The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1896-08-20
| not competltors In the race Of human

| progress with other nations.
But these free coners assert that we
have been going down the steps of misery
into the waters of poverty and desolation,
steadily, since 1873. l propose to prove
that this Is an Incorrect statement. II that
were true, we would have had no intervals
| Of prosperity in that time. The declina.
| ton would have been plainly visible. and
we could have looked back and seen the
happier times from which we came and
1880 and 1893 we had years Of prosperity.
such as no nation ever saw before.
| Who then heard and where was the
cry of misery and distress? Who
| said anything about free silver, or
! the free and unlimited coinage Of silver eX:
| cept as an academic, agitating Question?
In 1898 came one Of those crises which
| are Incident to all commercial nations of
| active business life. And we look around
| and ask, what is the matter with the age
and what caused it? The sober historian
who reviews these matters impartially will
say that Misrepresentation, over-trading and
living beyond means and the attempt to
coin silver in excess did 1t. But the pro-
| life and pernicious agitators of to-day tell
the American people that it happened be-
cause they did not join and go in for the
free and unlimited coinage of silver. Mere
assertion, nd proof, Che facts Of history
are against it, the recollections Of men
during that period are all against it; and
yet in period of commercial distress and
discomfort when men are angry, passion
ate and excited. and not in condition, many
of them, to judge as freely and fairly as
they would under other circumstances,
they are deuded by these false lights and
false alarms.
say that the last thirty years has not
been period of disaster or distress. HUI
mainly has been steadily going forward for
the last thirty, years. The lapses back
&c Il a
nothing in proportion to the ascent. If 1t
were true that our course for the last thirty
years has been downward there would have
been less and less opportunity for human
effort during that time. Yet does not every
man In this audience know that since 1873
the opportunities for human effort have
been opening up wider and wider dill the
while? Schools and universities have in
creased their function New yocations have
been created-that Of the electrician, for
instance, and the telephone, from that
marvellous genius Of invention, which seems
somehow o.. other to pc in alliance with the
welfare and prosperity of the American
people.
Why, take one thing since 1870. Speak
ing of these assertions of lack Of Oppor
tunity and of contraction of the currency,
and Of the general downward progress of
mankind, say since 1873, one of the most
blessed features of the present century has
come into existence and efficacy and ex
banded in operation, and that is the en-
ployment of women in industrial pursuits,
whereby the forces Of production have been
reinforced infinitely. Look back in your
memories, you who are able to remember
back that far. In 1873 what and how few
were the opportunities offered to woman;
and now how many and how vast
they now are, by which women live
independently, in sslf-respect and self
support, without being dependent ON
any man. AID yet II we had been
having period of contraction and
descending misery men would have crowded
women out of employment and then have
crowded each other in that competition;
but they have not done 1t.
A VOice-Wfll the senator kindly explain
why and how the two metals parted?
Mr.. Davis-The two metals parted iii this
way land 1 shalt have to be brief in my
explanation, for I am proceeding along a
line Of argument): In 1871 Germany de-
mohetized silver. She sold her marks in
the markets from time to time thereafter,
turning loose flood of silver upon the
nations who were indulgins In free collage.
France and the Latin Union. who were then
coinin silver at the ratio of 15h to 1,
unlimitedly, tried to stay it until 1876, and
then stopped entirely, having begun to
stop in 1873 by limiting their silver coin
age. We took the alarm and stopped In
1873. Applause.) l will go on and say
question, that the nations which did that
thing have prospered, and that the nations
which have not done it have not prOspered.
Great applause)
These crises in business affairs recur con-
tinuously. We had one in 1873, we recovered
from that. We had one in 1898, and are
enduring it yet, and we shall recover from
that. But they are all marked with this
same headstrong. unreasoning hallucination
which am combating. Preceding 1873 and
about 1867, men of the same way Of think
ing as those whom l am arguing against
tonight, took it into their heads that 1t
was right, proper and honest, and for the
benefit of the people of the United States
to pay the United States bonded debt in
( paper money. The same arguments were
made that are made now. And some Of the
survivors who are to-day defending the
Populist and Democratic theories are the
same men who were advocating them then.
In 1S73-along there, in the midst Of a
great commercial depression such as now
Is distressing us, the cry for the unlimited
Issue Of greenbacks was taken up land Is
reiterated in the Populist platform in st:
Louis, and we had to fight that out. The
American people fought it out In audiences
in this city and In every city of the land,
until that question was settled; and it re-
NAMED practically settled until the next
calamity In the way of commercial crisis
came in 1898: and that dead and buried
spectre arose In complete steel again to
confront the American people and to call
on them for their best efforts to lay 1t In an
eternal repose daughter and applauseJ
The free coiners indulge in another state
ment which is erroneous and q fallacy,
They date the decline Of prices arbitrarily,
from 1873. I appeal to history, and will
ask you when you go home to go
statement is not correct. Prices be-
gan to decline at the conclusion of
the Napoleonic wars In 1915, and with q
short exception covered by the period Of
our civil war and the discovery Of gold in
California, they have been declining ever
since. And this decline continued up to
1870, while silver was being coined freely
and unlimitedly with gold in all the minis
Of the world excepting that of England
When anybody talks to you about decline
Of prices since 1873, tell him, and you will
tell him truly, that the decline began Short
ly after 1915, 1t became acute in 1920, and
1t has continued to the present day; that
there was slight rise from 1S4S until a
period In our civil war, and that there was
a greater decline from 1866 to 1873, than
there has been from then to the present
time.
Oh, but they say, ''prices depend upon the
per capita; IL we had more money. prices
would be better Il will consider in min
ute how that would affect our people,, and
II the United States, instead of $21 or $22
| per capita, had what the Populists de-
manded at Omaha, and, suppose, at St.
al ~