Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1896-08-14
RANK INJUSTICE.
Blaine's Speech In the Senate Car
bled by Democrats.

The country popOcrat press are giving
circulation to the following, which pur-
ports 60 be taken from speech delivered
by James c. Blaine in the United States
senate III 1880, and Brother Chase of the
Journal, Ithaca, considers il of such
weight that he keeps it standing in his
columns:
Il believe the struggle now going on in
this country and in other countries for a
single gold standard would, if successful,
produce widespread disaster in and
throughout the commercial world. The
destruction of silver us money and es-
tablishing gold as the sole unit of value
must have a ruinous effect upon all forms
of property except those investments
which yield fixed return in money.
Those would be enormously enhanced in
value and would gain Il disproportionate
and unfair advantage over every other
species Of property. IT, as the most
reliable statistics affirm, there are
81 ,000, 900, 900 of coin or bullion in the
world, very equally divided between gold
and silver, it is impossible to strike silver
out of existence as money without re-
suits that will prove distressing to mil
lions, utterly disastrous TO tens of thous-
Ands.
| believe gold and silver to be the
money Of the constitution; indeed, the
money of the American people anterior
TO the constitution, which the great or
ganic law recognized as quite indepen-
dent of its own existence. No power was
| conferred on congress TO declare either
metal should not be money Congress
has, therefore, in my judgment, no
power to demonetize either. If, there
fore, silver has been demonetized, | am
in favor of ordering it resumed. | am
in favor of having it enlarged"
This piece of ingenious garbling,
whore two paragraphs of the same
speech are removed from their context
tackled together III a way that entirely
misrepresents Mr. Blaine's argument, is
entirely worthy of IA party that seeks to
inveigle the American people into the
adoption of a debased and uncertain
monetary system. 1t is equivalent to
the crime of forgery, for its object is to
make the people believe that Mr. Blaine
was in favor of free coinage at the ratio
of Is TO /, when in fact he was utterly
opposed to any such proposition.
If any person should do what these
newspapers are doing and deceive others
by extracts such as these and get money |
out of them, the crime would be punish |
able by Imprisonment in the peniten-
tiary
The speech from which these extracts |
are taken was delivered, not in 1850, but |
in February, 1875 when the Bland Ali |
son bill was before the senate.
The opening paragraph of Mr.. Blainc's |
argument was the second paragraph Of !
the above extract, commencing, Il be |
lieve gold and silver to be the money |
of the constitution In support of his |
further statement that congress has 10 |
power to demonetizc either metal, he
quotes from Daniel Wcbster-which is
left out by the garbleis-as follows:
&" i am certainly of opinion said Mr..
Webster, that gold and silver, at rates
fixed 10y congress, constitute the legal
standard value in this country aud |
that neither congress nor any state has
authority to establish any other stanC-
ard or TO displace this standard.
Why did the garblers omit this: Be
cause it contains the words Eat rates
fixed by congress" This means that the
commercial ratio of the two metals are
TO be considered, and that is the precise
thing that the silverites of today do not
wish to have considered They insist on
a legal ratio of Is 10 ! when the COM
mercial ratio is 81 to /. Mr.. Blaine was
utterly opposed to them Oh this pont, as
will be shown.
The first paragraph of the above eX-
tract occurs much later i'll the speech,
when Mr.. Blaine is discussing the qucs-
ton of bimetallism. He desires TO see
bimetallism restored the world over, and
this part of his speech is an argument
for international bmetallism. The par
agraph standing alone entirely misrepre-
sents his views, as may be seen by Il
passage in Il preceding part Of the speech,
in which he declares it is not safe nor
expedient for congress to offer free coin
age to the silver dollars of 412la grains
with the minis of the Latin union closed
and Germany not permitting silver to
be coined as money. He then says:
"At current rates of silver the free
coinage of Il dollar containing 4l2'a
grains, worth III gold about 70 cents,
gives an illcgitimate profit to the owner
of the bullion, enabling him to take %
- -. h, ,,,,tu |