The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1896-08-20

abandoned free coinage, there has existed
In European nations, and In the United
States, the only practical bimetallism. Let
me repeat this-I 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 danger
line, as we went, and then stopped Jap
plause.) The universal teaching of history
demonstrated that there was dead line.
beyond which silver could not be pressed
without the immediate humiliation OF its
companion, gold, as useful, working money
medium. And when any man gets up and
dreams and soliloquises, and philosophers
before me- and tells me he knows 1t won't
be so If we try where others failed, l tell
him that an ounce Of fact Is worth ton
of theory, and that something bodily Is
worth a million Of disembodied ghosts.
(Applause.)
And vet these gentlemen favor, in the
face of these historic examples and warm
ings, that the United States shall make the
Unit Of our coinage the silver dollar at the
ratio Of 16 to 1.
Now, what Is the ratio? Is it not $40 to
81, as some people claim? (LaughterJ Ra-
ito means this: that there shall be sixteen
times more silver in weight in a silver dol;
lar than there Is weight Of gold in gold
dollar. Or, to put the definition Id another
form, that sixteen ounces of silver, when
coined, she'll be the equivalent of one
ounce of gold when coined When gold
measured by silver is worth $16 per ounce,
no disparity in value can exist; but when
measured by silver the ounce Of gold IS
worth $31, commercial disparity results.
Such Is the present condition. and yet the
free silver men assert that it will be 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 con-
fused the ratio Of weight with the ratio of
value; that they do not or will not see that
the ratio of value and the ratio of weight
have parted company, and they are trying to
confuse the people with their own confusion
Of ideas. The ratio Of weight and the ratio Of
value were once the same but they have
changed. They changed nearly thirty years
ago. Other nations saw it and obeyed the
imperious behest Of that change. and the
ratio Is now throughout the world 80 OF
about 80 to l.
No legislative fat whatever-it does not
lie in the power Of man to cause by enact
tnent that given dimension, volume or ca
pacity shall be a hairs breadth greater than
the laws Of the Almighty have fixed it from
the beginning. (Applause)
1t is necessary that the ratio or proportion
of value should be invariable. 1t is neces-
sary for the production of money. speaking
of it in its great volume as the volume of
money in the United States. We see anal
ogies everywhere; we see an analogy In
nature. Take for Illustration the air we
breathe4 1t is compound substance made
up from oxygen and nitrogen at the ratio of
n to %, and while this ratio lasts it is from
1t we all draw our lives and have our being.
But change that proportion in any material
degree, and instead of being the vital, life
giving air, 1t becomes becomes deadly and
destructive miasma.
But the free coiners assert that unlimited
ninor af cf1r yxyfII fn A. ri ~
with gold. 1t has ben tried by many ma
lions of the world. Has 1t restored that
parity in 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,OO0,0O ounces year, and you will see
that silver will go to $1.29 an ounce imme-
diately. In the face Of clamor, in doubt as
to what might be the result, in willingness
ut went too far to give such claims every
opportunity to be demonstrated whether
they were correct or incorrect, that legisla-
ton was enacted. And silver did 60 within
a short time thereafter to $1.19 an ounce
applause by one mani. and the free coiners
exulted and said, 81 told you So" Butt my
friend who applauded at that de.usive state
ment, | will say to you, it lasted but
short time. Silver proceeded to fall lower
than it ever went before. (Great applause.)
1t did not take long to do it. The an
nual average production for ten years before
that act was passed was 100000 ounces,
and in 1891, 1t run to 54,0OO,OO0 ounces,
and In 1892, to 62,OOO,OOO ounces, near
ly 20O00,OO0 ounces more than were pro-
duced in the average ten years up to the
time when that bill was passed, and it was
then seen by all wise men, by all men who
had the stability of the currency and the
prosperity of their country at heart, with
intelligent vision, that that immense vol
ume would break down-indeed it did break
down-the very theory upon which the bill
was passed. (Applause) 1t, operating with
other causes, produced the panic of 1893, put
distrust in the minds Of men. The silver
men said before we passed that bill in
1890, that silver would go at a parity of
gold If you will only purchase of us $4,000,
600 ounces year. 1t did not go to parity.
it fell from monetary and delusive rise
How con they say now, and look the Ameri-
can people in the face with steady eye, that
where 1t failed then 1t is going to succeed
now?
Let me repeat that this suspension of
coinage is universal among the leading civil
lied nations. And yet the free silver people
say that Infinite distress prevails over the
world. 1t does not. Great Britain was
never so prosperous in all her history as
she is to-day. Estimating revenues closely,
as the chancellor of the eXcheuuer does in
that country, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, re-
ported few months ago that the surplus
fact unexampled in her recent history
We hear no compi lint from Germany or
France.
l want to ask any man in this audience,
taking the condition Of the United States
especially as 1t was in the twenty years
preceding 1893, whether he would exchange
those for any twenty when the free and
unlimited coinage of silver was IN use
throughout the world?
Do you say that the United States can
carry off this burden alone? I say that no
one nation can do It,
Plant yourself on the line which divides
the United States from Mexico, and lock
south over to Mexico, the states of Central
America, and the states Of South America,
containing a population, should say, of
nearly, II not fully, sixty millions of
people. They, from the beginning of their
Independent organization have INDUCED in
the free and unlimited coinage of silver,
and l say now, as l said before, they have
no circulating gold money whatever, and
their paper money is not entitled to credit
In any market of the world.
II you add to that force of free and IN
limited silver coinage the market and aid
which India did give and which China and
Japan now give to silver and that all that
combination has been unable to sustain
the free coinage of silver and have both
kinds Of currency, ask what reason is there
for any man to say at the same time that
with all our prosperity, or power, or
wealth, or greatness, the United States
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