, 1896-07-29
BLAINE UPON SILVER.
ATTENTION CALLED TO THE
FACT THAT POPULIST PAPERS
DON'T STICK TO TRUTH.
Mr.. Blaine Believed Thai Free and I'm
limited Coinage Without the Co
Operation of O,her Nations Would
Work t o the Detriment of This
Country and Cause Disaster.

Washington. D. c.. July 2S.-The
populists have recently circulated in
Indiana a large number of h~and-bills
containing the purported expressions
Of the late Secretary Blaine on the sill
yer question.
The greatest republican states
man. as he is called in the hand-bill.
is quoted as Internationally opposed
TO the gold standard, and it is made to
appear that the distinguished states
man would have r%epudiated the St.
Louis platform if he had been alive to-
day. The %hand-bill purports to quote
from a speech delivered by Mr.. Blaine
in 1880. but Mr.. Blaine made no speech
on the money question in that year,
and the author of the hand-bill is will
fully misleading.
The paragraphs in question, how
ever, are fCund in a speech delivered by
Mr.. Blaine in the United States senate
February I, 1878. Standing alone these
paragraphs make it appear hat Mr..
Blaine was a rabid anti-go1d man, but
when read in the order in which they
appear in the text the dishonesty of
the authors of the hand-bills appears.
The senate had under consideration
house bill 1893, to authorize the free
coinage of the standard silver dollar
and to restore its legal tender charac-
ter. Almost at the outset OF his speech
Mr.. Blaine said-and this is part of the
quotation in the Indiana circular:
NO power was conferred on con-
gress to declare that either metals
should be money. Congress has, there
fore, in my Judgment. no power to de-
monetize silver any nor than to de-
monetize gold; no power to demonetize
either any more than demonetize both.
Few persons can be found, l apprehend,
who will maintain that congress pos
sesses the power to demonetize both
gold and silver, or that congress could
be justified in prohibiting the coinage
Of both; and yet in logic and legal on
struction it would be difficult to show
over silver is greater than over gold
greater owe either than over the two.
If. therefore, silver has been demone-
tized. l am in favor of remonetizing it.
If its coinage has been prohibited, |
am in favor of ordering it to be re-
sumed. If it has been restricted, | am
in favor Of having it enlarged"
Read by itself this appears to be a
pretty strong denunciation of the ac-
ton of congress. smacking strongly of
the crime Of 10" order of oratory
which has been flooding congress for
years past. In the very next paragraph
Mr.. Blaine said:
However men may differ about
causes and prices, all will admit that
within a few years a great disturbance
has taken place in the relative values
of gold and silver, and that silver is
less or gold is worth more in the money
markets of the world in 1878 than in
1878, when the further coinage of silver
dollars was prohibited in this congress.
To remonetize it now as though the
facts and circumstances of that day
were surrounding us, is to wilfully and
blindly deceive ourselves. If our de-
monetization were the only cause for
the decline in the value Of silver, then
reconciliation would be its proper and