Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1896-07-17

mess, this folly has further depressed II
Instead of increasing wages. this polio
has further decreased them. Instead o
multiplying opportunities for employment
this policy has multiplied idlers. INSTEAD
of Increasing the prices of our produce
this policy has lowered them, 1t is est
mated, about 80 per cent in % years. In
stead of restoring confidence, this polio,
has banished confidence. Instead o
bringing relief, 1t has brought years o.
misery. and for this reason 1t has con
tracted the currency of the United Stale.
81 head for every man, woman anc
child since November /. 1893; and with
| this vast aggregate contraction the price
| of land and manufactured goods and al
| kinds of agricultural and mechani "a
| produce has fallen, but taxes and DEBTS
! have grown in burden: while. on the
other hand the means of their liquida; zion
have been diminished. In the meantime
gentlemen, the commercial failures of this
nation and dividends on bank stocks have
shrunk. three-fourths of the railway mile
age In the United States is now in the
hands of receivers, and the country has
received a shock from which II will take
years to recover Yet in this distressed
and contracted condition new-hedged
monometallists ask us to declare for the
gold standard and wait for relief upon
some ghostly dream of international
agreement. But the people now do well
know that a conspiracy OF European mon
archs. led by Great Britain, has purposes
of ACKNOWLEDGMENT to subserve in the war
upon American silver money and stand in
the way of such agreement. With their
credit they seek to enhance the purchas-
ing power of thousands of millions which
is owing them all over the world and
which you owe them. They draw upon
the United States of America for their
food supplies and raw material. wheat,
corn. oil, cotton, iron. lead and other like
staples, and seek and get 1t for the least
money. Besides this, Great Britain has
large gold mines in South Africa and
South America, and by closing the silver
mines has greatly enhanced their produc-
ton and their values. The recent Brit
ish aggression in Venezuela and in the
settlements of South America was moved
by the desire to possess more of these
gold mines by monopolizing the metal as
far as possible to assert British CONNER
Cal supremacy over the world.
mo 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 mat this, the foremost.
richest and most powerful nation in the
world, can not coin its own money with
out suing for international agreement
at the courts of Europe, autocrats VINO
serve, has for many years been held out
at every presidential election. They have
made use of such an agreement and have
fooled 1t afterwards and we never in all
our history had an international agree
ment upon the money system and none of
the founders of this republic ever claim
ed such an agreement was essential. We
have had three international conferences
in order to obtain it and to wait longer
10 to ha into of
our own people and degrade our national
dignity and to advertise TO all mankind
our impotency and our folly. A conces
sion that comes from the gold standard
men of all Europe for the restoration of
the double standard is the only solution
of the financial difficulties that we can
find in the outlook before us The declar
ations OF the English premier and French
minister and the Russian government.
which have recently been expressed,
shows that If it succeeds at all it will sue
coed against the monster power of the
autocracy which has been used against
1t. An International agreement for the
restoration of the metals to equality
would be a bond of mankind which
would enable us to regulate the value of
money and bring the two metals upon
parity. Alexander Hamilton. the great
secretary of the treasury under Wash
ington, 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 double reasons-first, that to
exclude one would reduce 1t to mere
merchandise. and the other that it would
involve difference between scanty and
fun circulation. Thomas Jefferson
knew this when he Endorsed the work
of Hamilton and George Washington
knew this when he approved it, Daniel
Webster knew this when he declared that
silver and gold are the legal standards
and that neither congress nor any state
has the right to establish any other
standard or displace this one. General
Grant knew this when he looked to silver
as a source of payment and found to
his establishment that the republican con-
grcss had demonetized it and he him
self had unwittingly signed the bill. The
whole United States now know this and
they know also that if they would free
themselves they must strike the blow
(CheerS.)
THE majority OF this convention have
the honor here to represent and main
tain this great American nation, the nat
ural base of a fixed empire, the great
est ever established by mankind. with
more territory and more productive en-
ergy than Great Britain, France and
Germany combined. without dependence
upon European nations for anything that
they produce. and with the European ma
tons dependent much upon what we pro-
duce, is fully capable of restoring this
constitutional money system of gold
and silver at an equality with each
other, (aplausel and as our fathers in
1916 declared. our national independence
of all the world, so today has the great
democratic party, founded by jefferson.
the author of that declaration, appeared
here in Chicago to declare the financial
independence of the United States of all
other nations and invoke all true Amer
leans to assert by their suffrages at tina
polls that our country may be placed
where she belongs by right. as the freest
and foremost. the most prosperous and
the EIppiest nation that ever blessed The
life of mankind upon this globe
THE WORK OF THE CONVENTION
Time Was Not Lost. and strong