Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-07-05
publican.


stood face to face with an impending
crisis Then the unity of the nation was
at stake. Now it's honor was at stake.
That honor had tosbe preserved. Agonies
and waste of war, north and south,
would turn to wantonness in the pages
of the nations history IL the country
should have been preserved only to be-
come q defaulter and pay its debts with
50-centA dollars"
Continuing, Mr.. MacVeagh said 1--WE
who appeal to the coming convention
against silver monometallism are not all
gold ometallists-though even gold
monometallsm, as now existing, includes
an immense proportion and an immense
aggregate of silver coinage. Many of us
are earnest bimetallists, eager to see sill
yer and gold made equal In the coinage
of our country. That which for this crisis
unites bimetallists and gold monometal-
lists is the awful spectre of silver mono-
metallism, for the free coinage of silver
at 16 to / by this nation alone is silver
monometallism-and by all the inter-
changeable laws which govern the eco
nomes of nations it must be
That and Nothing Else
"The fact that silver monometallists
will not argue for silver monometalllsm
but use the arguments of bimetallism,
makes their propaganda dangerous, but
it does not change its aim, nor would it
change the dreadful results.
1.-THE only thing that bimetallists and
gold monometallists and all men who
have eyes to see into the national abyss
of silver monometallism can do, in the
face of the present crisis, is to stand to
the defense of the existing system. The
case Is simple, the issue Is plain, the road
is straight, and no one of us can look
to the right hand nor to the left.
I'VE cannot hope to appeal with sue
cess to all of the silver delegates. The
- not trf an n
even persuasion. There must be many
silver delegates who find themselves out
of touch with fury and recklessness, and
who can still be made to see where this
passion and excitement Is carrying them
and their party, and possibly their coun-
try. To their sober reason this meet
ing Is an appeal They may still lis
ten to the solemn warning of dispassion-
ate men, dispassionate Americans. We
are here without passion, without excite
ment, without fury, but with perfect
version of the crisis that is being forced
upon the party and the nation
Unless the silver men with conserva-
tive tempers intervene, unless those in
tervene whose patriotism is more
precious to them and whose democracy
Is more precious to them than adherence
to single idea, this majority will sweep
the convention. -,
Where will 1t sweep 1t to? 1t will
sweep 1t into hostility with the abiding
sentiment of the people, that sentiment
which is the single defense of the nation.
1t will sweep 1t into hostility with the
abiding conscience of the nation, that
conscience whose sober rigor Will abate
all sophistries which make against the
honor of the nation. -,
For what will the aim be? What VIII
the proposition be? To pay the nation
debt in 50-cent dollars, and that Is dis-
honor For bubble as we may-quibble
as Horace Boies has lately been .quib-
bIinr-the national debt is payable in the
equivalent of gold. That is the bare bus
iness fact backed by the conscience of
dispassionate America and the conscience
of the world. How lately has 1t become
even conceivable to sober minded men
that the majority In a national conven-
tion OF a great historic party will head
long decide to urge policy whose effect
even before it could be enacted
into law and at the first moment when 1t
should become certain would be to plunge
their country into commissions and panics
whose disasters would be new to the ex-
perience of the world? How can such
action be possible? Will not the tradi-
tional sense of the grave responsibilities
of q majority defeat this frenzy? Is the
majority so blind that 1t cannot see the
precipice and the abyss? Let them ask
the business men. They will tell them
what silver monometallism means-what
16eto means. 1t means havoc; II means
the prostration of all business, all finance.
all ll'manufacturing-by cyclone of panic.
1t means years Of hopeless depression
after that. 1t means the remorseless
narrowing Of all empioyments and the