Mohave County miner., 1896-08-08
The American Electoral Issues.

pective change of standard in America AS "repudiation ?" We are fastening a charge of dishonesty upon entire states. and after March next 1t IS quite probable that our diplomatic relations may oquire to be conducted with the very stat. smen who are being denounced here as rogues and socialists And is there any clear justification for such language? What MT. Bryan contemplstes is s, most change of standard from gold to silver. Were the Wing governments denounced in similar terms wbea in the early years of this century they replaced 'honest money" iu England by inconverliole pa per? In our own tiDe France also sus. pended specie payments Germany sub. stituaed for silver gold currency which ipso facto appreciated-s spoliation not of the creditor but of the debtor class. In India we ourselves altered the stand ard in 1893, when we dsmonetizsd silver
 And with what justice can that repub lican party which in the sixties suspend. cd specie payments. m order 10 lnf.te the currency up to the hIlt with green backs, now pretend 10 denounce ihe democratic platform of 1896? It will probably be replied that when England repudiated and when the northern states repudiated they had no alternative But the only possible alternatives to day m the United States are either silver or paper. The country is visibly bleeding to death; fiity.fve million sterling of debt have been contracted in two years, during time of profound peace, in order to maintain, if possible, gold currency, and another gold loan is now seen to be inevitable before the year closes. Does any one suppose that the Mckinley nos trum, high protection, is going to ble the greatest debtor nation on earth to pay her foreign debts without shipping gold, when her staple exports, wheat, cotton, copper and silver, are selling as to day at half price?
 The present depreciation of the cur rencies of nine.tenths of the world, in stimulating the exports of all those countries, has destroyed the balance of trade for America. A grea. rise in the price oi silver would certainly reduce the gold premium in Asia, in Russia and South America, thereby restoring to the United States that balance oi exports over imports without which she must continue to be insolvent. It is not a question of restoring her credit-her ability merely to borrow more; it IS a question of restoring the prices of what she sells in the European markets.
 May l add, in conclusion, that to any student of Ameri;an politics it is impos sible to contemplate withou, dismay the attitude of our press. when considering that price catastrophe which has sub merged the industries of oar larger debt- or, and which IS gosding to desperation whole groups of states to westward of the Alleghanies2 The events of the next four months are destined to influence profoundly, for good or for evil, the fu- ture relations of England and the United States. The party of "honest money" is openly boosting that it will win the day by the most reckless and dishonest means. In the political jargon of Ameri- ca, the biggest "bsrrel" ever known will be so filled as to buy up Democrats by the wholesale at the primaries. If the nations will is to be tnwarted in this way by the lavish employment of what the provincial American press always earmarks as British gold," then no present settlement of the Venezuelan question will long delay war. If nothing but the stress and strain of war is held by financial purists to justify suspen- sion of specie payment, we may rely on it that in the present temper of millions of American citizens pretext for war will be discovered. A western democrat wrote to me recently. "We cannot shell the usurers out of Wall street, but pos sibly we can bring British gunboats to do the work we cannot dol"
 Can any man in his senses fail to notice in such tone and temper as that dis.
 played at Chicago, coming as it does from the heart of nation not less law
 abiding than ourselves, the conditions oi
 a desperate disease? I have known Mir
 Bryan tor some years: be is a young man