Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1896-10-02
THEN AND NOW.
SOME TESTIMONY BY PRESENT
OPPONENTS OF SILVER.

SOME TESTIMONY BY PRESENT
! OPPONENTS OF SILVER.
son What n Tangled Web We
Weave,
When Fer We Practice TO Deceive.,,
1t is astounding to review the former
position Of many who are now the
most energetic advocates of the gold
standard. 1t fills one with sorrow for
poor frail humanity, to contemplate
the effect which the innate selfshness
OF human nature sometimes produces
even upon men OF acknowledged abil.
ity.
Here is what the golden calf of Re-
publicanism, Mckinley, said of Cleve-
land, in a speech at Toledo, Feb.
18th, 1891:
During all of Grover Cleveland's years
at the head of the Government he was
dishonoring one of our precious metals,
one of our own great products, discredit-
ing silver and enhancing the price of
gold. He endeavored even before his
inauguration to Office, to stop the coin
age of silver dollars, and afterward, and
to the end OF his Administration, per-
sistently used his power to that end.
He was determined to contract the
circulating medium and to demonetize
one of the coins of commerce, limit the
volume of money among the people,
make money scarce and therefore dear.
He would have increased the value
of money and diminished the value of
everything else-money the master
everything else the servant. lie was
not thinking of the poor then. He had
left their side He was not standing
forth in their defense. Cheap coats,
cheap labor and dear money. The spon-
sor and promoter of these protesting to
stand guard over the welfare OF the poor
and lowly! Was there ever more incon-
sistency or reckless assumption?
Here is what John Sherman said
April l1th, 1876, when imbued with
the spirit of prophecy:
The utter ruin that would come to
mankind, especially to the poorer ma
tions, by the entire decentralization of
silver cannot be estimated by us. Take
one-half Of the solid money Of the world
out of existence, take the sole standard
of more than two-thirds of the human
race, reduce it to base metal, and the
effect upon the commerce of the world
would be incalculable. 1t cannot be
done; it will not be done. These two
metals have travelled side by side since
the beginning of time. The records OF
human history do not go back to time
when they did not move together.
They have varied in value, sometimes
one and sometimes the other being
higher; but they have gone on, gold the
money of the rich, silver the money of
the poor; the one to measure acquired
wealth, the other to measure the daily
necessities of life; and, sir no act Of par
Lament, although it may disturb for a
moment the relations of these two met
ais to each other, nothing but the act of
God can destroy the use of both of them
by mankind.
Then John &. Carlisle was honest
when, in February. 1887, he declared:
According to my view of the subject
the conspiracy which seems to have
been formed here and in Europe to de-
stroy by legislation and otherwise from
three-sevenths to one-half of the metallic
money of the world is the most gigantic
crime of this or any other age.
The contamination of such scheme
would ultimately entail more misery
upon the human race than all the wars,
pestilence and famine that have ever
occurred in the history of the world.
The absolute and instantaneous destrue-
ton OF half the movable property of the
world. including horses, ships. railroads
and all other appliances for carrying on
commerce, while it would be felt more
sensibly at the moment, would not pro-
duce anything like the prolonged distress
and dlsoTganization of society that must
inevitably result from the permanent an
Inhalation of one-half of the metallic
money OF the world.
Banker George A. Story, OF San
Francisco, adds his testimony in an
article published in the Overland
Monthly of last July:
They say that the so-called "silver
craze" of the West is an effort on the
part of the debtor to pay his debt in a
deprecated money. Do they really
think SO? Does it never occur to them
that the debtor may be honestly anx-
ious to pay his gold debt in gold, and
merely wishes the gold cheaper to aid
him in so doing, and that denying him
that aid may force him to repudiate all
his debt and surrender the property he
has pledged, which cannot be made to
pay interest in the vastly appreciated
money in which the debt was contracted.
Even Baron Rothschild, in an ex-
preston placed before the French
Monetary Commission in 1869 said:
The simultaneous employment of the
two precious metals is satisfactory and
gives rise to no complaint, whether gold
or silver dominates for the time being.
1t is always true that the two metals
concur together in forming the monetary
circulation of the world, and it is the
general mass of the two metals COM
bined which serves as the measure Of
value of things. The suppression Of sill
yer would be veritable destruction Of
values without any compensation.
Irving NJ. Scott, in ON able article
in the Overland for July, gave as. the
cause for hard times these reasons:
Had both silver and gold been demon
etized in 1873, it is quite likely that, at
] present, the commercial ratio of silver to
gold would be l6 to l, or less.
They do not disprove, nor tend to dis
prove the fact that money-legal tender