The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-04-01
Democracy Opportunity.

Il means a Reputation of debts public
and private. II means a reduction of
wages and incomes nearly one-half. be
cause it would lessen the purchasing pow
er Of money to that extent. The American
people are not dishonest. and when they
fully understand the meaning of free sill
yer coinage, and they will understand It
before the present campaign IS ended,
they will put the stamp Of their disapprov-
al upon IT,
More than once within the last thirty
years a party has attempted to get into
power by favoring population Indirectly.
and the attempts have failed. The party
that has lent itself TO unsound money
schemes has always met with defeat.
The greenback craze was once as wide
spread and acute as the free silver coinage
craze is now. but it has disappeared. The
people would not approve the greenback
scheme for paying the public debt be
cause it was dishonest 1t would have
caused a still further depreciation of the
currency. which at the time. was already
deprecated from thirty to forty per cent
The common sense Of the people assert
ed itself then. as it has always asserted
itself whenever il has been proposed to
abandon sound money for unsound money
and it win continue to assert itself against
a dishonest currency, whether it be un-
limited fifty cent silver dollars. or unlim-
tied greenback issues.
A faction Of the democratic party is
now engaged in trying to commit the
party to unlimited coinage of silver. The
leaders Of that faction haven't the cour-
age to admit that if they should succeed
in committing the country to their finan-
cial views we should have the same kind
of currency that Mexico has. that is,
a silver currency. dollar Of which is
worth only about half of what an Amer
lean silver dollar is. They say. however,
that we should have higher prices, know
ing full well that the higher prices, if there
should be higher prices, would come from
the Iessening of the purchasing power
of the currency. They dare not admit the
truth; because such an admission would
leave them practically without follow
ing. The truth, however will be made
apparent, and the party that undertakes
TO lead the people in the direction of dis
honest money will be overwhelmingly de-
feated at the polls
The democratic party has a splendid
opportunity to win the next election. 1t
looks now as if Gov. Mckinley, who has
an unsound money record, would be nomi-
mated by the republicans upon plat
/
err so far as the silver question is con-
cerned. If the democratic party comes out
squarely for honest money. taking the
ground that the wage-earner should be
paid for his labor in the best money, it
will sweep the country.
Those silverites in the democratic party
who pretend to think that the people are
crazy for a dishonest silver currency are
| greatly mistaken. There is no sentiment
for such a currency in the east and very
little of it in the west, as was shown by the
action of the state republican convention
of South Dakota-a state in which it was
thought the craze for free silver coinage
was about as great as anywhere else in
the country. Gov Drake OF Iowa, in an
| interview in New York on Sunday, said:
You hear great deal of talk in the west
about bimetallism. We are all bimetal-
lists in a way, but at the same time we are
| single-standard men. That may sound in
congruous, but the fact remains that
there can be only one standard. You try
to have two standards of horses, and then
| try to buy a horse conforming to the two
standards. and you will see where your
mistake is. What we want is to have sill
yer used as much as possible, and to see
it coined in an established parity with
gold so far as is consistent. But the fact
remains that gold is the one sure. indis-
putable standard"
Yes, in the west they talk good deal
about bimetallism, but they don't mean
free silver coinage, which means silver
recommendation. They want sound money
and they are going to vote with the party
that promises to give them that kind of
money. The democratic partys. only
chance to win the presidential election is
in nominating a sound money candidate
on a sound money platform.