The Portland daily press., 1896-08-26

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less chain which could have been broken
like pipe stem by providing for the
borrowing on short time certificates of
Indebtedness lawful money directly; in
stead of borrowing it for the gold fund
indirectly, and thus creating the false
impression of struggle for gold when
we were only borrowing money to pay
our debts. 20
Had the House revenue bills of last
session passed Congress and became a
law the country with full hope of Re-
publican administration in the near
future would then have started upward
and onward.
But the condition has been peculiar.
We have had three cornered triangular
government, Everybody has been in the
minority and hence nobody has had any
responsibility and nobody has been able
to take any responsibility and we have
drifted sailless and rudderless, but thank
God with stout ship, stouter than all
the winds that blow. When next you
put that ship into commission had you
not better have harmonious captain
and crew all of them men who have been
to sea. l know that the four gentlemen
Messrs. Bryan and Watson, and Bryan
and Sewall, have been at sea for many
years, but that is different thing.
While do not propose to offer any
remedy for have not a powerful mag
nation and no powers of description OF
things which have never happened, never
theless, / venture to suggest that what
has happened will happen again, The
past is for the wise man the only guide
for the future. What man has done man
will do.
What we ought to do is to get back
to the sound basis of mutual confidence.
We have money in our banks. We have
capital here in this country, the piled
up riches of fourteen years of prosperity.
The capital of all the world is waiting to
be our servant. We are today richer in
all those things which satisfy human
wants than ever in our history Were
capital free to operate we should march
resistlessly. We have skilled labor to
which we can pay just wages. Our crops
of wheat and oats and corn and cotton
will be immense.
We have paid off great debt to for
eign nations by purchase of our re turned
securities and our absorption of them
on falling market deserves the wonder
of the world. Of facilities to manufact-
ure goods we are full. Look at the Sun
day newspapers. What tons of paper
we can furnish every day. We can make
all things cheaper than ever before and
more of them. What shall we do? Pursue
our old course of laundering, shock bus
mess some more, or shall we set capital
in motion? But how shall we set capital
in motion?
We must restore confidence. How
can we restore confidence? First of all
by putting anarchy down and all manner
of disturbance. Peace and stable gov
eminent are the first necessity. This is
a borrowing and lending world. That is
fixed fact. No amount of denuncia-
ton of money lenders, no wild talk about
Wall street, which, by the way, is the
greatest money borrower in the world,
will ever put down that fact Enter
prises are carried on by the united conf
dence OF men Of money and men of
brains Bring this thing home to your
selves and then you will understand it.
Ii you had money or any other capital
.yon had earned yourself or your father
had left to you, or even any you had
won in the luck of lottery, would you
let it out to anybody on earth who was
liable to give you back only half of it
and want to call it square? How would
you, my farmer friend, like to let your
farm to fellow who by law might turn
your story and a half house into a
shanty, spread sand over your arabic
land and burn up your wood lot, and
then hand it back to you dismantled and
half ruined? How quick you would in
vert such fellow. Well, the man who
has other capital to let besides farms has
justas much sense asIyou have. The first
thing he wants to know is, will he get
his capital back. This same idea fills
the mind of the business borrower. If
Jordan of Alfred puts his property into
the forest and makes lumber and sells
it on credit, he wants to know that he
will be paid in as good a dollar as he
put into the woods. Else why should he
put dollars into the woods at all? Now
| put it to you as men of sense, plain
men of sense, would you lend money if
you had it to any man or set of men, or
any nation which you knew was trying
to devise some way whereby you would
get back only half oft? You may not,
like silver man, understand currency.
You may not be able to daily with Stats
tics, but you do understand that simple
If you were business
basis and sell them on credit to a people
VIZ NClO "a ylhS ~ QUO IL blVy tVulQ llOU
pay you on silver basis?
Is it not clear as MONDAY why men do
not lend capital and why men do not I'M
dertake enterprises? / do not say that
silver agitation is the only lion in the
way. 1 believe that the laws must be SO
made that the American people shall do
all their own work. In due timeI mean
to discuss that. Just now our first duty
is with the silver question. My friends,
l have said many times and 1 cannot re-
peat it too often, experience is the
teacher. Within this very twelve
months we have had an example of what
will do and what distrust will
do. In December, 1895, this very last
year, thel was revival of business hope.
The iron business, one of the great in
dices of prosperity, having in many
respects good tariff schedule, began to
revive. Some other industries followed
suit and temporary hope went over the
community. One great steel company
had orders six months ahead. It's stock
rose from 40 to so. Men who knew best
purchased it at so and thought it worth
125. Confidence began to show itself.
Then came Venezuela and then what
Senator Rrina ca1lad tho patitiop in