The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-08-07
ACCEPTED WITH THANKS
MONEY AND OTHER QUESTIONS
DISCUSSED BY THE MAN FROM
MAINE.
HIS CURRENCY COMMENT cAusTIo
Reeds Wit Turned Loose ON the Alb
surdities of the Position As
sumed by Bryan.


can convention of the First district Tt
is the tenth successive term for which
Mr. Reed has been nominated In put
ting Mr.. Reed in nomination, Wilfred
U. Chapman, expressed regret that he
was not the presidential candidate of
his party. But" he said, 1--WE are
broad enough to put aside feelings of
disappointment and we are now look
ing forward to the time when Mr. Reed
will become the Republican standard
bearer and as president of the United
States, will further honor his district. y
After the nomination, Mr.. Reed was
escorted to the platform amid loud
cheering. He seemed to be consider
ably affected by the ovation. Mr.. Reed
thanked the convention for the unani-
nous nomination saying that he had
been relieved of the duty of attending
to his district and given the opportun-
ity of paying attention to the wicked
ness of the rest Of the world. Continu-
| ing. Mr.. Reed said:
1--WE, in Maine, have got to make IN our
| minds on the great issue of this campaign
and great deal depends on what we do in
september. When you see two men standing
on corner, and both men seem to be some
what uneasy and unable to fully comprehend
what they talking about you may rest
assured they are talking about the currency.
l shall not attempt to fully explain the cur
rency question to you, but | shall say some
thing about it.
I'VE often hear that silver was demonetized
In 1878, stealthily and by the influence of
foreign embassies. AS a matter of fact the
congressional record of that date had 1856
columns of speeches on the silver question
and the foreign embassies had nothing to do
with 1t. No fraud wickedness was prae-
ticed in 1873. The only question is what
monetary system is the best? You hear
great deal about bimetallism The platform
| of the Chicago convention was not BIZ
metallic platform, and don't let them try
and make you believe that bimetallism is
| what they are after.
What is the object of bimetallism? The
object of it is to give to the currency greater
stability by spreading it over more surface.
| very common illustration of 1t is this: If
| to all the peculiar incidents of the region in
which it is, this rainfall may lift, that
drought may lower 1t. Now, If you want
perfectly stable surface, you have got to get
! it by some appliance outside of the lake.
Suppose you can join it to another lake in
different climate which is differently affected.
| If you join them perfectly together then there
will be the same level In both lakes, and the
| disturbances in one lake will be counter
balanced by the disturbances in the other
| lake, and the tendency will be to have a
| steadier level. That will all be perfectly
true, provided your two lakes do balance and
1 you get stable current.
| the idea that the whole world, If the various
nations took gold and silver at proper ratio,
/ could preserve
STABLE LEVEL OF PRICES.
.'This no single country could do. But if
| one of the lakes was very violent in its
fluctuations, | think the part Of common ex-
4 perience would be to leave it out. In short
under some circumstances the two lakes
might be worse than single one might be-
However. that is question Of legitimate dis
! cussion But in this case it is not proposed
| to have two lakes. 1t is proposed to say
that We nave two lakes and shift from the
one have to one we have not. Applause.)
LET us see if the history of this country
] shows us anything upon the subject. Real
] bimetallism-and that Is the kind we must
! have because If this is a disease at all, 1t is
a world disease, and has got to have world
remedy; nothing else will attend to it, (Ap-
! plause.) Why, we had some experience in
! this country but mems memories are short.
In 1882 our earlier fathers determined to
] marry the two metals together. What is
| the first thing they did? 1t was to ascertain
| the market value of the two metals as they
j stood side by side them and they thought
| that they were at Is to mot 16 to 1, but Is
to /. What was the effect? 1t was an over
dollar was worth less than the silver in a
silver dollar
what was the result? Why, If a man had
two dollars. one of which was worth 100
| cents and the other was worth 102 cents, he
kept the 102-cent dollar longer and passed off
! the other one quicker. (Applause.) | don't
| mean that the average man did that. Two
| cents on a dollar, even in those days, was
! not worth making much fuss about but the
money changers were the alert, and
| whenever silver dollar came into the bank
or reached the money changer he put it out
! of circulation.
! 81 have misstated. | should have said
that gold was the more valuable; that we
had silver alone during that period. The
| gold being more valuable. fed away. Well,
! now, the gold disappearing our fathers in
1884 thought they had better make change
and see if they could not keep gold and sill
yer together, so they changed the ratio from
Is to to 16 to 1, or, to be exact, to 1888 to i.
That turned out to be generalization the
other way, and what was the result? The
result was that gold reigned supreme.
Then, in 1861 we had war, and we Is
sued greenbacks and greenbacks being
cheaper, for seventeen years drove out both
gold and silver but in 1879 We resumed spe-
Gle payments, and we resumed them as we
agreed to do in 1873, upon a gold basis, and
| that has been the case ever SINCE
'tThis, then, is the experience of the United
States encountering single-handed the ques-
ton of currency. We never were able, when
there was difference Of or 8 per cent, to
keep the one metal alongside the other. 1t
was always either gold or silver, never both.
Now, if the United States then could not
lift silver dollar that was worth only two
cents less than the gold dollar, can she now
lift
FIFTY CENT DOLLAR
to the height of 100 cents? Applause.)
And if she can, why do we want it2 Sup
pose you have got a house; is 1t worth two