The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1896-06-26
Cup TO DATE"
We Should Have the Best Of Every
thing, Including Money-Should
Keep Out of the Company of Free
Silver Coinage Countries.

thing, Including Money-Should
Keep Out of the Company of Free
Silver Coinage Countries.
The following excerpt from Judge
Aldridge's inimitable speech illustrates
the absurdity of asking this country
to take backward step in its use of
money:
'That our ancestors hundred years
ago fixed unit of value in gold or
silver and fixed ratio between them
is ilnmaterial to us. Their example
in SO doing is not more binding on US
than their methods of business, their
means of transportation, or the i'm
PIGMENTS with which they sowed or
reaped. It would be a sad COM
mentary on our intelligence if we had
learned nothing in hundred years.
''We do know that in fixing a ratio
they attributed no magic to the gov
eminent stamp, but sought diligently
to ascertain the market value of the
two metals in the leading nations of
the world and conformed, as they
thought, strictly to this market ratio.
By pursuing the methods adopted by
them we would now fix the ratio at
about 80 to l..
'The consistent man is not the one
who stands in one place always, re-
CARELESS of the changing conditions
around him, but it is he who, with in
telligence and circumspection, adapts
himself to the changed conditions.
For nearly twenty years every enlight-
ened nation in the world has been on
gold standard basis. They are all
representative governments and their
laws are made by their people and for
their people. The government which
first established the gold standard Is
more obedient to the will of its peo-
pie than ours is. When an important
administration measure is defeated by
the representatives of the English
people the government is Immediate
ly put in the hands of the opposition.
'rThe gold standard nations are those
that have reclaimed the world from
barbarism and have given it all its
learning and invention; where schools
and churches abound; where the dig
nifty of man is maintained and labor
properly rewarded; and they control
the commerce of the world. These
nations, after testing gold and silver
for hundreds of years, voluntarily
adopted the gold standard.
'No nation to-day has the silver
standard from choice. It is only be-
cause they are weak and helpless to
remedy the evil that any of them re-
main on q silver basis. But to-day
the United States, the foremost
nation in all the earth in SOL
vency and resources, in in
telligence and in energy, is
seriously invited to abandon the
standard of civilization and commerce
and to consort with half civilized, half
clad people, who are weak and ignor-
ant; who have little or no commerce;
where bull fights abound and schools
do not; where human labor is in sharp
competition with the very meek and
lowlY jackass; where breech clout
is preferred IS full suit, and where
the bulk of the people know no more
about standard of value than mule
does about the nebular hypothesis.
Surely we would do well to look at
the company before we sit down to the
feast.
''The invitation is that this country,
after having adjusted its enormous
business for twenty years to q gold
standard, shall suddenly readjust all
business and all values to what is
termed double standard of gold and
silver"