The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-08-04
CAMPAIGN GEMS,
From Speech by Senator Thurston.

From Speech by Senator Thurston
We don't offer to labor cheaper dollars
The Republican party offers to labor a
days work.
Two years ago we said free silver meant
51-cent dollars. They didn't know ,hen
how to answer 1t. They have conceived
new term, and they say that gold is the
2Vy-cent dollar. Well, then. If it is, the
farmers are pretty well paid for wheat. If
it is an American la aDor gets almost three
times as much as it did in 1878
Four ySars ago they said the RepuhIi-
can party was the party of the manuf1c-
turer, and they said. 'iet US turn the ma.-
ufaC turer down" You I'D. But when you
pulled the pillars OF the factory down
didn't they fall On the head Of American
labor?
II Is true that we are in the midst of a
great time of depression and idleness and
stagnation. 1t is tr'le nat today 2uUC gi9
men in the United States are out Of en-
ployment. 1t is also true :hat every one
OF those men, up to the las. Lour that the
Republican party ran this government,
had an open place for Il days work.
We are meeting a new issue today, SO
far as a presidential canvass is concerned
and vet as | look the forces over I Grd
that arrayed Ipol one side is the same old
stalwart patriotism is the same old wis
dom of statesmanship. is tine same security
of accomplished efforts, which has stood
upon the statutel Ooi:s of the Un,te.l
States for the last thirty years.
They say now "we have discovered
nostrum for the ills Of men, and you
know, my countrymen, that nothing sells
in the United States so we'll as patent
medicine. or a new kind of chewing gum.
You know that nobody secures an audience
so quickly as the man upon the street
corner. who promises something for
nothing, and today the whole campaign
for free silver is waged upon the prom
ICES of something better when free silver
comes.
] say to you today. In all sincerity and
candor. believing 1t to be legitimate ar
gumcnt and knowing that 1t is entirely
appropriate to say, that IL had no other
guide TO light me onward N the right
path of my political duty, 1t sens to me
that in justice and honor to my country il
would he safer for me to turn away from
the leadership of Tillman and Altseld and
Waite to follow the liberty of Allison and
Reed, and the greatest among them all,
William Mckinley.
There is no country on the face of this
earth, care not where you go, that opens
its mints to the free coinage of silver. hut
what all other kinds of money than silver
and promises to pay In silver have flad
the land. You cannot go into country Of
this earth where its mints are open to
the free coinage of silver and find gold
dollar circulating among the people. Not
only that but you cannot go today into
any country on earth that opens its mints
to the free coinage of silver but what your
dollar. gold. silver or greenback. will buy
twice as much as the best dollar that is
in the hands of the people of any of these
countries.
The American citizen In travelling out
side of his own country. finds that his
dollar with the American eagle on one
side and the Goddess OF Liberty on the
other, or his dollar in paper. representing
the promise of his nation to pay in the
best dollar that IL obtainab Bile, will be tako1
without / cent discount In every capital
city and every commercial house of the
civilized rorld If II we're no more than
a matter of national pride I should prefer
not to Mexicanize American citizenship.
for. wherever 60. I pray God may not
have 20 go around aoologizing for the
stamp on the dollar and accepting half
price for 4
We have coined rnder the gold stand
ard in this country and nut In circulation
more silver dollars-eighty times more
than We ever coined and put IN circula-
tion before 1873. Today your dollar In sill
yer. coined by this goverrsAent. is a dol
lar in gold And why? II is because you
have surrounded the legislation that au-
thorized II by such safeguards that the
man who takes IT. the man In the store
and the man on the farm and the man In
the shoc. knows when H. takes It that
not only today, but tomorrow and next
week-aye and as long as the Republican
party l.ves-the dollar will be just the