Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1896-10-29
SHEPHERDsTowN, W. VA,
October -. 1896.

various bearings III tIIS NolA4 ll"'o 81; "'-'
YOU hear a farmer in a farmers cause ?
As a class, we have been denounced
by some of the defenders of monomet-
aIism as too dull Of comprehension to
fathom the depths of the monetary
science or the intricacies of the bank
ing system, and as anarchists ready to
defy and break the laws Of our country
deny the charge, and challenge
the proof as to the latter. While am
free to confess that many Of US may
be unable to fathom the intrigues Of
the monetary system as practced un-
der our government in this country.
can You show me any other class of
people in this country that have been
more law abiding and patient under se-
we're trials of bad laws and oppressive
taxation than the farmers and the la
borers in their employ throughout the
agricultural districts?
This class of the producers and the
other laborers constitute the great
body of the people, who are now, under
a term ofreproach, classed as populists.
l admit that it was a mistake on the
part of the people, when the Democrat
ic party failed to reverse the Sherman
policy, as was promised in the plat
form of 1892, to call themselves pop
uIists. They should have organized
as body of Democrats for the reversal
of that policy that was bringing them
to ruin.
The great body Of the people of the
United States in 1892 elected a Dem
ocratic President and House by an
overwhelming majority for the purpose
Of reversing the policy adopted and
practiced by Mckinley and Sherman
under Harrison, but, when the long
cherished hopes Of the people We're
bhghted in the failure Of the govern
mcnt to reverse the Republican policy
of redeeming the greenbacks, the treas
ury notes and the silver certificates IN
gold instead of gold and silver as the
contract or the law clearly contem-
plated it broke up the Democratic
party they had seen the parity be-
tween gold and silver Established un-
der Washington by Thomas Jefferson
in 1922 Of Is $40 of the latter to one
Of the formermetal effectualIy destroy
ed by the acts of 1862, 1869, 1873
and 1898.
On the 25th, Of February, 1862 the
law creating the greenback framed by
Spaulding and passed through the
House by Thaddeus Stevens was IN
tended by those men to be a legal
tender for all dues both public and
private, but when it reached the Senate
tbe Hazard LOBBYISTS were there to- de-
feat the bill unless an exception was
made in favor of gold in the discharge
of the interest upon the public debt.
This exception in the bill, all intelH-
gent farmers and fnanciers know, was
the entering wedge that parted the
parity between gold and silver, which
had been so successfully in operation
in the United States from 1892 to 1862
and under which, and under Demo
cratic administration, all the public do
main added to the thirteen original
States Except Alaska) were added.
Is it to be supposed that the act oi
1869, passed under the pretezt o.
strengthening the public credit abroad
by changing the principal of thepubIic
debt which was payable in the curren-
cy Of the United States, either in gold
silver or paper, and which had been
sold at such a large discount, into gold
bonds, is to be passed by in silence?
These acts, by depriving silver Of the
ability to pay any part of the interest
or the principal Of the public debt il
that metal, destroyed the demand fol
silver to that amount. The act of187s
that has no patron to father it, and nc
party willing or able to defend it, in
conjunction with the acts of 1862 and
1869. as well as that Of 1898, or the
act repeating the purchasing Of the
Sherman bill of 1890, all passed by the
Congress of the greatest silver prOduc-
ing nation in the world and all tn:
legislation, prejudicial to the use Of
silver, except the repealing Of the pur-
chasing clause of the Sherman act, was
exacted while silver was at premium
while all the civilized commercial na-
tions of the world were watching with
breathless anxiety the ultimate result
of this legislation, knowing that it must
affect their interests, was it any wonder
that the price of silver bullion went
down In the markets ?
This was the cause of the fall in the
price of silver which sent it down tc
ffty-three cents in the dollar, and Oul