The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-07-08

tracted condition the new fiedged mono
metalhsts ask Us 10 declare for 2 gold
standard and TO wait for relief upon
some ghostly dream OF an international
agreement.
WHOM IT PROFITS.
But the people now do well know that
the conspiracy of European monarchs.
led by Great Britain, has purpose Of ag-
gressiveness and subvension in the war
upon this country With their credit,
they seek 10 enhance the purchasing
power Of thousands and millions which
IS owing to them all over the world.
and which you owe 10 them. They draw
upon the United States Of America for
food supplies, wheat, corn, oil, cotton,
lead and other leading staples and they
SEEK 20 get them for the least money.
Besides this. Great Britain has gold
mines in South Africa and South Aneri-
ca, and by closing the silver mines has
generally enhanced their products and
their values. Recent British aggression
in Venezuela and in the settlements of
South America was moved by the desire
to possess more OF these gold mines.
and by monopolizing the metal as far
as practicable. 10 assert British COM
rnercial supremacy over the world
THE NATION NOT FREE.
No nation calls itself free and indie
pendent that is not great enough TO es-
tablish and maintain financial system
Of its own. Great applause.) To pre-
tend that this, the foremost, richest,
and most powerful nation of the world,
cannot coin its own money without su-
ing for an international agreement with
The courts OF European autocrats who
have none but the primary interests 10
serve, has for many years been held out
at every presidential election. They
have made such an agreement and foil
ed it afterwards, and we have never in
ali our history had an international
agreement upon the money system and
none Of the founders of this republic
ever dreamed that such an agreement
was essential. We have had information
al conferences in order TO obtain il, and
to wait longer upon them is to ignore
our own people, degrade our national
dignity and advertise TO all mankind
our impotence and our folly. The con-
cession that comes from the gold stand
ard men Of all Europe for the restora-
ton of the double standard is the only
solution of the financial difficulties we
can find in the outlook before us. The
declaration of the English preYier and
the French president and the Russian
government which have recently been
expressed, shows that if it succeeds at
all. it will succeed against the sinister
power of autocracy which has been US
ed against u.s.
MUST FREE THEMSELVES.
An international agreement for the
restoration of the metals TO an equality
Ia of iplh
would enable us to regulate the value
of money and bring the two metals up
on a parity. Alexander Hamilton, the
great secretary of the treasury under
Washington understood this question.
He framed the first financial act of this
country, which was passed in 1892, fix
ing the unity Of our currency upon both
metals, for a double reason; first, that
to exclude one would reduce 1t 10 q
mere merchandise, and the other that il
would involve the difference between a
Scanty and a full circulation. Thomas
Jefferson knew this when he endorsed
the work of Hamilton and George Wash
1ngton knew this when he approved it.
Daniel Webster knew this when he de-
clared that silver and gold are the le-
gal standards, and that neither congress
nor any state has the right 10 eStab-
lish any other standard or to displace
this one. General Grant knew this
when he looked to silver as a resource
Of payment, and found to his astOnish-
ment that a Republican congress had
demonetiZed it and that he himself had
signed it. The whole United States
knows this and they know also that if
they would free themselves. they must
strike the blow. (Cheers.)
FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE.
The majority of the convention have
the honor to represent maintain that
this great American nation with a ma
tural base of fixed empire, the greatest
ever established by man, with more
territory and more productive energy
than Great Britain. France and Ger
many combined, without dependence up
on European nations for anything they
produce, and with European nations
dependent upon much we produce. is
fully capable of restoring this constitu-
tiOnal money system of gold and silver
at an equality with each other CAP
plause) and as our fathers in l776 de-
clared our national independence of all
the world, so today has the great Dem
ocratic party, founded by Thomas JEFF
ferson, the author of that declaration,
appeared here in Chicago to declare
the financial independence of the Unit
ed States of all the other nations and to
invoke all true Americans TO assert by
their SURFACES at the polls that our
country may he placed where she by
right belongs, az the free and the fore
most, as the most prosperous and hap
piest nation that ever blessed the life of
mankind upon this globe.