The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1896-10-16
SILVER'S STORY
TOLD IN FOUR CHAPTERS-LlGHTS
AND SHADOWS OF THE AGES.

The Inception Of the Conspiracy-How
Decentralization was Brought About
Efforts Made to Restore the Metal-The
Conflict of the Ages eliminates This
Year-shall the Money Power Win?
CONCLUDED
After the demonetization of silver in
1916 by England, which was quickly fol
lowed by the fatal results precipitated
upon the country by the sudden contrac-
tion and the later issue Of a volume of
paper currency to relieve the stringency
and avert tide Of panic and disaster,
the wealthy classes became fully con-
scous of the enormous power which lay
at their command in the control Of the
money quantity. They saw clearly, and
we may be sure did not point it out, the
error that had been made by the United
States in adopting the bimetallic ratio Of
Is to /, SO much at variance with that
afterwards established by France in 1903,
which was 1915 to 1, and through the
operation of which all the gold was ex-
PEELED from this country to the European
mints, thus compelling us to send to
London for the metal with which to
maintain our foreign exchanges and re-
ducing our internal transactions to the
unsatisfactory basis Of barter for many
wears during which the common people
rarely saw any actual money save copper.
In 1887 our adoption Of the ratio of 16
to 1, while that Of France remained at
1919 to /, drove all the silver out Of the
country and we continued to be
without Any Actual Currency.
All who remember the period before the
war recall the imperfect methods by
which domestic exchanges took place,
the products of the farm the stockings
knit by the women and even rags, old
paper and pot metal from the waste heaps
serving as the direct purchasing medium
of the times. Still the nation prospered
by reason of the rapid development of its
vast measures of virgin wealth, but the
coming Of the great civil war for the first
time demonstrated the effect of a sutfi-
Clent money volume.
The issue of a plentiful volume of
paper currency gave to industry stimu=
lus it had never had before, and for many
years prosperity reigned, during which
railroads were extended; cities were
built in the heart Of deserts; mines were
opened; lands were cultivated and gen
eral era of expansion and progress re-
corded, the like of which was never
matched.
At the height of this when gold and
silver had not been much thought of, be-
cause SO little in actual use, a conspiracy
inspired by the British fnanciers to put
the world upon single gold standard
basis found it's fruiton in successive
steps taken between the years 1878 and
1898, all of which were carried through
by Legislation shaped solely by the money
changers and without the consent Of the
people anywhere, who were on the
contrary generally deceived. These
moves were in detail as follows:
First-Germany in 1871 and 1878 en-
acted laws demonetizing silver, making
Gold the Sole Standard
of value and calling in all silver coins
previously issued and circulated in the
several districts of the German empire.
This was the result of the plethora fol-
lowing the payment Of big war indem-
nifty by France and the circulation of the
falsehood by an expert that he had seen
one billion five hundred million dollars
worth of silver in the unworked slopes
of the Comstock mines.
In the United States in February, 1873,
a bill was introduced in both houses of
congress which was ostensibly san act
revising and amending the laws relative
to the mints, assay offices and coinage of
the United States" which was passed and
received the signature Of the president.
Its true purpose was concealed, for it
dropped the silver dollar from our list Of
coins, and though such men as James A.
Garfield, Senator Beck, William D. Kelly,
Senator Allison, James G. Blaine, Roscoe
Conkling, and Allan G. Thurman voted
for it, they afterwards said they did not
know its purport, and General Grant, who
signed the bill making it law, ex-
pressed his ignorance of its meaning. It
was manipulated by John Sherman in the
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