Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1896-08-21

q
and another gold loan is now seen to be newt
able before the year closes. Does anyone sup
pose that the Mckinley nostrum, high protec-
ton, is going to enable the greatest debtor ma
ton on earth to pay her foreign debts without
shipping gold, when her staple exports, wheat,
cotton, copper and silver are selling as to-day
at half prices?
The present depreciation of the currencies of
nine-tcnths of the world, in stimulating the ex-
ports of all those countries, has destroyed the
balance of trade for America. A great rise in
the price of silver would certainly reduce the
gold premium in Russia and South America,
thereby restoring to the United States that bal
ance of exports over imports without which she
must continue to be insolvent. 1t is not ques-
ton of restoring to her credit-her ability
merely to borrow more it is a question of re-
storing the prices of what she sells in the Eu-
ropean markets.
May add in conclusion, that to any student
of American politics, it is impossible to con-
template without dislnay the attitude of our
press, when considering that price catastrophe
which has submurged the industries of our
largest debtor, and which is goading to desper-
alton whole groups of states to westward of the
Aleghanies ? The events of the next four
months destined to influence profoundly,
for good or for evil, the future relations of Eng
land and the United States. The party of ''hon-
est money! is op- My boasting that it will win
the day by the most reckless and dishonest
Tn, he NJ
the biggest "barrel" ever known will be so
filled as to buy up Democrats by the
wholesale at the primaries. If the nation's
will is to be thwarted in this by the lavish en-
ployment of what the provincial American
press always earmarks as British gold, no pres
ent settlement of the Venezuelan question will
long delay war. If nothing but the stress
and strain of war is held by financial purists to
justify suspension of specie payments, we
may rely on it that in the present temper of
millions of American citizens preteXt for war
will be discovered A Western Democrat
wrote to ME recently "We cannot shell the
usurers out of Wall street, but possibly we can
bring British gun-boats to do the work we can
not do"
Can any man in his senses fail to notice in
in such tone and temper as that displayed
at Chicago, coming as it does from the
heart of nation not less law-abiding
than ourselves, the condition of desperate
disease | have known Mr.. Bryan for
some years. He is young man of most at
tractive presence and brilliant qualities he
feels what young America feels and resents,
that the prosperity, the dignity and the credit
of the United States have suffered with every
act of Mr.. Cleveland's administration. Indeed,
the entire American nation, through four years
of crisis, has been looking for a cause adequate
to such widespread disaster May not the Dem
ocrats be right ? May it not be in the unprec-
edented cheapness of silver ? Surely cheap
silver for 500 millions in the East must cheaper
men and women in the West and we have
that the collapse of the prairie states since
1893 had gone hand in hand with the collapse