Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1896-12-16
SILVER A LIVE ISSUE.
DEMONSTRATION IS A NAT
TER OF TIME.
No Decline In the Price of sIIver-Gold
Has Appreciated in Value and win
Continue to Appreciate Under the
Present System.

From the Silver Knight and Nation
al WRtchman.-In the name of "hon-
esty" proclaimed by numberless power
tul newspapers owned by or controlled
In the interests of plutocracy, and by
thousands of their paid attorneys, the
most gigantic act spoilation ever at
tempted, is by the vote of the people
on November 3 been apparently rati-
ned. and by means most dishonest and
dlscreditable; vote of people as an
! tagonistic to each other as political life
can anywhere show, was secured to
perpetuate the wrong. Once more the
silver question is pronounced dead"
by large class whose wishes have
been father to the thought 10 these
many years.
We say apparently, for we feel sure
tnat vast body of the vote cast for
Major Mckinley are ardent bimetallists
today. He would be indeed an ig-
! norant man who assumes this verdict
/ at the polls to be a sanction of the
monstrous OPPRESSION of the sole gold
standard. Those Republico-D Democrats
who put out the Indianapolis ticket
were the only ones who declared out
and out for the gold standard, and
even their leaders at the Chicago con-
Vention endeavored to secure a declara-
ton In the platform declaring for in
ternational bimetallism. and the great
| body OF them voted for the candidate
VINO represented that idea, even while
hating him as the embodiment of Nc
kinleyism, which they fought with un-
Quenchable hatred in 1892. Quite ma
turally the gold-standard men on both
sides OF the ocean regard it as an in
ternatlonal victory. Mr.. Cleveland
and his supporters, with Baron Roths-
child and his observation-disclosures, re-
Joice in the defeat of democracy, when
for the first time in generation it be-
came truly democratic by contesting
for government Of the people and for
the people, instead of government of
corporations and of class interests for
class interests.
The deception of voters, the out
rageous abuse of those engaged in the
great popular movement for reform,
the lavish use Of money, the coercion
OF wage-earners by employers, and of
debtors by banks and other creditors,
the locking up of money, and the public
threats Of an awful panic sure to follow
If Bryan was elected; and the creation
OF condition nearly equal to a real
panic, furnishes an object lesson for
the American people. They can now
realize fully the power that confronted
them. Another object lesson we have
In the international congratulation eX-
tended by the class which has con-
verified Europe into an armed camp not
so much for national defense as it is
to keep the people down; as Senator
Teller said in the senate.
The vital question was utterly ig-
nored, and in it's place we had sur
felt Of senseles jasrgon about Sound"
money and the rank dishonesty of the
money the people were daily using; flor
about the only money in circulation
during the campaign was silver. and
silver certificates wrenched from our
opponents by the Bland, Allison. and
the Sherman acts)
The one vital fact so aptly stated in
the now historic phrase Of Hon. T. B.
Reed, that we were confronted by a
struggle for industrial supremacy "be-
tween the yellow races using the white
metal ard the white races using the
yellow metal" which to-day threatens
all western civilization, was ignored
totally. So was the grave danger of
false coinage, going on constantly and
increasingly as the gold price of silver
falls. This danger was so grave even
when silver bars sold at Aid. per ounce
about "a cents that one of the ablest
members of the late British Royal Com
mission on gold and silver in a separ-
ate paper called attention to it. How
much greater the danger when silver
fell from Aid. to BOD. per ounce the fire.
Quent arrests of the counterfeiters at
tests
Blind to all arguments, intent only
in successfully putting down the people
and defeating their aspirations fol-
larger opportunity for advancement
that class now wantonly boasts that il
is vote of the people for the gold
standard, and that the silver craze is
dead" With Haunting banners in
scribed Mckinley and prosperity
what will be the next verdict of q
great people in 1898, when they find
that they have been deceived?
With decreased revenues caused by
the curtailed consumption of the pro-
ducts of our own mills and factories as
well as of imported goods. The natu.
raj result of the impoverishment of the
people, and more particularly of those
engaged in agriculture, who supply al
food and clothing products, what car
be thought of the proposed remedies:
Higher protective duties, intended tt
hold our markets for home production
must lower the revenues by lessened
importation. 1t cannot stay the intense
competition of silver standard coun.
tries, fostered by an increasing bounty
In exchange as gold appreciates; in
other words, as silver falls, for they
are co-relative terms.
Judging from the source of the inter.
national congratulations upon the re
cent victory" there is little ground t.
hope for any international agreement
to rehabilitate silver. At this critica
period, when the Russian empire i:
about to determine upon it's course re
gardfng the gold standard, and wher
the silver standard countries are slim
ulated into the use of western inven
tons and methods, it seems peculiarl,