The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1896-07-24
THE HONEST SOUTH.
Cheap Money Craze Injurious
to the Reconstructed
States-Born of
Greed.
From the Atlanta "Dixie.r

FROM the Atlanta Dixie
Ordinarily it is not within the province
of an industrial Journal to discuss poll
ties. but strange conditions warrant
strange methods. We believe that the
times are sufficiently disjointed to justify
the depression which we now make.
The Presidential campaign upon which
we are now entering is to be a battle be-
tween honesty and dishonesty, between
law and anarchy, between wisdom and
folly, and between prosperity and chaos.
National integrity is at stake and indi-
vidual liberty is assailed. A midsummer
madness has palsied the intelligence of
our people, and they are wandering in
strange paths. The situation calls for
candor, and the manhood of the nation
must respond.
This silver craze was born of greed.
nursed by ignorance and trained by dem
agogues. The cry of cheap money! was
started, and its sound caught the ear of
every ignorant man and every debtor in
the land. 1t was easy for these men to
believe the cunning sophistry of the ora
tors who told them tina .'cheap money
would double wages and operate in every
way to their benefit. 1t was easy for the
debtors to believe that Cheap money.
would enable them to compromise their
obligations. These were the classes that
heard and gave heed to the cry of "free
silver" The ignorant and the desperate
became its disciples. The intelligent men
OF the South. the merchants, the manu-
facturers, and the professional men stand
twenty to one for the gold standard. AS
conclusive evidence of this fact, we point
to the policy of the Southern press. There
quence published in the Southern States.
-Four of them have espoused the cause of
free silver" Thirty-two of them are
waging earnest war against the propaga-
ton of this insidious evil. So much to
prove that the intelligent men of the
South have not gone wrong on this ques-
tion.
This "cheap money agitation is parti-
cularly unfortunate for the South. For
years the South has been crying out for
capital TO develop her resources, yet to-
day she stands arrayed against the men
whose hands AVE always been out
stretched to aid us. Whence came the
money that has built the railroads, the
factories, and the magnificent buildings
that dot the Southern landscape today?
Did any of it come from the Western
Silver States? If today some mammoth
enterprise were proposed in the South,
where would its promoters go for capital?
Would they travel to the far West and
seek to place stock with the silver mine
owners? Who are the purchasers of our
products, raw and manufactured? Are
these products marketed in the silver
States of the West?
Years have been spent in creating the
friendships and business ties that now
exist between the people of the South
and the North. These two sections have
become interdependent. The North has Civ
en- the South a high testimonial of her
confidence; she has sent her children to
dwell among us. This once blighted land
throbs today with industry that has been
made possible only by capital from the
North. Shah Western greed and South
ern ignorance destroy the strong COM
mercial ties that exist between the South
and North? Never. Our business men are
neither fools nor rascals. This unhappy
craze will waste its frenzy and calm rea-
son shall rule our destinies.