Kansas City daily journal., 1896-10-06
Reed on the Currency.

From the n Y. Commercial Adverlsef.
1t is striking characteristic OF Ihonias
3. Reed that he writes as enectiVeiy as nc
speaks The article on the silver craze
which he contributes to the current num-
ber of the North American Review Is one
OF the clearest refutations of this particu-
lar fallacy that has ever appeared III PRINT.
The great Republican leader shows no
hos tility to silver itself. He says franKiy
'If We could lift silver to twice Its present
height and keep 1t there we would De sial
to dc 1t because the good OF any part OF
the country is the good of ALL But th.s
experiment has been tried persstently anc
or a colossal scale by the United states
already. I'VE have bought and paid casn
for silver to the amount OF Si6i, ana
what We paid $464. 600. 600 for VIII now, wv .sa d.
81 cents the ounce, bring us but $32s. .OOo, 900.
In other words, we have lost $l36. .O0OO
and more by the operation: or, as it should
be stated, we have paid out 1854 OOO to
bring the silver dollar to par, and it is
now worth oS cents. and we have SUM-
s1S6, coo in the attempt The demand
OF the free coinage advocates that this
country shall do something for silver
has met with the most generous response
in the past. The United States has done
far more for silver than any other civilized
nation. Our attempts to keep the white
operations Of the Bland-Alison law and
the Sherman silver purchase act were
titanic. The sentences We have just quot
ed from Speaker Reeds pen forcibly sum-
marize the result
All craftsmanship, all practical finance,
all intelligent human policies in business
or government are founded on the lessons
of experience. We know that what has
happened in the past will under the same
conditions happen In the future. Theories
are very well in their place. But every
theory that is worth a moments thought
L. Ah nf >rte r.
lished facts. The men who controlled ma
ticnal legislation few years ago were
so Influenced by friendship for silver as
product of our own soil that they disre-
garded the judgment of conservative finan-
ciers and embarked upon policy which
mand of Bryan and his associates that this
policy, which resulted in disaster when it
was tried on limited scale. shall now be
adopted on an unlimited scale, without any
safeguards whatever Is demand uttered
in defiance Of the most obvious facts Of
experience. IF buying nearly the whole
American product" asks Speaker Reed.
seemed but to stimulate the fall (of sill
ver) will taking the balance raise it," 1t
will not do to reply that I'VE believe so
and SO. That may do for theology. but
not for business. Things in this world go
lieve" was as freely uttered about the pur-
chase clause of the Sherman act as 1t is
about free coinage: and yet silver did not
60 to par. but, on the contrary, went
steadily and ruthlessly down.
The position assumed by the free coin
age champions is the climax Of impudence.
Having pushed the nation once to the
brink Of the precipice Of ruin and dishon-
or. they now insist that the American
people shall ignore the painful lessons
they have learned and plunge headlong
into the depths of destruction. In view Of
all the recorded facts the cry for free
coinage at the ratio of 16 to Is nothing
less than crime against reason, against
justice and against patriotism.