The record-union., 1896-09-24

was A. E. Needham, who made an earn
est address. In response Major Mchin-
ley said:
1T is needless for me to say that am
greatly honored to receive this call from
my fellow citizens Of Muncie. l must
congratulate this assemblage of lndl-
anans upon the selection of their
spokesman, who has delivered before me
SO able and eloquent and telling
speech. (Applause.) He has said that
1t is understood that / am an Amerl-
can. That is altogether true. Gap
plause.) 1 believe in America for Amer
lcans-native born and naturallzed.
(Cries of "Good.'O believe in the Amer
lean payroll daughter and applause),
and do not believe in diminishing that
payroll by giving work to anybody else
under another flag while we have got an
idle man under our flag. CTremendous
applause.) Four years ago the laborer
was agitating the question of shorter
hours, we then had so much to do. l
have heard no discussion of that kind
for four years daughter and applause).
but have never heard of the laboring
man discussing the desirability of hav-
ing short dollars. (ApplauSe.)
THE complaint-the chief cause of
OOI OppOHCI1lS ID LII 81 tiie@s
we have not enough money, and second,
that our money is too good. daughter
and applause.) To the first complaint l
answer that the per capita Of circulating
medium in this country has been greater
since the So-called crime Of 1873 than
it ever was before (applause) and that
it has been greater in the last five years
than it ever was in all our history. We
bax MI bo hac in the
world, but we have got more of it per
capita than most of the nations of the
world. Applause) We have got more
money per capita than the United King
dom, than Italy, than Switzerland,
Greece, Spain, Roumania, Servia, Aus
ra-Hungary, Norway, Sweden. Den
mark, Russia, Mexico and the Central
and South American States and more
than Japan or China per capita. (Great
applauSe.) So some reason other than
the lack of volume of money must be
found to account for the present cOndi-
ton of the country.
ITO the second complaint that our
money is too good, it would seem suffi-
cient to say that the money of any
country cannot be too good, and that
no nation ever suffers from having its
medium of exchange of the highest
and best quality. Great applause) 1t
has been poor money, not good money,
that has been the cause of so much
loss and ruin in the past, both to the
individuals and to nations. Applause)
The older men of this audience will re-
member that before the war we did
business with an uncertain and fuctu-
ating currency, known as State bank
money Many of these banks and their
notes We're absolutely sound, but for
the most part they were subject to a
discount. The total number of banks
in 1860, exclusive Of State banks, was
1870 OF this number the counterfeit
detector' then in constant use, reported
S32 as broken, closed, failed, fraudu
banks were in circulation among the
people, and had been received by them
for the good labor and their good pro-
ducts They We're absolutely worth
less anl of no mere value tfa-~ the
paper on which they were printed.
Upon whom did this loss fall, my
fellow-ci citizens? There is scarcely an
old gentleman in this audience who will
not recall that it fell upon the labor
ing man and the farmers of the coun-
try (Cries of That's right" and ap-
plause) / allude to this only to show
| that those who suffer most from poor
money are the least able to bear the
loss. 1t is the history of mankind that
the least valuable money which Will
pass current is the money that at last
finds it's resting place among the poorer
people, and when the crash comes the
loss must be borne by them.
You will remember that from lS62
to 1879 we did business with paper
money exclusively; we had neither
gold nor silver And you will remem-
| Der that gold was constantly at a pre-
MUM, ranging from 40 to 100 per cent.
| Then when a man came to borrow
money he had to pay a higher rate of
| interest than he has had to pay since
| 1879 on a gold basis. (Appause)
When we We're doing business with a
deprecated paper money interest was
very much higher to the borrower and
| to the debtor than it is now. 1 can re-
call when here in Ohio the ruling rate
of interest for that paper money was
| 10 per cent. annually, and often 1 per
cent. a month or II per cent a year.
The ruling rate here in Ohio for what
some people are pleased to call two
hundred cent dollar is 6 or Z per cent.
to-day. 1t may run as high as s, and
| possibly that has been the ruling rate
during the last two or three years, but
that is because distrust has fallen upon
the country, and men who have money
will not part with it and take chances
without a higher rate of interest. Gap
plause)
| Money to-day is idle because it cam
not be profitably and safely invested by
| those who have it, 1t is neither a lack
of volume of our money nor the quality
of the money that is our trouble, but a
| lack of confidence in the steadiness
and stability Of business.
The threat of free silver is driving
our money into hiding to-day; the way
to bring 1t out is to restore confidence,
and how will you restore confidence?
There is only one way. CA voice Vote
for Mckinley" Applause and laughter)
The way to restore confidence is to de-
/ feat through the ballot the party that
destroyed confidence. (Cries of Good,
good'D We cannot restore the busi-
ness of the country so long as we do
so much of our business abroad. (Cries
of Good" and That's right.') Let us
bring it back home again for our own
people and our own labor" Continuous
| cheering)
| Among the delegations for Thursday
will be one from Oil City, Pa, which
will be accompanied by a large number
| of women.
Major Mckinley received a dispatch
from Harrisonburg, w. Va. informing
him that 1000 ex-Confederate soldiers
would like to call on him about October