The San Francisco call., 1896-08-03
ARE YOU, MR.. BRYAN7

For TWO years, that IS to say since ne
has been in the employ of the Silver Mine
Owners Association, MIR. Bryan has in.
sisted that the fall i'll prices and the stag
nation i'll business is due to the demon
etization of silver and the appreciation OF
gold. But before Mr.. Bryan hired himself
to the Silver Mine Owners Association to
lecture on the beauty and stability of a
monetary system built upon an unlimited
issue of silver he was very sure it was the
inventive genius of American mechanics
that caused prices to fall. In carefully
prepared speech on the tariff question Mr..
Bryan asserted very positively on the floor
of Congress that the fall in prices
was due " to the inventive genius
that has multiplied a thousand times in
many instances the strength of single
arm and enabled US to do to-day with one
man what fifty men could not do fifty
years ago. That is what brought the
prices down in this country and every
where"
Whether Mr.. Bryan's pay as lecturer
for the combine of silver mine owners and
Speculators was enough to justify such a
flop and fiat contradiction we do not
know, but the presumption is that
it was. No doubt he sincerely be-
lieved what he said when he told
Congress that the great fall in prices
was due to inventive genius, for all the
facts in the case confirm the statement;
but the same state of affairs prevailed
when he engaged to advocate the opening
of the mints to the unlimited coinage OF
silver and proclaim that the demonetiZa-
ton and not inventive genius was the
cause of prices falling so 1t is Incumbent
upon Mr.. Bryan to reconcile these contra
dictory statements before asking the people
to trust me-" as he puts it.
Mr.. Bryan should inform the public con-
corning his contract with the Silver Mine
Owners Association. II he is still IN its
employ and is making the race for the
Presidency in the interest of that combine
the people should know it.
At least he should not protest if the
people believe it to be true in the absence
of any denial on his part. He is just as
enthusiastic now for free silver without
safeguards as he was when he first entered
the employ of the miners combine, al
though the fact still remains that the fall
of prices is attributable to inventive
genius. Mr.. Bryan owes it to the people
to take them into his confidence and tell
them frankly why he now says that the
fall of prices is the result of the ''crime of
1S73," when he did not discover that it was
a crime until 1894.
And while Mr.. Bryan is explaining the
business connection he has with the mine
overs association he might explain how
it happened that his employers made no
complaint because of the demonstration
of silver until several years afterward-
until the price of silver bullion went be-
low par. These are little matters, but as
Mr.. Bryan proposes to conduct an 'tedu-
cational campaign" answers to these ques-
tions would be well calculated to enlighten
the public on the silver question. AS late
as 1898, and only the year before he hired
himself 10 the Silver Miners Association
to advocate the free and unlimited COIN
age of silver-mark you, unlimited coin
age-he declared on the floor of Congress
that ''if the number OF dollars increases
more rapidly than the need of dollars -as
it did after the gold discoveries of 1S49-
the exchangeable value of each dollar w i'll
fall and prices rise" Evidently there is a
wide difference between Mr.. Bryan as the
paid agent of silver mine owners and
Bryan as teacher of economics. But is
Mr.. Bryan still in the employ of the mine
owners association? That is what the
Deople want to know