The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-07-23
What He Said to the Free Sill
YER Convention
That Net In Music Hall, St.
Louis, Yesterday.
ONLY N. 7. BANKER
Whose High Principle and
Whose Patriotism
Drove Him From His Bank to
Strive For the People.

st. Louis, July 2S.-The following is
the speech of William P. St John of
New York made to the free silver con-
vention, on his selection as permanent
chairman of the convention:
Gentlemen of the Convention:-The
skill and efficiency of your labors in
the past have been rewarded by the
adoption of your demand for 1egiSla-
ton by two great organizations Of the
people namely: The Democracy and
the Peoples Party. If now you are
able to induce a coalition of these two
organizations for the one purpose the
desired achievement on behalf OF the
people viii ensue.
Assuming then that you will prevail
upon those patriots calling themselves
the Peoples Party to endorse the NOM
inees, Bryan and Sewall it is adVisa-
bic to warrant the desirability Of the
end in view.
It is among the first principles in
finance that the value of each dollar,
expressed in prices depends upon the
total number of dollars in circulation.
The plane of prices is high when the
number OF dollars in circulation is
greater in proportion in the number of
things to be exchanged by means of
dollars, and low when the dollars are
prOpOrtiOnately few. The plane of
prices at present and for some time
past is and has been ruinously low.
The increase of our population at about
100000 a year scattered over our i'm
exchanges and thereby demands an in
creasing number of dollars in circula-
ton The increase in the number of
dollars when dollars are confined to
gold IS not sufficiently rapid to meet
the growth of our exchanges The
consequence is a growing value of dol
lars or diminishing value of every
thing else expressed in dollars; which
is to say a tendency toward constantly
declining prices.
The fountain head of our prosperity
q al f1sa
country have endured the depression in
prices, until they get about IS or SO per
acre for an expenditure of SO per acre
and the like. Their credit at their
country store is exhausted. The coun-
try store ceases to order from the city
merchant; the city merchant reduces
his demand upon the manufacturer;
manufactures are curtailed. The con-
sequence is that employees and all ele-
ments of labor are being discharged
and wages are lowered to those who
continue in employment. The suffer-
tngs of the farmers, who constitute
nearly One-half of our people are thus
enforced upon the city merchant, the
manufacturer and all forms of labor.
These combined elements constitute
the OVerW helming majority of voters.
Their intelligent conclusion will be felt
when expressed at the polls.
The banker also is without prosper
1ty unless prosperityis general through
out the United States He must learn
to distinguish between cheap money
and money commanding a low rate of
interest The dollar worth two bush
els of wheat is a dear dollar and vet it
commands interest in Wall street at
present of but per cent per annum on
call If the dollar can be cheapened
by Increasing the number of dollars so
that each dollar will buy less wheat
the increasing price of wheat will in
crease the demand for dollars to in
vest in its production. Then the Dor
rowers of dollars to invest in the pro-
ductiOn of wheat being reasonably sure
of a profit from that employment of
the money can afford to pay interest
Tor Its use as part of his profit In
other words, interest is a share of the
prOnI on the employment of money.
For that abundant money, money read
lily Obtainable, which is to say really
cheap money, is the money which com
mands high rate of interest, as a
share of the profit of the borrower in
using it.
As we appeal to the country in the
justice of our cause, two points of COM
mon inquiry must be satisfied as fol
lows:
The experience of Mexico is held up
Tor our alarm. We answer, first, that
MEXICO IS conSpfcuously prosperous at
home. Her increase in manufactures
railway earnings and the like in recent
years is phenomenal.
Second, Mexico is no criterion for the
United States, for the reason that she
has foreign trade Indebtedness of
about S20.000,000 annually in excess of
the value of her exports of cotton
sugar, coffee, hides and the like which
must be paid for In the surplus pro-
duct of her mines. Her silver there |
fore goes abroad as merchandise and
at valuation liked by the outside
world The United States, on the other
hand, is nation of 10000, 900 of people, |
scattered over a territory seventeen
times the area Of France A single
one OF our railway systems, the Erie, |
exceeds the aggregate railway mileage
Of all Mexico. We offer an employ
ment for money to an aggregate greater !
Pc IT,
nish, hence our silver money at
home and abroad, win be valued as the |
money of the United States.
The opposition threatens US with a
flood of EurOpe's silver upon our re- |
opened minis. We answer, Europe has |
no silver but her silver money. Her
silver money values silver at from 8 |
to cents on the dollar higher than
Ourt. Hence the European mints or |
banker must sacrifice from to per /
cent or his full legal tender money in /
order to recon it at our minis Eu- |
ropes S1IVerWare, like Americas sill /
verware, carries in it the additional !
value Of labor and manufacture /
profit.
They threaten US with a flood of sill |
yer from the far east We answer |
that the course of silver is invariably /
eastward and never toward the west. /
British India is a perpetual sink of |
silver, absorbing it never to return, by /
from 80 to so million dollars worth /
every year. And India's absorption of 1
silver will be enlarged by the steadiness /
Of price tor silver fixed by our reopened
nints.
They threaten US with a sudden re-
tirement of $500 600, 600 gold, with the
accompanying panic caused by con-
traction and commercial disaster I'M
paralIeled.''
We answer that our total stock of
gold, other than about 800, 0OO, GOO and
SIS, OOO 600 circulation of the Pacific /
coast. Is already in retirement. Prac-
tically all our gold is in the United |