The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1896-09-12

compromising public and private debts
on a basis Of so cents on the dollar
put rather in helping to mold public
opinion and legislation SO that we car
again beget full confidence In the safe.
ty and in the stability Of our monetary
system, so that capital viii feel safe t.
emerge, and that, by the energetic
many. million fold interchange of hu.
man effort, there win come again o
market for property and securities
which will enable the debtor to repay
the creditor to the uttermost farthinQ
with an honest, 1OO-cent dollar.
I'VE have had six years of constant
business strain and insecurity. We
have had three years of the most acute
business distress. Tens of thousands of
men have been ruined. Want and care
have invaded countless American
homes. Our poor, distracted nation,
which should be resounding with the
voices of gladness and prosperity, has
been plunged into the depth of dumb
despair. And now, after all this sad
experience with the limited coinage of
silver, this nation is asked to embark
into the bottOmless sea of free and I'M
limited coinage.
THE same original influences persist
selfish personal interest on the one
hand, imitation on the other. Some
men, intelligent and sincere, but senti-
mental and emotiOal, have Joined the
silver ranks and are fighting, as they
think, the battle Of humanity. To the
student of history this is not strange
There never was widespread upright
eous cause that was not bothered up
by men who for centuries lit up Eu.
rope with the fires of burning witches,
the judges who condemned Huss and
Zwingli, the priests who scourged soCi-
ETY. with the horrors of the Inquisiti0n,
all sincerely believed that they were
working for the ultimate welfare of
humanity. Our brethren of the South
who plunged this country into that fra.
trIcidal war, in which hundreds of
thousands of brave lives and billions of
treasure were sacrificed, felt confident
that they were waging the supreme
battle of self-goYernment and Of hui
man liberty.
ave are told that we need a free
and independent policy of finance.
Fellow citizens, that unfortunately, is
the very thing that was forced upon us
in 1878. Not another one of the lead
ing nations was brainless enough to re-
embark in the liberal purchases of sill
yer. We alone adopted "a free and in
dependent financial policy'-and we are
bitterly paying for it today. We were
silver poisoned for fifteen years, and
we have not yet recovered from its
baneful effects,
"They assure us that prices have
fallen since 1873 because the primary
money of the world has been reduced
by one. half. In the twenty-five years
from 1873 to 1895 the world produced
three times as much silver as in the
twenty-five years from 1851 to 1873.
What became of it? The statistics
show that since 1873, deducting recon.
ages, there has been injected into the
Currencies of the world over $2,440,000,-
900 of silver, all of it, we are constantly
reminded, circulating at par of 16 to
1, or even higher. In other words,
since 1873 there has been added to the
silver coinage of.the world more silver
than the entire world production of
silver for sixty eight years before 1873.
Verify, that does not seem like a cut
ting down of the primary metalsl
"Despite the tremendous fall in the
price of silver, its production is increas-
ing with every year. In 1895 the world
produced per cent more silver than in
1894, go per cent more than in 1888, and
nearly 800 per cent more than in 1873.
The increase of gold production is now
proceeding even more rapidly; and in
1895 the gold output exceeded by 4 per
cent the combined gold and silver pro-
duction of 1873.
"They tell US that the gold standard
has been crushing the farmer and the
Wage.earner. From 1880 to 1890 our
population increased "a per cent, but
the values Of our farms in those ten
wears increased three thousand million
dollars, or 80 per cent; and the value of
live stock on farms, which is one of the
tests of agricultural prosperity has
risen from one and half billions to
two and One-fifth billions, or AZ per
cent.
itIf farming has been so utterly un.
profitable it is exceedingly strange that
in the twenty years from 1870 to 1890
the improved acreage of farms in the
United States has risen from $4,000 900
to 357 100000, nearly 80 per cent. From
1880 to 1890 the number of dwellings in
the United States increased q per cent,
or 3 per cent more than population.
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