The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-09-09
AT LIMERICK


mar ket6 OF the world. france Keeps her
silver at par, as we do, by adding no
more to IL.
There's limit to the demand for mon
ey, @ principle ignored by Mr.. Bryan.
In his scheme there is no such thing as
an overstook of money. He jumps the
everything law of nature thai no two
metals can float at par under unlimited
coinage by force of law when the coinage
of the cheaper exceeds the healthy de-
silver expels the gold. Mr.. Bryan feels
sure that
TO LOSE OUR GOLD
would be blessing. He argues with Il
gravity worthy of a better cause that If
our gold goes abroad we shall get some
thing in return for it and thereby be ben
Gifted. What in return, l pray your
European manufactures, while Am erican
labor sits In idleness at the factory gate
and the American farm lies fallow,
without market. Free silver and free
trade, Siamese twins of Democracy that
plunges the knife of heartiess theory In
to the marrow of the A merican home.
1t foreign silver comes here, says he,
it. What. pray you? The products of
American labor. Gold for the labor of
Europe. For the brawny band Of Amer
lea g so..s of toll, the refuse and scum of
foreign silver too cheap to use In the
nations Ihat gave it birth.
For the first time in history there's
magic in the government stamp. Mr..
Bryan can see no difference between the
name of dollar and the worth of a dol
lar. Until he spoke, six thousand years
OF history taught by experience, not by
theory, that coinage ratio. to preserve
equality, could be no more than trans
fer of the market ratio to the statute
book. Necessity forces the gates of law
that can never be executed. It we coin
silver at the market price of thirty-two
to one, says he, we only get half rs many
dollars and the value of property would
be decreased. Mark up your hay by
two. Will 1T buy moro f1ourf If the dol
lar measures the hay you sell, 1t meas
ures the -four you buy. Will We get rich
BY doubling the price of what we sell ana
halving the value of what we get?
Mr.. Bryan's contradictions remind me
of an incident in the life of ARENAS
Ward. AT the outbreak of the war he
was In the South. Excitement ran high.
An ardent Southerner faced him with
the question, "Look here, stranger, which
side are you on3 What are your princi-Y
ples?'' Principles" said Artemas,
Principles? I haln't got no principles.
I'm In the show business.
If silver will float at par with gold,
when coined without limit, why hitch on
the legal tender bayonetl Good money
needs no law to prop 1t. An English
gold piece will pay debt 10 England
or America. American gold is worth
its face in every clims. If Mr.. Bryan's
reasoning is sound, and the buying and
selling of the future will absorb the sill
yer of the world, it, as he says, the vol
ume of trnde demands unlimited COIN
age, and the demand will carry the price
to hundred cents and keep 1t there,
why not drop out the legal tender clauseP
II the law of supply and demand fixes
the value of money, and admit that it
does, why not leave the value of silver to
the operation of that law? But Mr.. Bry-
an believes his own reasoning, and he
dare not trust his dollar to the laws of
trade which he himself expounda. Re-
move the legal tender feature from the
piece would shrink cent. Without the
legal tender clause the silver dollar
would die "a-borning." Why? The prin-
ciple Ia Easy.
EVERY DOLLAR HAS A DOUBLE
USE,
to pay debts, to buy goods When both
values agree, you have good money
WHICH, ouSy oAudkIeCy NOkAo ODo 40 IOOpCup
and Congress is an accomplish in the
crime Said Mr.. Bryan in the hills of
Congress-: "WhIle the government can
say that a given weight of gold or silver
shall constitute dollar, and invest that
dollar with legal tender qualities, it
cannot fix the purchasing power of the
dollar" Aye. true The buyers Of goods
do that. Sale is a matter of contract
In the contract Mr.. Bryan's dollar,
coined without limit, will be rated at
what it 10 worth in the markets of the
world not for the name 1T bears upon the
ment to declare anything dollar In the
payment of old and past due debts no
man can question. If there is AN honest
man within the sound of my voice
anxious for the law to pay his debts,
then mistake the honor and intelli-
genoe Of the people of good old York. Mr..
Bryan's scheme demands the legal ten
but to lift his so-oalled debtors out Of
debt. 10 relieve debtors and punish
creditors Is the burden Of his song. Who
are these hungry creditors? Five mil
lion deposltors with two billions in your
savings banks. Thirteen billions of life
insurance, with assets in bonds and
mortgages, the property Of the pelioy
holders. Who will receive that insurance?
The woman. that left her home to eat
with you the bread of poverty and gave
you courage to climb the hill Of life.
Coward the man that would strike de-
fenceless woman without q vote. Who
else? Che empty sleeves from Gettys-
burg; the mothers hearts buried with
the sleepers "on, Fame's eternal camping
ground.'' Who else? Greatest of ali,
the daily debt, due Labor, last in the
thoughts of Democracy aud first in the
heart Of Replblicanism.
There's another two-fold function of
money. Money may be the currency of
commerce or the currency of the State.
The currency of commerce is created by
commerce. The currency of the State
by law. Limit the supply of the money
created by law and within your own do
main it will float at par with the money
OF commerce. Its value created by law
stops with the boundary of the State
Every dollar of money created by law
crowds out a dollar of commerce and
commerce withers, deprived of blood.
In the hour of distress political skirt
dancers clamor for more money, when
business needs not more money, but
more good money, less poison and more
blood. The grsenbaok dollar that is re-
Aaaunad nd