The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1896-10-23
Hon. rIarriott Brosius' Speech.

| W WHICH INC sPSdhSi lSHuShtiy toihNi "
apostrophize, to which, if Mr.. Mckinley
had been present, he would have been
tempted to exclaim to the fulsome gush,
as Daniel Webster did OIL one occasion TO
similar orator, "get out
In listening to the goldbug orators, the
least and best of them, they forcibly inl-
press the audience with the weakness and
paucity of their cause. Mr.. Brosius de-
voted most of his speech to rolling up
| lofty periods and ornate sentences which
meant nothing, making word pictures,
patriotic etchings and Photographic dis
solving views of moral landscapes.
What he said OIL the silver question,
the very thing the meeting desired
most to hear, amounted to almost
nothing, except that he inisrepresented
everything he advanced as facts and
asserted, without a word of authority
and entirely on his ibse difit, the direful
results and consequences which were TO
follow the RECOMMENDATION of silver.
AS specimen of reckless assertion, un-
marked by scintilla of truth. he said
that in fixing the ratio between geld and
silver for coinage purposes, the states
men and scientists in the past always
sought to ascertain the relative CONNER
cial value of the two metals; that Hanil-
ton and Jefferson were most careful and
particular and with all this care made a
slight mistake by making it IS to I, which
caused the gold all. 10 leave the country.
AS matter of fact this is an entire mis-
representation of the case. Jefferson had
the Spanish dollar, which was the prin-
cipal money in the country at that time,
analysed and ascertained that it contained
37I4 grains of pure silver, and that is
what our dollar contains to-day. 1t has
never been changed, but the gold coins
were changed and little less pure metal
put into them, which fixed the present
parity of 16 to 1 between the gold and
silver coins of the U. S. The French
ratio was I5H to I, making the French
silver coin of more value by per cent
compared with gold than our silver coin,
and the silver bullion in consequence
mostly went to France from 1903 to 1873,
when through the conspiracy concocted
by the gold Jew bankers of London and
other capitals of Europe they managed 10
secure the demonstration of silver and
by that trick increased the purchasing
power of the debts-government and pri-
vate-which they held, one hundred per
cent. These are the things the people
want information about but Mr.. Brosius
carefully avoided giving them any infor
nation on the subject, and led them
away from, and misstated every fact he
touched bearing OIL the silver question.
There never was a ratio established be-
tween gold and silver coin by supply and
demand for commercial purposes, since
governments have used those metals for
money, but the mint value has always
maintained their 'iEtrinsic value" as Mr..
Brosius expressed it, although there is no
such thing as "intrinsic value known to
science or economics. But Mr.. Brosius
asserted that statesmen always ascertained
the commercial value of the two metals
when they proposed fixing a coinage ratio
between them.
1t would be tedious to go on and point
out Mr.. Brosius' misstatemeuts about sill
yer and coinage, either unwittingly or in
tentionally. If unwttingly a Congress
man ought to be better informed, and if
Intentionally, he should not make such
professions of reverence for national
honor and personal honesty as punctuated
his entire Grafton with grand exclamation
points, stamped with both clenched fists.
And the old soldiers. How his heart
did yearn for them; cutting their pensions
in two by opening the minis to free coin
age Never ! Now it so happened when
these same old soldiers were young SOL
diers at the front, these same Jew gold
bankers whom this man is now pleading
for, were busy cutting the greenback dol
lars, which the soldiers and everybody
who performed labor were paid in, down
to As cents. They manipulated gold in
the gold room" on Wall street till it re-
quired s. 81 to purchase one of their gold
dollars. This is fair specimen of the
honesty and honor OF the crowd of sharp
ers which Mr. Brosius is pleading for in
such knowing tropes," lest their gold
debts which they hold over the heads of
the people be cut down in their purchas-
| ing value by the reconciliation of silver
which will reduce the present enormous
price of gold. All the bold assertions of
these goldbug orators that when the
minis of the U. S. are opened to free coin
age 1t will take two dollars of silver 10
buy one of gold and that the deposits in
savings banks, insurance policies and all
such obligations representing the savings
of the poor people, will be cut in two, is
the veriest rot and bosh that ever was
| spewed from the mouth of lot ofhireling
demagogues who tramp the country under
| pay by Mark Hanna. If wheat were to
rise to 81 so a bushel and the value of all
other commodities in the same ratio, the
price of these accumulations in insurance
| companies, savings banks and the dollar
itself, would be cut in two, in exactly the
same sense that Mr.. Brosius' awfullv dis.
honest halving of debts and defrauding
OF creditors, acts of national dishonor and
reputation would take place. When sill
yer Is remonetized there will be more
money put i'll circulation, money in equal
purchasing power to gold, not like the