Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1896-08-08
The neonle at LARGE are withou

| HE uaiiic money. oilNof iI'bo oOoii 1'o
monetized, and no gold circulatess
among them. 1t is engrossed and
held fast by syndicates. The coins
of gold will not bear handling by the
people at large. They lose too
heavily by abrasion to be used as
currency. The government keeps
one hundred millions of gold syndl-
Gated in Washington. The law gives
it the option to pay all demands upon
it either in gold or silver as it may
please The Cleveland administra-
! ton taboos silver and pays out moth
ing but gold. None are able to call
for this but the gold class; and the
demands OF these are for large sums
only. No part of the gold that is
paid them by the government finds
circulation among the people. 1t is
manipulated by the syndicates. The
government therefore keeps it almost
exclusively in the form of bars, which
do not lose by abrasion. | am in
formed that of the hundred millions
of gold held in its reserve fund by
the government, scarcely five millions
is in the form of coins. The govern
ment itself discredits its own mint
whenever these coins are demanded
by shoveling them out by weight
instead of counting them out by the
piece.
What sort of money is this for the
people? They are denied silver, and
gold coins they cannot get. These
are too precious to be handled by the
common masses. They would lose
too much by abrasion. Gold is not
for the people. 1t is for the syndi-
Gates which, by engrossing all the
metallic money OF the country, are
enabled to make the prices of all
property what they please.
The chief usefulness of silver is as
money. 1t is this use which gives
it value. 1t was the money of the
Bible. 1t has been the money of all
history. Jointly with gold, it is the
money of the American Constitution.
But after two thousand years Of con-
tinual and general use, it has been
deprived of its money function.
Modern empires and quacks call it
unsound money. By characterization
in Europe and America it has lost q
large part of its value as metal, but
for the fact it is still the money of
twelve hundred millions OF the
worlds population, which is fifteen
hundred and fifty millions, it would
sink to the value of iron or copper,
and be used only in the arts. Re
monetize silver, restore it to It's
historical and God-given function in
this country and it would at once re-
sumo its money value and become
again, what it was for hundred
years before 1873 at Il premium over
gold on the ratio long adhered to III
the coinage of the two metals. Before
1878, the farmer could buy the gold
dollar with 5 pecks of wheat. Now
he must pay eight pecks for the
midget coin. The case is the sane
with cotton and with all material
property. The fifty cent silver dol
| lar is the butt Of sneers, but we hear
nothing of the sixty cent bushel OF
ton or of land sunk to half price and
hard to sell for that. The prices OF
these range themselves with silver,
the money of the people, whose
property of all sorts will buy as much
silver as before 1873 and no more.
Why should not silver be still the
peoples money? They are thinking
that it should be, and will soon have
silver remonetized for their own use.
The gold class have contrived TO
double the value of gold, and to
make that metal the standard of all
values; and when the farmer asks
when he shall again receive the ac-
customed dollar and quarter for his
wheat; and the planter when again
his cotton will bring him fifteen 10
twenty cents-they answer with the
refrain OF Poes Raven, "Nevermore,
| Neyermore.
America, the United States in large
part. produces nearly all of the silver
used in the world. That metal by
our fatuus characterization of it COM
mands price only as merchandise.
Like wheat and cotton its dollar
becomes, as bullion, the fifty cents
dollar lust as wheat becomes sixty
cent wheat and cotton seven cents
cotton. And yet there are Ameri-
cans ignorant and silly enough to
sheer at the diminished prices OF
these three leading staple products
of their own country. Isn't it rather
a matter for shame than for sneers
The effect OF the policy of the gold
class is to deny to the people at large
all metallic money and reduce them
20 the use Of paper money eXclu-
sively. Their gold is carefully syn
dictated and silver, suddenly dis
covered, after two thousand years Of
use to be dishonest, is demonetized.
The paper money III circulation is
a. Go, ,Nnnr,lar nnO1c
and is so much used, over-used, as to
have become too filthy and ragged
for decent handling. Verify the yoke
of the gold policy is calling one. 1t
ought not to be endured and won't
be.
The people of this country happen
to be a free people. They happen to
be a very intelligent people. They
happen to be a people of unbounded
political courage; they happen TO
be the American people abundantly
capable of self government. And they
mean to abolish the money system
which is proving to be crushing
burden and curse to the land. They
will do this by their own free and
independent action. In Europe,
where there are no people, where
there is no popular thought, no Tree
dom, on freemen, no power of popular
action, and where manhood is in
ruthless chains, they cannot discard
this shirt of Nessus. And yet there
are men in the United States SO I'M
worthy of their country as to insist
that we shall not get rid of the mon
strous tyranny which Expresses us,
until Europe agrees that we shall.
worth, Franklin and Washington
Look with compassion upon the class
ridden country which you founded,
submit SUBJ tit to ao yoke more calling than
King Georges. The King was a
man, with soul to be damned, ana
body to be hanged; but syndicsted
money capital, the dynasty OF mod,
ern times" has no soul for conscience
nor breast for remorse.
The king of the London gold trust