Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1896-09-29

I iIAtr ~ ~ ~ hJaL&H u
4 the farmers sharing in our distress.
r IF 1t is true, as 1t so clearly is. tina
Juggling with the currency and tryin
: by tricks IN a~rti1ce to raise price
mean injury to our great farming in
q ~terests, how much clearer is it that sue
! a policy would be destructive to thos
! other great classes which live on wage
; or salaries.
!, They say the times are bad. The
said he same thing in 1892. 1t wa
> false then. 1t is true now. Betwee,
then and now the Democratic party an
the attempts at free trade have inter
vened. | will not examine this poin
too c~uriously. / will content mysel
with saying that bad times and tn,
Democratic party and tariff reform al
came in together.
NOW having got the bad times. {
portion OF the Democratic party. will
every KIND of strange ally. n stripped
OF every Democrat who has com
manded the confidence and respect o.
the people. comes forward and says
Put US in power, for we have another
quacb remedy which will surely cure
inns time. ON its face the proposition
is not inviting. Let us look at it, how
ever. a little more closely.
IN 1892 they proposed to make every
one happy and prosperous with free
trade, by which, they said, prices would
be lowered and the purchasing power
of wages thereby increased. You have
tried that experiment and know how
you ike 1t; bat mark well, salvation
was then promised by the lowering of
1 nriraG aud ,h.,- S,ilI tx.,. ,la. .-ti,,, l..
their platform. But they nave pro-
duced now another policy, which is to
make us all rich and prosperous by free
silver, which is to raise prices. 1t is
difficult to see how those two policies
can work together. bat to the Populist
mind all things seem possible and all
contradictions logical.
They propose to the business men
and the wage earners of the East. and
they ask for votes and power on that
ground, to improve our condition by
raising prices, not by increasing the
demand. but by playing tricks with the
| currency.
The only alu of money is it's pur-
chasing power. II "A man has the pur-
chasing power of his wage reduced.
his wages are reduced, and in an insidi-
GUS manner which he can neither meet
nor counteract. II prices rise artificial
~ wages are reduced. and their own
argument for free silver is that they
will raise prices by adopting that pol
icy. They propose to throw open the
hints of the United states 10 all the
world and allow any one who has got
80 cents worth of silver bullion to
bring it to u minis and have II
stamped one dollar and made legal
tender. They say hat when you thus
stamp 80 cents worth of metal it will
pc a dollar. You can no more make 80
cents a dollar by calling it so than you
can make a Populist a Democrat by
calling him so.
The boy orator among the many
rearis of speech which he has been
strewing along the railroad lines of
this country. said the other day that
the Mexican dollar was an honest dol
lar because it was worth exactly it's
bullion value.
How he stumbled on that isolated
| Truth | do not know. but it is true that
the Mexican dollar is worth its bullion
value. which is about So cents. and
when we go to free silver our silver
dollar will be worth its bullion value,
which is about 80 cents.
When the boy orator parted COM
pany from this truth about the value
of the Mexican dollar, which gives
away his whole case, he entered again
on that more delightful field of glowing
and varied INSTRUMENTATION, in which he
is most at home. and alleged that if we
| opened u minis to silver the price of
silver would rise to S1.29 an ounce.
1t is not worth while to spend much
time IN that point. because if they
thought that free silver would make
the present standard dollar worth a
dollar commercially, this silver agita-
ton would never have been heard of.
The purpose of the silver agitation is
10 get votes by making people believe
that they are going to get something
for nothing and become rich without
labor. 1t is a very old delusion. No
body is going to get more money. or.
more exactly, more real wealth. by the.
free coinage of silver. The govern
ment will not give ava silver dollars.
for ii will have none TO give. The sill
yer coins will belong to other people,
chiefly to the owners of silver mines.
You will be able to get a dollar under
free coinage only as you get it now. by
exchanging for it labor or some other
thing of solid value The difference
will be that instead of getting as good
a dollar as you get now, you will get
one worth only half as much. The loss
will fall on the w-age-earners, for
wages under IN inflated currency do
notrise so fast as prices. You can mark
up the price of commodities in q day.
but you cannot mark up the wages of
labor in that fashion.
During IL war, when we had an
inflated currency, wages rose about 40
per cent. While the average price of
commodities rose about SO per cent.
Therefore. there was a net loss to labor
or. a reduction to wages of about so
per cent.
IF we go to the free coinage of sill
Yer, we pass at once to the silver
standard, and gold disappears from
circulation. The reason for this is OBJ |
-vious. Men will use the cheap dollar
for debt paying and other purposes, in
the country where alone it will circu-
late, and they will use the gold for eX-
port. This is a law as memorable as
the law of gravitation. The o~vervalued
money will drive out that which is I'M
dervalued. An generalization of silver
of l per cent. drove all the gold from
-. - a-,. g. r 1-nn TY