Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-03-21
HARD UP FOR ARGUMENT.

"the slow moving finger of scorn."
The godbug who tries to make capital
against bimetallism by comparing silver
with the paper money of the Confederate
states is poorer in argument than in
legal tender quality is the pitiful souvenir
of our loved and lost republic.
Sad relic of glory-hallowed times!
Representing nothing on Gods earth?"
As far as money is concerned it repre-
sents nothing indeed; but few persons
capacitated to fill Office acceptably need
to be advised as to what would have
been the value of the paper notes of the
Confederate states had their cause
triumphed.
The young financial leader must sooner
or later realize that he is treading over
sacred ground only to build upon sand
an edifice of argument which the slight
est wind of common sense will blow to
destruction, and which, unliseGonfeder-
ate money, will be without a single re-
deeming memory.
Yes; what if the Confederate states had
succeeded? Grant it for arguments
sake. Would not the pretended sympathy
of the gold standard British government
have won our young republic over to the
same financial system? We have not
the slightest doubt that thoughtful Eng
lsh leaders entertained that idea in con-
templating a possible victory for the
south. The Confederate states, then,
ha wing adopted the single gold standard
mainly upon the now old familiar excuse
that we were not a silver producing
country and that our great cotton staple
would always fetch gold, what would
have been the result? Is there thought
full peruser of this suggestion who can
escape the conviction that we would have
become even more than we now are hew-
ers of wood and drawers of water for the
gold barons of Lombard street? They
would have lost no means, foul or fair,
to render nugatory the sense of the con-
stitution as to legal tender currency and
to hasten us to the decentralization and
degradation of silver
1t is stock argument of goldbugs that
for many years the drift of conviction
upon sound money principles has been
to the single gold standard, that the
adoption of that policy by the leading
ma lions was simply inevitable. So, the
supposed successful Confederate states,
just as the actual triumphant United
States however innocent and unsuspect-
ing, would have been drawn into the out
rageous conspiracy against humanity to
break the commercial parity and sub
stantially to depreciate silver SO that 1t
has become byword for every ground
ling simpleton to deride as he explains
with stupendous gravity, Il am a sound
money man.
But to revert to the flatulent fiasco of
argument that talks about Con-
federate paper notes in connection with
the question of bimetallsm-two met
allism nd-silver-metallism - for
money. A medium of exchange, meas
ure of values, a thing representing val
ue, is what money is. That is what the
legal tender currency of the United
States is. Confederate money possesses
no such money quality it is not money.
But when its recognized government was
in armed conflict with the United States
Confederate notes varied in value with
the changing fortunes of war just as
did the notes of the United States. 1t
is simply the poorest article of twaddle
to talk of Confederate money and the
money of the United States in the same
breath and connection.
But thank God for this great union of
states! For their marvellous diversif-
cation of production, not only of all else
that is needed to make a people pre-
eminently powerful, but for their gold
and silver mines and their people of the
north east. south and west, who are de-
termned to restore silver to it's right
full place as primary money by the side
fathers of the government when they de-
clared in the organic law of the land that
no state should make anything legal ten
der but gold and silver!
Bimetalllsm is the cause of humanity.
1t is going to win in these United States
and prevail with all the nations of the
earth as certainly as that principles of
truth, justice and liberty are unchange-
able by any fortune of politics. 1t may
come peacefully by the ballot. 1t may
come only after a cataclysm of govern
mental institutions, but come it will as
certainly as the sun shines and God lives.
Money is the root of all evil" said the
Sacred Writ. Bimetallism is a check up
on it's power for harm; it is the nearest
means we poor mortals know by which
to curb the appetite for gain and to re-
strain the passions for accumulation that
are corrupting the fountains of civil
liza ton. A general realization that some
thing must be done to stop these evil
tendencies of the times is inevitable and
must prevail. The people will have been
thoroughly taught by long course in
the school of affection, which will give
them better financial education than tho
combined adjustjble and reversible learn
ing of all the John Shermans, John Car
isles and John Bulls who ever warped
the living truth to vain and veering in
terests of self
But whoop up the war dance! Let
merry hades be unconfnedl This old
world IS grim enough at any stage of the
game. While the young gold standard
barons around us are talking sound
money and 50-cent dollars let us be con-
soled as was sweet Will Shakespeare
when he said:
Il had rather have fool to make me
merry
Than experience to make me sad"
. =
A DISASTROUS RECORD,