Birmingham state herald., 1896-07-24
HERE T IS AHEAD OF TIME Address of National SiIverites to
 the People. A PLEA FOR WHITE METAL The Evils of the Single Gold Standard Are
 Graphically Portrayed BRYAN AND sEWALL ARE ENDORSED And all Friends of Silver Are Urged to Vote for Them-The Paper to Be
 Presented by Senator
 Jones Today.
RYAN AND sEWALL ARE ENDORSED

St. Louis, Mo-, July 23.-The committee on resolutions of the silver convention completed its work this afternoon by adopting the platform and address to the people which had been prepared by the subcommittee. The platform and ad- dress are as follows:
 The national silver party of America, in convention assembled hereby adopts the following declaration of principles
 l. The paramount issue at this time in the United States is indisputably the money question. It is between the British gold standard, gold bonds and bank cur rency on the one side and the bimetallic standard no bonds, government cur rency (and an American policy) on the other.
 On this issue, we declare ourselves to be in favor of a distinctively American financial system. We are unalterably opposed to the single gold standard, and demand the immediate return to the con stitutional standard of gold and silver, by the restoration by this government. independently of any foreign nation of the unrestricted coinage of both gold and silver into standard money at the ratio of 16 to 1, and upon terms of exact equal ity as they existed prior to 1S73 the sil-
 
 ly with gold for all debts and duties, public and private, and we demand such legislation as will prevent for the future the destruction of the legal tender quali- ty of any kind of money by private contract We hold that the power to control and regulate paper currency is inseparable from the power to coin money and hence that all currency in- tended to circulate as money should be issued and it's volume controlled by the general government only and should be a legal tender.
 We are unalterably opposed to the issue by the United States of interest bearing bonds in time of peace, and we denounce as blunder worse than crime the present treasury policy, con c.rred in by republican: house, or piunging the country into debt by hum dreds of millions in the vain attempt to maintain the gold standard by borrow ing gold; and we demand the payment Of ell coin obligations of the United States as provided by existing laws in either gold or silver coin, at the option of the government, and not at the option of the creditor.
 The Characterization of Silver
 in 1873 enormously increased the demand for gold, enhancing it's purchasing pow CT and lowering all prices measured py that standard; and since that unjust and indefensible act the prices of Amer
 
 craze nearly 50 per cent, carrying down with them approximately the money value of all other forms of property.
 Such fall of prices has destroyed the profits of legitimate industry, inJuring the producer for the benefit of the non- producer increasing the burden of the debtor, swelling the gains of the creditor, paralyzing the productive energies of the American people, relegating to idleness vast numbers of willing workers, send ing the shadows of despair Into the home of the honest toiler filling the land with tramps and paupers and building up CO., lossal fortunes at the money centers.
 In the effort to maintain the gold standard the country has within the last two years, in time of profound peace and plenty, been loaded down with $262,- 0000 900 of additional interest-bearipg debt under such circumstances as to allow syndicate of native and foreign bankers to realize net profit of
 Millions on Single Deal.
 It stands confessed that the gold stand ard can only be upheld by so depicting our paper currency as to force the prices of our products below the European, and even below the Asiatic level, to enable us to sell in foreign markets, thus ag- gravating the very evils of which our people so bitterly complain, degrading American labor and striking at the foun- dations of our civilization itself.
 The advocates of the gold standard persistently claim that the cause Of our distress Is over-production-that we have produced so much that it made us poor which implies that the true remedy Is to close the factory, abandon the farm and throw a multitude of people out of employment-a doctrine that leaves us unnerved and disheartened and absolute ly without hope for the future.
 We affirm 1t to be unquestioned that there be no such economic paradox as overproduction and at the same time tens of thousands of our fellow citizens remain half clothed and half fed and who are piteously clamoring for the
 Common Necessities of Life.
 Over and above all questions of policy, we are in favor of restoring to the people of the United States the time-honored money of the constitution-gold and sil- yer, not one, but both-the money or Washington and Hamilton and Jefferson and Monroe and Jackson and Lincoln, to the end that the American people may receive honest pay for an honest prod uct; that the American debtor may pay his ust obligations in an honest stand ard and not in dishonest and unsound standard appreciated 100 per cent in pur- chasing power and no appreciation in debt paying power, and to the end, fur ther, that silver standard countries may be deprived of the unjust advantage they now enjoy in the difference in exchange between gold and silver-an advantage which tariff legislation cannot overcome.
 We therefore confidently appeal to the people of the United States to hold in allowance all other questions, however important and even momentous they nav appear, to surrender, if need be, all former party ties and affiliations and unite in one supreme effort to free them selves and their children from the domi- nation of the money power-a power more destructive than any which has ever been fastened upon the civilized men of any race or in any age. And up- on the consummation of our desires and our efforts we evoke the aid of all pa- triotic American citizens and the Bra- cious favor of divine providence.
 For Bryan and 5ewan.