Birmingham state herald., 1896-08-04

of London and New York. whose tender mercies even are cruel So long as silver Is kept under the ban here and in Eu- rope, and yet remains the money of the immutable east so long as our silver can be beaten down and bought az mere bullion and shipped to India and sold as money for wheat and cotton at par with gold on A ratio of 15 to l, the efforts of our tillers of the soil to get out of debt or better their conditions are as hopeless as if they should attempt to drain the ocean with q quart cup.
 This rain wrought by gold monomet- alilSm to productive industry is not con- fined to any calling or to any country. That system was long ago denounced truly by Cernusehi as "pernieious in Eu- rope, pernicious in Asia, pernicious in America and pernicious in the isles of the sea" It's benefits reach only to hold- CTS of capital of various shades and types and their satellites and depends ents who care nothing for tho rights, and are worse than insensible to the wrongs of the struggling, suffering mil lions of humanity.
 Gold maniacs sometimes pretend that RDiy pdHhS dHQ WOuIQ ueT1Ne benefit from the free coinage of silver. This falsehood exposed, they proclaim that no one but silver mine own CTS would profit by it, and that planters and farmers would be ruin ed by 50-cent dollars. This falsehood is worse than the other, because there is some truth in it. It is fact that silver miners would gain by free coinage, and a great and deserving industry, in which we ought to lead all nations, would be encouraged and built up. But 1t Is just as true that the growers of wheat and cotton and the producers of all other arti- cles which we export and sell in competi- ton with silver using peoples are in equal proportion and much more in aggregate amount to be beneficiaries of the free coinage of silver by this country. The MT. Ford whom we have mentioned says free coinage would stop the exports of silver from this country. This is the great objection he has to it. No doubt free coinage would accomplish this and much more. It would stop exports of sill Yer bullion from this and all other coun- tries to Europe at less than $1.29 an ounce, for it would offer here an unlim. ited market for 1t at that price in our money Al once would be stopped the purchases of silver bullion to be sent to the east to buy cotton, wheat and other products at prices in ruinous competition with our own. Our productions would rise in price, and until they had risen above present prices in proportion near ly as 129 is greater than 68 European buyers would take them in preference to our silver bullion and pay for them in gold or it's equivalent. Here would be hundreds of millions in money value gained annually by this advance in prices, in comparison with which our total ex- port of silver, say 50,000000 is but a small sum for adjusting the balance of trade.
 Under the present ruinous system of gold monometallism we have stricken down one of our great industries and re- sources, silver mining; 1t forces us to sacrifice our silver bullion at half price to purchasers who are using it successful ly to ruin our greatest industry, agricul- ture, the chief crop and pillar of our country's greatness, without the support of which the whole fabric must crumble, fall and be shattered to pieces.
 Knowing, and still more, feeling these facts, how could it be otherwise than that the tillers of the soil should support the free coinage of silver?