The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1896-08-29

low projects OF the Democratic anu 4 oPu-
list platforms be realized -.
coinage friends here that other nations
have done this. And there are many good
people who believe that France Is doing
II, and that the Latin union-so-cailej-is
doing II. Now, i would like to know why
they can't tell the entire truth about TINS
matter. Let us not deceive each ctber
and let nobody deceive us. The Latin
union is composed of France. Belgium,
Italy, Switzerland and Greece. Ii was
formed In 1865 by treaty between those
powers, whereby each agreed until the
year 1880 to take the coins of the ether
powers ut the ratio of 151a to ].
But Germany demonetzed silver; she
had ceased to coin il. and so, in 1873.
those great nations, headed by France
1.-THE most cientifcally-governed country
in the world. and the one which has the
most accurate financial ideasl, l say those
countries, after Germany had" demone-
tized silver in 1873. limited their silver
coinage, and by 1876 they suspended 1t
entirely. They, those great European
nations-France. the strongest monetary
nation in the world. with her allies-un-
dertook with all their power to. do pre-
cisely what the free coiners of the Unit
ed States are asking this government
to undertake in the light of such con-
spicuous failures of other nations.
Invariable Standards Needed.
| Now. everybody admts-I think the
most rampant free-coiner declaimcr
would admit-that the money unit should
remain as nearly invariable as possible.
Now. l say gold has so remained. Sill
yer has fallen commercially like other
articles. This is denied. They say sill
yer has not fallen, that gold has risen;
Now, that is the way you look at It.
You can look at 1t through the deluding
glass of idcalism. and 1t may appear that
way, but 1t is an optical illusion. Now
let me put an illustration from nature.
| The waters of Lake Superior, that great
inland sea which floats so much of our
commerce and is such an element in our
prosperity. have for many years been
| falling. until now they are lower than
| they have been Mt any time for fifty
| years. and everything on their surface
| has fallen. The waters of Lake Supe-
rior. like the universal. spread-out plane
| of humanity. bearing everything upon its
| surface-those waters bear the fleets.
| vessels and craft of all kinds. and YES
sells and craft and fleets of all kinds have
| fallen with the water. What would you
think of man standing on the deck of
one of those vessels saying This YES
sci has not fallen; this vessel stands just
| where il did. but the universal shore of
Lake Superior has risenT Laughter
| and applause.l
Now. say. my friends. that since the
Latin union, from 1873 to 1876. aban-
doned free coinage, there has existed in
| the only practical bimetallism. Let me
repeat this. / feel that l cannot bear il
into your minds too often or too urgently
that these nations. including ours, are
the only nations on the face of the earth
that have any bimctallism whatever.
And why? Because they went to the
danger, line. as we. went. and then
stopped. IApplausel The universal
teaching of history demonstrated that
there was dead line. beyond which
silver could not ho pressed without the
immediate humiliation of it's companion.
gold, as a useful. working money med-
um. And when any man gets up and
dreams apd soliloGuizes and philosophers
before me and tells me he knows il won't
be so If we try where others failed, I
tell him that an ounce of fact is worth
ton of theory. and that something bod-
~ is worth a million of disemboded
ghosts. lApplause.1
What is Ratio:
And yet these gentlemen favor. in the
face of these historical examples and
warnings. that the United States shall
make the unit of coinage the silver dol
lar ut the ratio of 16 to !.
Now, what is ratioi 1t is not SIG to
81. as some people claim. Q.aughter)
Ratio means this: That there shall be
sixteen times more silver in weight in n
silver dollar than there is weight of gold
in gold dollar. Or. to put the definition
in another form, that sixteen ounces Of
silver. when coined, shall be the equiva-
lent of one ounce of gold when coined.
When gold measured by silver is worth
SIG per ounce. no disparity in value can
exist; but when measured by silver the
ounce of gold is worth SCI an ounce com
mercially, disparity results. Such il the
..np1itian
men assert that IL will be no such thing
in case legislative fiat endeavors to make
two and two five instead of the old
fashioned result, two and two four
The trouble is that our friends have
confused the ratio of weight with the
ratio of value and are trying to confuse
the people with it. The ratio of weight
and the ratio of value were once the
same, but they have changed. They
changed more than thirty years ago.
Other nations saw il and obeyed the i'm
perial behest of that change before we
did, and the ratio is now throughout
the world 30, or about 81. to /.
Now say that no legislative fat what
eyer-it does not lie in the power of man
Il was about to say something more ex-
IRENE than that, which it would not be
proper to say)--it does not lie in the
power of man to enact that given di-
mension. volume or capacity shall be a
hairs breadth greater than the laws of
the Almighty have fixed it from the be-
ginning. (Applause)
1t is necessary that the ntio or propor-
ton of value should be invariable. Ii, is
necessary for the production of the thing
itself called money, speaking of il in its
great volume. as the volume of money i'm
the United States. We see annlogies
everywhere; we see an analogy in nature.
Take the air we breathe. 1t Is com.
pound substance, made up from oxygen
and nitrogen at the ratio of about a
to %. and while this ratio lasts it is from
it we all draw our lives and have our
being. But charge to any material de-
gree and. instead of being the vital, life
giving air, it becomes a deadly and de-
structive miasma.
But the free-coners assert that unlim-
tied coinage of silver will restore il 10 n
parity with gold. 1t has been tried by
many nations of tn world. Has il done
il in single instance? Not one. They
said the same thing when Congress
passed the Sherman act of 1890. They
said buy of us freely 100000 ounces a
month. or 54,OOO,O00 ounces year, and
you will see that silver will go up to
$1.29 an ounce Immediately. In the face
of clamor, in doubt as to what might be
the result. in WILLINGNESS, Ut went too
I