The San Francisco call., 1896-10-11

to money we require puDllc coHllueAce III
business ventures. Moneyed men who
fear reign of National Insolvency are
10th to let their dollars slip between their
fingers.
sfStill, money must circulate. The
nimb BILE sixpenee is better than the slow
shilling. The question is. then, how shall
we set the money a-going2 How can We
make the holders of money set their funds
rolling in the marts OF commerce? We
can only do it by making business safe.
Let moneyed men see that In investing
their money they will not throw it away,
and cash will circulate freely enough.
"What caused this lack of confidence?
Well, it was the dollar" Laughter.
Then Mr. Butterworth went on to say
that his Democratic friends found some
consolation IN a letter which he once
wrote But he proposed to repeat what he
said then and he would maintain it, and
he would say that the man who said that
the Republican party was a gold mono
metallic party was not just to himself nor
to the Republican party nor quite truth
ful.
, IF there ever was party in favor of
bimetallism, a party that has never uttered
a prayer except for bimetallism; that party
is the Republican party. My brother of
the Examiner has plan not to bring US
to bimetailism, but to silver monometal-
lism. Our plan has been not to drive a
tandem team with silver ahead and gold
out of sight, but to drive the twin coursers
abreast, the gold and the silver.
II say now that it was against the best
interests of civilization and of humanity
to demonetize silver. l think so now, but
it has been done. 1t is not theory; it is
a condition. We must study how 10 undo
it. Ii somebody needs kicking let him be
kicked, but don't let US kick ourselves.
The PopuIist thinks he Will Gle next
March and he wants to commit suicide in
November. [Laughter.]
1.-The demonetization of silver has re-
duced the value of silver throughout the
world. but it is done. 1t has enhanced
the value of gold but it has not author
lied US to swindle our neighbor, if it did.
l say that your plan is not good one. 1t
will ruin and wreck and dishonor us from
first to last. England will never agree to
bimetallism unless she is forced, but Ger
many and France have extended the hand
to US, and we can soon have an interna-
tional agreement, and we can agree
whether it shall be 16, II or 20 to l. so that
our dollar will be as good then asit is
now from pole to pole. and all around the
world we will still have maintained our
honor and our credit.
But you say to me, the law fixes the
value of money; doesn't the constitution
provide that Congress shall regulate the
value of and shall coin money! No;
neither Congress nor the Rechstag nor
the Chamber of Deputies in France can
fix the purchasing power OF money. 1t is
fixed by a law which we can neither
amend nor repeal; by law that fixes the
com mercial value of everything in the
world. Silver is property and Congress
can neither increase nor decrease its pur-
chasing power.
''But there is wide difference between
the debt-paying power and the purchas-
ing power. Congress can enable me to
swindle you out of your boots by fixing
the debt paying power of the green back at
a certain figure. That piece of paper, the
solemn promise of my Government, might
not be worth more than 10 cents on the
dollar, when it was at 35 cents at the time
this young republic was staggering under
the blows OF a gigantic revolution.
The speaker went on to relate an anec-
dote illustrating the difference between
the debt-paying power and purchasing
power of the dollar. A man pays his debt
in cheap money the debt paying power
of which has been doubled by Congress
since the debt was contracted. The credi-
tor was obliged TO take it, but that was
the business of yesterday or OF last week.
The same man goes to the ex-creditor to-
day and offers to buy from him $1,000 worth
of lemons.
Very WELL" says the owner of the
lemons, .tbut In what money do you pro-
pose to pay mep
The same money paid you last week."
replies the ex-debtor.
Not if l know it" says the creditor.
Congress cannot compel a man TO sell
his COW or his horse or his wheat or his
bread Or meat. The seller settles the
purchasing value of the money in which
he is to be paid; it is fixed by the COM
mercial world. The worlds experience
says that the Government stamp does not
fix the value of money.
The speaker told how, in a season of
great distress, law was made in France,
backed by the guillotine and the military
power of the nation, to compel the farmer
and the tradesman to accept assignats for
their goods and their labor, but it was
found impossible to enforce the law. 1t
might as well have been written on water.
You and sell what we take out of the
ground, what we raise and produce, our
cattle, potatoes, oranges, fruit, lead. cop
per and iron at the market rate fixed By
the commercial world, and you and l are
mad because the fellow who has dug his
silver out OF another place in the ground
over there doesn't get for his silver a
hundred per cent more than it is worth,
ard we would have to pay it if he did,"
This apt way OF illustrating the subject
brought forth continued round OF APP
plause.
How does that strike you as a sensible
proposition? Suppose l was working a
silver mine and l came to buy your pota-
toes.
"'What is it worth?' you ask.
t''Oh, so cents an ounce in the market;
but want you to take it at 81 an
ounce
What would you say to that?" con-
tinued General Butterworth. "Yo ou would
invite him to go somewhere. wouldn't t
your"
The speaker went on with the declara-
ton, the truth of which he said had been
affirmed by experience, that the cheaper
money always drove out the better money.
After the battle of Bull Run, when green
backs fell below par, gold and silver fed
as from plague-smitten city. He added:
"You are selling, under the Wilson act,
your product at less than what it is
worth"
T He did not see piece of gold coin once
a month in the East, while in California
he saw nothing but gold and silver and he
added: "And yet you fellows are worry
ing because you have no cheaper money"
At no time in the history of tbs Anglo
Saxon race have its mem bers raised their
hands to be shackled. We love liberty;
but the liberty which we love goes hand
in hand with law. The reyolutionists OF
France gave 10 their country not liberty,
but anarchy This is not the sort of