Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1896-08-07
Fatuous Generosity.

Fatuous Generosity.
Messrs. Perry Clay and William Ly-
on of Denver, Colo, recently visited
England to bring back a fugitive from
Justice. On his return to Denver, Mr..
Lyon; who had discovered that silver
was the money of the people of Eng
land, made most instructive and
important statement to q representa-
tive of the Rocky Mountain News.
He said:
"We found some things in London
which surprised us very much. We
found that every man had his pockets
full of silver. They all use it and it
is the money of the people. When
you come to consider that the small
lest bill they have is a 1926 note-e5
sterling-and the smallest gold piece
$s.5O-the half sovereign-any man
of common sense can tell you what
they do their business with. It's a
common sense proposition: the house
wife when she goes to market takes
not bills or gold with her; she has
silver money. When man starts
out in the morning he first gets
breakfast, for which he pays two
shillings in silver. His dinner costs
him three shillings in silver and his
supper three shillings in silver, and
if he goesto the theater he pays three
shillingr in silver for his seat. They
buy their dresses and their handker-
chiefs and neckties in silver and, in
fact, it's about the only money the
great middle classes know anything
about.
81 venture to say that if you start
at the Union station here and go up
seventeenth street and stop every
man you meet, not one in n hundred
void be able to give you change in
silver for S. bill. It's different over
there. Not that the people have
more money but they do not have it
in paper or gold of large denomina-
ton. Nearly every man you meet
would be able to give you change for
a sovereign, which is equivalent to
our IS bill and The change would be
in silver. You can hear it jingling in
their pockets and it makes a merry
sound, too.
''That silver all comes from Ameri-
ca too. They buy our silver at 70
cents an ounce, and coin it into mon
ey at more than $1.29. 1t doesn't cost
them at the outside over so cents an
ounce. How long will it take them
ut that rate to pay off their debts?
Any school boy can figure 1t out. The
Lucania, on which we went over. had
twenty seven tons of silver on board,
and most of it was Colorado silver
we were told. The authorities in
England told us it would not be there
forty-eight hours before it was coined
and started on the way to general
circulation, some being sent to In
dia and other colonies and the rest
remaining in the home circulation.
That is how England likes silver for
her own use, but don't want America
to use it. Why? Well, if the United
States were to have free coinage the
price of silver would advance and
England would have to pay more for
it and there would not be so much
profit for that country. To my mint
that is one of the great reasons VIII!
they c ont want us to have free coin
age or even to use silver largely"
| Were the conditions the reverse O.
what they are, were England pro
Queer and the United States non
producer and O consumer of silver
does anyone suppose that England
would permit Americans to hay,
British silver at half price for con
version into coin for domestic ant
foreign use? If so, he does the British
an injustice. They would compe
buyers to pay the highest possibl
price for the British metal. Our pol
icy is different. Instead of forcin,
outsiders, as we easily can, to pa.
$1.29 an ounce for American silver
we obligingly rob and discourag
our own producers to supply silve
to foreigners at 10 cents. And in rot
, bling the silver miners we incidenta
ly rob the wheat and cotton raiser
!, of one half of tn e value of their pro
ducts. 1t is no wonder that industr
is depressed and that distress reign
, throughout the land. If this were nc
the richest and most resourcefr
9 country on the footstool, it woul
have been irretrievably bankrupte
long ago,