Birmingham state herald., 1896-10-07
SOVEREIGN TO WORKlNGMEN
Extracts from the Grand Master Workman's Address Ringing Words of the Labor
 Leader to Fellow Workingmen

When labor understands that this
 struggle is crucial test between indus
 trial freedom and the sordid interests of
 a selfish few, the one side holding out the
 liberal hand of true democracy and the
 other the scepter of pIustocratic govern
 ment; when labor understands that in
 this struggle is involved the last great
 problem of civilization, human equality;
 that a single gold standard means what
 it has always meant dear money and
 cheap men; when labor understands that
 this clamor for gold under the delusive
 plea for "honest money" is a clamor for
 a kind of money that is insufficient in
 volume to enable the bankers, who c,y
 the loudest for it, to pay even per cent.
 of their debts; that the national debts
 of the civilized world, which labor must
 pay. now aggregate $29,OO0, 100000, or .S
 of national debt for every dollar of gold
 in the world, and that there is not enough
 gold in the world to pay $1 on every $95
 of private and corporate debts now in
 force, and that the gold is owned by the
 parties who hold the debts against the
 people; when lobor understands that all
 money is dead power in the hands of
 somebody all the time, that 0 tree bears
 fruit because the fruit grows out sf the
 vitality of the tree, that money has no
 power to bear other money because it
 contains no power to reproduce itself,
 and, therfore, money loaned at interest
 cannot repay both principal and interest
 out of the original sum; that there must
 be sufficient increase of money through
 artificial sources to meet the interest charge and employ labor or productive industry, and labor itself must surrender to the avarice of the few--when labor un- derstands all these problems it will un- derstand that this struggle with the money power involves our national ex- istence, industrial prosperity and invid- ual security. Labor will then under- stand why some persons in this and other | countries hold to the doctrine that gold only is suitable metal for money, and why l they reverently- style it Gods money and the money of the world and labor will then. as it always has, rally to the defense of liberty and justice, and neither the millions of Mark Hanna nor | the intimidation of the corporations will have the slightest influence upon the | working people. 'It is not because silver is better than l gold or other material for use as money l that labor should advocate its free and unlimited coinage, but because whole some volume of primary money is ab- l solutely necessary to the welfare of labor and industry, and because there is not now, there never was and there never will be sufficlency of gold to adequately re- ward labor for it's contributions to the wealth of the world.
 "The effort to suspend the coinage of | silver is prompted by the desire to limit | the debt paying money of the country to | the metal most easily controlled by money lenders. It is shame to increase and perpetuate incomes founded on debt. | It is a scheme designed to force more | bonds and mortgages on the people. It is | more: It is conspiracy designed to ap- l preciate debts and depreciate labor and commodities by forcing the payment of 1 existing debts in dearer kind of money | than existed when the debts were con- | tracted.
 "To conceal the real intentions of the conspirators and give their cunningly de- | vised scheme the outward appearance of | exalted honesty, the claim is made that | silver dollar of 4121a grains is dishonest l dollar; that it Is only a 53-cent dollar l that 1t has been padded out with 47 cents worth of fiat; and that the poor man is entitled to just as good a dollar as the rich mans dollar, and on that line they are now shedding great, briny. humid tears. Oh, God! how they do appear to | love the poor man now!
 "The idle holders of idle capital who are now foremost in the demand for a single | gold standard, are the same men who sent their hired emissaries to congress and secured the demonstration of silver, and as mark of respect to their Ameri- | can progeny the London money power decorated the most conspicuous place on | the walls of the Bank of England with ! life-size portrait of Senator sherman of | Ohio. The history of these men is one un- | broken chain of crime and conspiracy against labor, and every attempt to sus- pend the coinage of silver in whole or in part is chargeable to the schemes of these gold d-worshipping idlers. They represent | the perfidious class who always canonize robbery as business success and legalized l fraud as righteous law. Their aim in life | has been to corrupt the masses, marshal | Hobbies against legislatures, convert l wealth into nontaxable bonds, overawe | the people with threats of bankruptcy, | and rob labor through interest and taxa tion. They have sold their consciences
 and their. God for gold, and written in l the blodd of care-worn widows and inno- l cent babes the song of death on the face | of land as redundant in production as | the fabled gardens of Elysium. The | record of their crimes from the sorrowful l black Friday to the infamous bond sale to | the Belmont Morgan syndicate should be | all the evidence labor needs to prove the evil of their demands in this campaign"
 . 'sThey sent an assassin to Washington | in 1873 and silver was stabbed In the back | when it was strong and vigorous, and | when 1t commanded a premium over gold. | The stabbing was done in the silent hours | of a night so dark that the act escaped | public observation at the time. But Shy ! lock grew drunk on the blood from the | wound during the dark days of misery, | bankruptcy and poverty that followed. . The people came to the rescue and suc-