Birmingham state herald., 1896-11-03
OUR LETTER BOX.

Cleveland's stranging clerk in the navy department is silly enough to impute to MT Bryan the claim that the United States can raise the price of all the sll- yer in the world to double it's present value" Is so utterly ignorant of what he is talking about as not to know that all the coined silver in the world, except that of Japan, Mexico and the United States, circulates, and is in daily necessary use. at par on a ratio to gold higher than 16 to 1, and that to bring it to a level with our own coinage would be a lowering in stead of a raising of it's price. About $3, 800, 100000 of the worlds silver coin, that is seven-eighths of the whole, is worth more in comparison with gold than ours. Only one-fortieth-that of Japan and Mexico-about 106,000,000, is worth less in comparison with gold than our own; and this fortieth, with the small present stock of free silver bullion, not 5000 000 and the new output of the mines over and above the demands for consumption in the arts, and for coinage by other nations, all told not $100, 900, 900 a year, perhaps not half that much, Is all with which free coinage would have to deal. Russia. alone, it has been author itatively stated, stands ready to take and coin $500, 900 Of silver, on the opening of our hints to it; and the danger would be, not too much, but too little Of the white metal until the output from the mines could be grea tly increased. Official
 
 a consumption of silver in the arts and for money, in the last twenty-five years of nearly 90,000,000 more than all that produced from the mines within the same time; and like consumption Of gold within the same time of more than S1 ,430,- 0000 900 in excess of the total output from all it's mines. These figures show, that the world needs all the silver and gold it can get, and needs much more still for money.
 El. <1f< lone 0r.ty1 an knows no more of it's business than he does of the matters he is neglecting his duties toattempt to discuss before the wlre-grass people it Is not surprising that our cruisers and battleships are covered by Carnagie with rotten armour plates, which make them death-traps for brave men, and mocking to the world.
 Herbert, it seems, is of so little conSe- quence in the navy department that in his bosses judgment his two months junketing in Europe was no loss to the public service; and on top of this he Is now so little needed in Washington that he is paid $25 day for a feeble effort to destroy the democratic party. which has made him all he is and has precious lit- tie to boast of in it's product.
 Clevelands nominal secretary of the navy also said at Troy that i've have al- ways prospered except during the four years of the war" There was not a man listening to him whose experience did not pronounce this assertion untrue, unless there were those in his audience who, like Herbert himself, have even since the war had their heads in the public crib. For twenty years Herbert's greatest achievements has been to draw fat un- earned salary from the treasury. or course he has prospered. and enjoyed it hugely. After the 4th of March. 1897, when he will have to earn his living by work or steal like other men as good as himself, he will have neither time nor in- clination to make himself ridiculous py talking of a prosperity that never existed even in his own imagination.