The Madisonian. (Virginia City, Mont.) 1873-1915, 1896-05-09

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demand, or production and consump
ton, but make an arbitrary price ant
establish the value of everything BY
law.
No, Mr.. Editor. I am in favor of the
gold standard on a principle which
hope is better than these
The wealth and prosperity of this
country r the products of the labor
of the hands of men, and the men who
do the work, the labor and toll by
means of which the country becomes
ricn and great. are entitled to be paid
for that labor in the very best money
that exists.
If the money, which goes the farthest
and brings the most in the markets of
the world; if the safest and ~securest
and most reliable money is gold, they
are entitled to be paid in gold. If the
best money is silver. they should be
paid in silver. And that is the ques-
ton now presented in this ~free-coinage
discussion. Which is the most reliable
Interchangeable and i%nvariable metal.
Gold or silver?
Does gold tiuctuate the most or does
silver? Which metal varies most in
price? Which metal can you use most
readily? If you r going to save a
hundred dollars for an emergency, will
you put away silver OF gold? In other
words which is the sure thing? You
know you can take an ounce of gold
beaten into a slug, without any mark or
stamp upon it whatever, andsanywhere
on the top of the earth you can get
twenty dollars for it. Now what a
you get for silver, outside of the United
States, in the same shape? Just
fifty cents on the dollar, and that
is all, and it is only because of the
stamp that the coin brings double its
market vlaue. The silver in a dollar
is only worth fifty cents. and the ques-
ton is, does the stamp of the mint add
anything to this real value? answer
that it does not add one cent, and so
the intrinsic value of our stamped sill
YER dollar is but one-half of what it is
marked. In other words it is a fifty
cent dollar. Now I put the plain ques-
tion to the man who is working for dol
lars and, who is to be paid in dollars,
why do you want a tifty-cent dollar,
when you can get a hundred cent dol
lar? Why do you want a cheap coin
when you can get a dear one:
You men who earn three dollars a
day by the hardest kind of work, why
do you want fifty-cent silver dollars,
when you a get gold dollars worth
two of the silver ones? Do you think
that if there were free coinage of sill
yer, and by it gold driven out of circu-
lation, that you would receive six of
these silver dollars in the place of tn
three gold dollars you get now? Not
much. Free coinage would only benefit
the owners of silver mines: men who
produce the bullion: are these men 60
ing to double your wages and give you
six dollars per day? If you think so,
just wait and see. Fifty-cent dollars
will be cheap, but you will get only
three of them all the same, and, like
the Mexican dollars. they will be worth
only a half dollar each.
These T. economic reasons for the
gold standard. There + also po-
litical reasons, which are equally
| have been in the Republican party
from the day of its birth. When the
days were dark and the nights stormy
and desolate: when the country was in
the throes of a great revolution; when
the threats of traitors and rebels en-
dangered the life of the Republic, and
our country was in the peril of a disso-
luton, the Republican party stood
for the national honor and for the
national life.
The political principles upon which
this party is founded have saved and
preserved the country through forty
years of trial. Its economic and com:
mercial principles are commensurate
the growth and progress of the
country. It has proven itself equal to
all emergencies and demonstrated its
capacity for national government. 1t
is the mouth piece of the American
it speaks no meaningless words:
it makes no clamor for Office or power.