Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1896-09-10


"makeshifts" could lift silver to the
pedestal it had occupied since Abra-
ham purchased burisl-place for his
wife and paid therefore ''in current
money with the merchant" Never
theless, the conditions which they
made to the volume of our currency
enabled US 10 maintain fair degree
of prosperity, and postponed to their
repeal the full operation of the terri
BILE curse of contraction, whose folds
have been tightening around us since
Mr. Cleveland launched his object les
son upon the country In 1898.
The limited and clumsy bimetallism
of 1888 to which you refer for il
lustration. was not the curse you
would have US believe. But for the
Bland law resumption would have
been impossible. But for it we would
now have no currency to speak Of;
for your "sound money" men, always
concerned for the public credit(0
have long been boarding greenbacks
to exchange for gold and gold to ex-
change for bonds,-a speculation ex-
listing only by the connivance of the
government, and finding its profit
through the increasing burdens of
public taxation. You warn US of the
departure of gold in the event of
Democratic success. Gold never left
US more perslstently than since your
friends forced your financial ideas up
on the treasury department; it never
came to us so rapidly and regularly
as when the Bland law was in full
operation. Government revenues
were then large and more constant
than at any other period of history.
We paid all of our public obligations
as they matured; liquidated 81 per
cent. of our interest bearing deot;
paid more than a thousand millions
in pensions, and piled up surplus
which in 1887 impelled the President
to urge Congress to decrease the rate
of taxation that the people might re-
tain their money among themselves.
Your savings-bank deposits during
this period increased one hundred
per cent, and your national bank de-
posits three hundred per cent. In
terest payments per capita fell from
$l.99 in 1878 to 35 cents in 1892.
Your "honest money" policy, howev-
er, is again raising the rate; where
fore confidence will soon return to
bless you and your class. More than
fifty per cent. of our railway system
was constructed during this period
and money was fairly abundent and
IN active circulation. Its owners,
instead of folding it in napkins, and
burying it under. ground, eagerly
sought for avenues of profitable in
vestment; labor was fairly well EN-.
ploved, and fairly we'll paid. Every
dollar of our currency then and now
was equal to every other dollar, ex-
cept in the payment of debts to len
ders, Notwithstanding your clearing
houses refused to receive silver in
settlement of balance until forced to
do 80 by Congressional action; and
your insurance and other lending in
stitutions inserted gold clauses in ev-
cry time contract for the payment of
money. You issued more policies
and collected more premiums during
this period than any similar one since
your organization; and yet you warn
me of loss to my family if l cast my
vote to relieve my country from its
prevailing distress by removing from
its shoulders the benumbing curse of
gold monometallism.
But the "present point of your bit
of history" Is that we would go on a
silver basis, and that would ''lntensely
stimulate the production of silver"
If its free coinage would not advance
its value, from whence would the
stimulus proceed? Can you not see
that your assertion comedies the fact
that it would be worth Its mint value?
And if that be true, what excuse have
you to offer to your policy-holders for
your gratutious homily upon the fu-
ture value of their policies.
Your assertion that "sllver ores
are now easily accessible in inexhaus-
tible quantity, from which silver can
be put upon the market at a profit
Of from 40 to so cents an ounce" is as
foolish as it is unfounded. Silver for
the past year has averaged 6S cents
per ounce. If the inexhaustible re-
serves of which you speak can be
dumped on the market with profit
when silver is worth over forty cents
an ounce, do you suppose the miners
long since would not have utilized
their opportunity? No such conditions
exist. The mines have been and are
being stripped of everything on which
a profit can be made, and while new
deposits may be disclosed and old
ones continued, 1t is safe to say that
silver production has reached and
passed its maximum. The advantages
Of remonetizing the money metal con-
sists in the fact that the stock which
the world has accumulated in the past
is at once added to gold and becomes
with it our money of redemption,
thus broadening the base and reduc-
ing the hight of our financial system.
You cannot have forgotten, al
though you did not sllude to the fact,
that gold production has kept pace
with that of silver Ii is nrodncad