Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1896-09-15
J. A.. TAWNEY, M. G..


largely of ladies', assem- bled to
to listen to the discussion of po'
litical issues by Congressman
Tawney Of the 1st district at the
Opera House Thursday evening.
Mr.. Tawney is a forcible speaker
with excellent address and deliv-
cry. The ideas advanced by him
however were not so convincing
to anyone except perhaps to some
of the Republicans. He stated
that he had been requested by
Mr.. Eddy to speak to the Will
mar people. His speech while
very able, considering the
strength of his case, was a very
dextrous lawyers game in SET
ting up a man of straw and knock
ing him down with great skill.
Concurrent circulation of both
metals was his man of straw. If
both metals are treated equally
as money at a certain! legal ratio,
and endowed with the full mon
ey function it matters not to or
binary business people which one
circulates, or whether one or
both at the same time. It's only
bullion brokers that has any in
terest in keeping the fetch Of
concurrent circulation before the
people. He took a general defni-
ton from the Century dictionary,
and applied it in a specific and
technical sense. A very clever
performance.
We should however have con-
current circulation under free
coinage of silver, provided the
bullion brokers would treat both
metals alike. But we concede
that the few men that own the
gold and the gold obligations Of
the world could and probably
would gather up our gold in the
event of free coinage of silver
and export it, the same as they
do now. But under free coinage
of silver we should have silver
money to do our business with,
whereas now we must issue
bonds to buy the gold back for
money for our business.
Mr.. Tawney made the state
ment that free coinage of silver
was stopped in 1858 and that
the government bought silver for
minor coinage, and coined no
dollar pieces. He reiterated this
statement again and again.
The report of the director of
the mint of 1898, page 1856, tinan-
cial report, gives the silver coin
age and the pieces coined every
year from 1914 to 1892 This
shows that in
1871 there were coined 1,1l7.l36 dollars
1877 - 1,118,6O
So you see silver coinage was
on the increase, and that was no
doubt what scared the gold bugs
into abolishing it. Mr.. Tawney
should know enough to state
facts correctly anyhow, even if
he draw fallacious conclusions.
How increased consumption at
home could raise the price of
wheat, meat and cotton. unless
indeed we could consume all our
products and excludeimportation
by tariff, is not easy to see, as it
is we'll known the exported sur
plus determines the price of any
article. How factories will start
upin- the absence Of any market
to consume the goods is another
conundrum he failed to answer.
Another deduction from his rea-
soning is that decreasing the pur:
chasing power of money by a
coinage law was Republication and
dishonor, but decreasing the
purchasing power. Of money I'm:
creasing prices) bya tariff law
was the acme of benefcent legis.
lation. Sc. 800 ..::z = =. -.
He stated that there never had.
been bin tallism in this country
until in 1878, and since then we.
have had the best bi-me tallism
we ever had He might have.
said quad rom etalli ism, because
hayn't we a concurrent use Of
gold silver, nickle and copper?.
NotWith ding the utterances.
Of Mr.. TaWney the g. Q. de-.
clares that the existing gold.