The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1896-09-25

list platforms be realized.
But you have heard from our free
coinage friends here that other nations
have done this. And there are many good
people who believe that France is doing
it. and that the Latin union-so-callel-is
doing it. Now, l would like to know why
they can't tell the entire truth about this
matter. Let us not deceive each ctner
and let nobody deceive us. The Latin
union is composed of France, Belgium,
Italy. Switzerland and Greece. 1t was
formed in 1863 by treaty between those
powers. whereby each agreed until. the
year 1850 TO take the coins of the other
powers at the ratio of 15ia to I.
But Germany demonetized silver; she
had ceased to coin it. and so, in 1873
those great nations. headed by France
ethe most scientifically governed country
in the world. and the one which has the
countries, after Germany had demone-
tized silver in 1873 limited their silver
coinage, and by 1876 they suspended it
entirely. They. those great European
nation in the world. with her allies-un-
dertook with all their power to do pre-
clsely what the free coiners of the Unit
ed States asking this government
TO undertake in the light of such con-
spicuous failures of other nations.
Invariable Standards Needed.
Now. everybody admits-I think the
IluSt JTee-cOlHer upcIal1npF
would admit-that the money unit should
remain as nearly inyaria BILE as possible.
Now. | say gold has so remained. Sill
yer has fallen commercially like other
articles. This is denied. They say sill
yer has not fallen, that gold has risen:
Now. that is the way You look at it.
You can look at it through the deluding
glass of idealism. and it may appear that
way. but it is an optical illusion. Now
let me put an illustration from nature.
The waters of Lake Superior that great
inland sea which floats so much of our
commerce and is such an element in our
prosperity. have for many years been
falling. until now they are lower than
they have been at any time for fifty
years. and everything on their surface
has fallen. The waters of Lake Supe-
rior. like the universal. spread-out plane
of humanity. hearing everything upon it's
Surface-those waters bear the fleets.
vessels and craft of all kinds. and YES
fallen with the water. What would yon
think of man standing on the deck of
one of those vessels saving. This YES
sci has not fallen: this vessel stands JUST
whore it did. but the universal shore of
Lake Superior has risen?'' Laughter
and anplause.]
Now. l say. my fri"nds. that since the
Latin union. from 1873 to 1876. aban-
doped free coinage. there has existed in
European nations and the United States
luc DHit pFdctpdl DllneIdlllSlD Let me
| repeat this. / feel that / cannot bear it
into your minds too often or too urgently
that these nations. including ours. are
the only nations on the face of the earth
that have any bimetallism whatever.
And why? Because they went to the
stopneed. Applause. The universal
teaching of history demonstrated that
there WAS a dead line. beyond which
silver could not he pressed without the
Il, 1,+s
gold. as useful. working money med-
nm. And when any man gets up and
dreams and soliloUuiZes and philosophers
before me and tells me he knows it won't
be so if we try where others failed,
tell him that an ounce of fact is worth
a ton of theory. and that something bod-
ly is worth million of disembodied
ghosts. lApplause.]
What is Ratio?
And vet these gentlemen favor, in the
face of these historical examples and
warnings. that the United States shall
make the unit of coinage the silver dol
lar at the ratio of 1t to 1.
= Now, what is ratio! 1t is not SIG to
81, as some people claim. G.aughter.)
Ratio means this: That there shall be
sixteen times more silver in weight in a
silver dollar than there is weight of gold
in gold dollar. Or, to put the definition
in another form. that sixteen ounces of
SILVER. WneI cOlnep. SHall Be the eQulFd-
lent of one ounce of gold when coined.
When gold measured by silver is worth
SIG per ounce. no disparity i'll value can
exist: but when measured by silver the
ounce of gold is worth S:f1 an ounce COM
mercially, disparity results. Such is the
present condition. and yet the free silver
men assert that it will ie no such thing
in case legislative fiat endeavors to make
two and two five instead of the old
fashioned result. two and two four.
The trouble is that our friends have
confused the ratio of weight with the
ratio of value. and are trying to confuse
the people with it. The ratio of weight
and the ratio of value We're once the
same, but they have changed. They
changed more than thirty years ago.
Other nations saw it and obeyed the i'm
perial behest of that change before we
did, and the ratio is now throughout
the world 3D. or about 81. to /.
Now | say that no legislative fiat what
eyer-it does not lie in the power of man
q was about to say something more eX
treme than that, which it would not be
proper to say)-it does not lie in the
power of man to enact that a given di-
mension, volume or capacity shall be a
hairs breadth greater than the laws of
the Almighty have fixed it from the be-
ginning. (Applause.)
1t is necessary that the ratio or proper
ton of value should be invariable. 1t is
necessary for the production of the thing
itself called money, speaking of it in its
great volume as the volume of money in
the United States. We see analogies
everywhere: we see an analogy in nature.
Take the air we breathe. 1t is a COM
pound substance, made up from oxygen
and nitrogen at the ratio of about II
to %, and while this ratio lasts it is from
it we all draw our lives and have our
being. But change to any material de-
gree and. instead of being the vital. life
giving air, it becomes a deadly and de-
structiye miasma.
But the free-coiners assert that unlim-
tied coinage of silver will restore it TO
many nations of th.. world Has it done
it in a single instance? Not one. They
said the same thing when Congress
passed the Sherman act of 1890. They
said buy of us freely 100000 ounces
month. or 54.0OO.000 ounces Il year, and
YOU will see that silver will go Up to
q 90 an ounce immediatelx In the face