884, except during the paper
currency era.
Senator Stewart, of Nevada,
now and for many years an uncom-
promising silverite, voted for the
"crime of 1S73," and said I'll June
18th, 1874, in a debate in Con-
gress:-
"Sir, the laboring man and the
producer is entitled to have his
product and his labor measured by
the saIle standard of the world
that measures your national debt.
Give him such a
standard, give him money as you
require from him. You require it
from the producer. You require
from the laboring man gold to pay
tho interest on your national debt,
which is right, which cannot be
avoided if you mean to save nation
al honor ;but then give him the same
money, with which to pay that
debt.
"The question will never be set
tied until you determine the simple
question whether the laboring man
is entitled to have a gold dollar if
he earns it, or whether you are GO
ing to cheat him with something
else. That is the upshot of the
whole thing. Everybody has to
say that the laboring man was en-
titled TO a good dollar. That was
fought over. They will fight it
over again, and the same party
will win. There have been a great
many battles fought against gold,
but gold never has compromised.
= Gold has made the world
respect it all the time. The Eng
lish people once thought they could
get along without gold for a while,
but they had to come back to it,"
Senator Jones, of Nevada, the
most learned silverite of them all,
who voted for the "crime of 1873"
on June 1lth, 1874, said in Con-
gress:- -
81 am opposed to any proposition,
come in whatever form it may, that
attempts to override what God
himself has made for money. / be-
lieve the sooner we come down to a |
purely gold standard the better it
will be for the country"
On April 1, 1874, Jones said:-I
''Does this Congress mean now
to leave entirely out of view and
forever q standard of val
ue? And what but gold can be
that standard? What other thing
on earth possesses the requisite
qualities? Gold is the
of commerce. 1t is
the most potent agent of civiliza-
ton. 1t is gold that has lifted the
N otiopc from, ha rba ricn
sit is the common denominator
IF values. 1t makes possible the
of labor and the in
of commodities. Gold
las intervened in bargains made
men since the dawn of civ
lization, and it has never failed to
fulfill its part as the uni
7ersal agent and the servant of
The value of