San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1896-10-01
OUR SILVER CRAZE.
RESULT OF A CONSPIRACY OF MINE
OWNERS TO FORCE UP THE
PRICE OF SILVER.


came Interested In Silver Mines and Be-
gan Devising Schemes to Increase Their
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 NJ. Stewart and
John P. 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 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 NJ. 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 measure of value, that is better than
the universal standard of mankind.-Senator
William NJ. Stewart of Nevada, June II, 1874.
believe the sooner we come down to pure
ly gold standard the better it will be for the
country. Did any country ever accumulate
wealth, achieve greatness or attain high civil
lization without a standard Of value2 And
what but gold could be that Standard
Gold is so exact measure Of human effort
that when it is exclusively used as money 1t
teaches the very habit of honesty. Senator
John P. Jones Of Nevada, April !, 1874.
These two men participated in the
"crime of '73" and with their votes
helped to "strike silver down." Have
they since repented for their crime and
been doing all possible to atone for it?
This would be charitable way of view
ing their conversion, but the facts appear
to point to very different explanation.
We quote the following from 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 resources of their
state, especially silver mining, and were
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
to see, that the production Of
silver in the world-and 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, 900, 900
ounces in 1878, would become 165, 000,-
900 ounces in 1895; that its market
value of 81. 80 per ounce in 1873 Greek
oned in gold) would dwindle to 65 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, 900 ounces of silver at 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 sagacity 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 its market
or bullion value and diminish the
profits Of mining, and that something
must be done to avert such q contin-
gency. As the world had then, as it has
now, a sufficient supply of all the silver
it needed i'll the arts or as an instru-
mentality Of exchange, any attempt to
make its 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 to buy at least So, 900, 900 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 1000, 900 per month.
The government consequently at once
made market for about two-thirds of
all the product of this industry, and un-
der this act the treasury did buy $685.
1876, 900.
This device to keep up the price of
silver did not, however, work as its
originators expected it would at the
time it was put into operation and for
the reason that the worlds annual out
put at the time of its enactment-name-
ly, 70, 476, 900 ounces, with an average
value of j1.152 per ounce-had reached