The Portland daily press., 1896-08-26
forever and ever. But history knows
human nature too we'll

human nature too well.
You will see that my statements are
not promises without limit. You nave
seen exhibited many times remedies for
all the ills the world is heir to, but did
you ever see perfectly healthy world?
You never will.
Omne ignotum pro magnifico is Latin
and pretty old and of course we all I'M
derstandit. But l want to give you
free translation. Everything we do not
know anything about always looks big.
The human creature is imaginative.
If he sees tail disappearing over fence
he images the whole beast and usually
imagines the wrong beast; especially if
it is dark and wild animals abound. |
suppose that all the kings horses and all
his armed men never frightened the peo-
pie of this world half SO much as ghosts,
and yet there never were any ghosts.
Whenever we take trip into the
realms of fancy we see a good MANY
things that never were. The safe foot
ing in this world is on the things we
know. If this nation follows the silver
people what sure foothold is there any
where? Has any nation ever succeeded
in what we are asked to undertake? Not
one. Has any nation ever failed? Mex
leo supported by the great empire of
China with 100000, 900 of. people have
failed to lift silver above it's market
value. lam well aware that we are
mightier than Mexico or China or both
combined. But we are not omnipotent.
We are only part of the world. We cam
not add a cubit to any mans statue. We
cannot fix the price of wheat. Chicago
standing for the whole country tried
that once and was worsted in the slug
gle. We tried to fix the price of green
backs by calling them dollar but never
one of them was a dollar until
1879 when we promised to give dol
lar and backed up the promise with
hundred millions of gold.
When gold was at 200 not all the
power of this country with two millions
of men in arms could made greenback
buy more than fifty cents worth of any
thing except human labor.
Either the silver men expect silver under
free coinage to go to par or they do not
If they do they have not one single fact on
which to depend All human history is
not only gainst them but over-whel-
mingly so. If over valuation of silver
by three cents on dollar drove all the
gold out of our country for sixty years
once in its history, what will fifty cents
of generalization do? Why it is as clear
as mathematics.
We shall then be on silver basis
whatever that may be. If we get there,
the basis will either be stable or I'M
stable. If it is stable what improvement
will that be. Are there any more potatoes
in four pecks than in one bushel? Are
1873 75-cent dollars worth any more
than 100 100-cent dollars? Does a
dollar get any more valuation by chang
ing it into coppers?
But suppose the new standard lis I'M
stable, what will happen then? Well
human experience is here to tell you.
All uncertainties are detriment to bus
mess. For the last fifty years all the
struggle of business has been towards
certainties. Business has long ago ceased
to be gambling. Small and sure profits
often repeated is the foundation of mo-
dern wealth. The Suez canal, the ocean
cable. the swift steamships and the
swiftest railroads are all harnessed into
this service; whoever that can have
stable currency swings off into an
unstable currency sets himself against
the civilized world and must take the
consequences.
But say some of these men, suppose
we do swing off from Europe we join the
great silver using countries, China and
Japan and Mexico and all the rest with
their 900. 10000 inhabitants. Why not
give up the European trade and take the
trade of China and Japan. This sounds
well. 1t looks all the larger because it
exists in Imagination. Do you suppose
we could get the trade of these countries
by simply having the same money; such
ideas, like the old time cry of ''markets
of the world'' are of such stuff as dreams
are made of. Trade takes decades, nay
centuries for.its growth.
But let us imagine we could have all
that trade which would come to us, see
how actual experience will cause to
dwindle the figures of the imagination.
In the first place there are no nine hun
dred millions of silverusing people. One
hundred and fifty millions of these out
siders are on paper basis. We could
not get them even by giving them
greenbacks. How much do you suppose
the remaining people take of our stuffs
now? Only fifty millions. How much
do the gold countries take? Seven
hundred and sixty-five millions, only
about thirteen times as much.
Great Britain alone takes four
hundred millions of our pro-
ducts, eight times as much as all the
silver countries in the world. We buy
of silver countries one hundred and sew
enteen millions, of gold countries five
hundred and thirty. Putting these fig
ures together; our trade with silver
countries is one hundred and sixry-nine
with gold countries one thou
sand three hundred millions, one to nine.
Do you desire to exchange nine dollars
worth of trade for one? Do you want
to do anything which will even tend to
make such an exchange.
All, but we want the prosperity of
Japan and Mexico. Really, my friends,
we passed that stage of prosperity long
ago. Mexico prospers because of silver
A constant fall of the dollar and no rise
of wages; and you call that prosperity
For the middle man it may be and for
the manufacturer also, but for the wage
Garner not yet. So far as wages are low
cred, SO far has silver contributed to
profits. But not even
lowered wages-a thing lntolerable for
our people-has started production in
Mexico. What was Mexico once
and what is she now? Once she was the
land of revolutionists of fratricidal strife |
torn asunder by the ambition of any
netty chief Now under Porfirio Diaz