Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1896-09-26

In ISs3-Sfory of Their sudden CONVEX
sion as Told by David A. Wells-Be-
came Interested In silver Mines and Re
Fortunes at the Peoples Expense-Bland
and Sherman Act Schemes and Their
Results-Free Coinage the Latest and
Worst scheme.
Perhaps the two men most responsible
for the silver question, which has
disturbed our finances for many years
and is responsible for the industrial de-
preston since 1898, are the two senators
from Nevada-William M. Stewart and
John r.. Jones. Strange to say, both of
these most ardent friends of silver were
its most deadly enemies when the great
"crime of '73" was committed against
silver. Read these quotations from their
speeches in the senate:
The question will never be settled until You
determine the simple question whether the
laboring man is entitled to q gold dollar if he
earns it, or whether You are going to cheat
him with something else. That is the upshot
of the whole thing.-Senator William M. Stew
art of Nevada, June II, 1874.
Do not let us try to deceive the American
people. Do not let US try to make them believe
by some hocus pocus of legislation that we can
give them something of real value, we can give
them a measure Of value, that Is better than
the universal standa Of m~ankind--Senato
William NJ. Stewart Of Nevada, June II, 1874.
/ believe the sooner we come down to a pure
ly gold standard the better it will be for the
country. Did any country ever m
wealth, achieve greatness or attain high civil
~lization without q standard of yalueg And
49, l-4 ..~1I o1.f3 - fhaf C%o,Io-Jg \ = 4
Gold is SO exact a measure Of human effort
that when it is exclusively used as money it
teaches the very habit of -honesty.-Senator
John p. Jones of Nevada, April l, 1874.
These two men participated in the
'scrime of '73" and with their votes
helped to s'strike silver down" Have
they since repented for their crime and
been doing all possible to atone for it?
This would be a charitable way of view
ing their conversion, but the facts appear
to point to a very different explanation.
We quote the following from a recent
article in the New York Tribune by the
Hon. David A. Wells as throwing light
on this subject:
The explanation in the case of Mr..
Jones and his business associates does
not seem to be attended with any diff
Guilty. They had become largely inter
ested in the mineral of their
state, especially silver mining. and were
reported to have accumulated great
wealth from their Investments. As a
shrewd business man, he naturally look
ed out sharply for his business interests.
He early saw what others failed SO
promptly to see, that the production of
silver in the woodland especially in
the United States-through improved
methods of mining, refining and trans
portation of ores, was rapidly increas-
ing. He doubtless foresaw what the
world now knows, that the worlds
product of silver, which was 81, 600, 900
ounces in 1873, would become 165, 000,-
900 ounces i'll 1895; that it's market
value of ST.. 80 per ounce in 1873 Creek
oned in gold) would dwindle to SIS cents
in 1895.
What it now costs TO produce silver
no one accurately knows. The cele-
brated Broken Hill mines of Aus
tralia yielded last year-1S95-over
10, 900, 600 ounces of silver at a total re-
ported cost of about 40 cents per ounce,
and good authorities report that some of
the American mines turn out millions
of ounces at the present time at an
equally low figure. With such an aspect
of the future, it did not require any
great measure of business sagaeity on
the part of Mr.. Jones and his silver
mining associates to foresee that this
prospective great increase in the produc-
ton of silver would impair it's market
or bullion value and diminish the
profits Of mining, and that something
must be done to avert such a %contin-
gency. AS the world had then, as it has
now, a sufficient supply of all the silver
it needed in the arts or as an instru-
mentality of exchange, any attempt to
make it's use more extensive did not
seem feasible.
They accordingly hit upon the follow
ing ingenious plan: That the treasury of
the United States should be required to
buy so much of the surplus produced by
the mines of Mr.. Jones and his associ-
ates as would tend to maintain the
price of silver, and consequently their
enormous profits, or at least prevent any
further decline in them. They therefore
induced congress to require the govern
ment 10 buy at least So, 900, 600 worth
of silver bullion each and every month,
the total production of all the silver
mines in the United States being at
that time about SO, 900, 900 per month.
The government consequently at once
made a market for about two-thirds Of
all the product of this industry, and IN
der this act the treasury did buy 1878,
165. 900.
This device to keep up the price OF
silver did not, however, work as its
o%riginators expected it would at the
time it was put into operation and for
the reason that the worlds annual out
pat at the time of its enactment-name-
", 73, 476, 900 ounces, with an average
value of 1852 per ounce-had reached
100, 213, 600 ounces per annum in 1889,
while its price had fallen to .93 per
ounce. The device was accordingly re-
constructed, and in 1890 the United
States treasury was required to buy
$500, 900 ounces per month, and under
this law. which was repealed in 1898,