Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1896-09-11
A STUPID
 GENERAL CRIME.
What Sherman Once Thought
 of Silver Characterization.
OPPOSED THE SINGLE STANDARD.


 rency-wheat Fed to Hogs and Corn
 Burned For FueI-A Prophecy Fulfilled.
 On page 5SS of John Sherman's pub lished speeches and papers, edited by himself, is an extract from the we'll known economist Seyd @I will read you short extract from Seyd, said MT. Sherman to the senate, in urging that the silver dollar was sound money. good money, dollar honest enough to use for redeeming the greenbacks and for paying all non-interest bearing debts of the government. T will now read you an extract from Seyd on the very sub- ject I am speaking of-the importance of the American dollar in the commerce of the world-and as he expresses it much better than l can, think sena- tors will be much better pleased to hear his statement. ]"
 This is 8 part of the statement thus indorsed by Mir. Sherman as vindicat- ing the honesty of the silver dollar much better than he could himself:
 1T think that America by deciding ill favor of the double valuation would not only save the world at large from an abyss and prevent the accomplishment of stupid general crime whose authors humanity would some day learn to curse. but that she would advance her own interests more than may be sup posed possible
 ''This, said Senator Sherman in con- clusion, "is the opinion of MT. Seyd, an English writer who is perfectly familiar with the whole subject and who has lived in this country the most of his life. T
 As Mir. Seyd's statements need no further Endorsement after this, we may proceed to inquire into the facts on which he based conclusions which he expressed even better than Senator Sher- man could have done himself-unless, indeed, as was probably the case, Sena- tor Sherman allowed his modesty to un- derrate his merit
 Why is it, we may now ask Senator Sherman, J. Pierpont Morgan, Mfr Perry Belmont, American agent of the Rothschilds, Mr William c. Whitney of the Standard Oil company, MT Hanna of the Iron trust and others who now advocate the demonstration of sil- yer and the corporation system of cur reney control-why is it true, as Sena- tor Sherman thought in reading MT. Seyd's views, that the adoption of the single gold standard and the demone- tization of the silver dollar would be stupid general crime whose authors humanity would some day learn to curse?"
 Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, we have since had the answer written for us on the broadest page of our in- dustrial history.
 As result of the contraction of our currency and the currency of the world. as the result of foreign control in Wall street and of foreign influences domi- hating at Washington, we have been forced from depression to stringency, from stringency to panic. and this not once, but repeatedly. We have seen our gold forced out of circulation and hoard ed by the agents of foreign bankers, us- l ing 1t to force repeated issues of bonds on which they demand from our labor interest payable in gold; on which they propose to issue as our only popular cur rency their own notes to be forced into circulation by our government We have seen our mining states bankrupted and their citizens brought to poverty. We have seen our silver with price set upon it by England and used at this price by England to pay for East Indian wheat and cotton bought in competi- | tion with our own. We have seen our own breadstuffs and cotton forced below the cost of production. We have seen wheat fed to hogs and corn burned for fuel for lack of market. We have seen the growth of our thriving western ex- porting states stopped, their people hampered in every enterprise, their pro ducers impoverished, their labor robbed of its opportunities for profitable em ployment, their capital tied up in en- l terprises which are rendered unprodue- tive by the blighting interference of government under foreign control. We have seen the prices of our exports forced down until the country has become more and more "a debtor nation, until it is impossible to get gold to ''settle balances and pay interest on an in- creasing debt. We have seen American property pass into foreign hands until now several thousand millions of our best paying investments are controlled by the same foreign operators who are controlling our currency and dictating our financial policies. And while the bread producers of our agricultural states are thus impoverished by lack of distribution for their products. we have seen ill the great cities of the east an increasing number of people who have nothing to eat. From the tenements of New York and of London we have heard the cry of famine-a mighty cry for bread, m appeal to heaven before which even the Whitneys, the Vanderbilts, the Rothschilds tremble.
 All this and more we have seen since in the senate of the United States Hon est John' Sherman indorsed the state