The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-04-01
FREE SILVER CLUB ORGANIZED.
What They Propose to Do.

Editor Representative:
About dozen of our leading citizens
held meeting Saturday evening and or
ganized a silver club, the membership OF
which is to consist of riends of and be-
levers IN the free and unlimited coinage
of goth gold and silver at the established
ratio of 16 to 1, regardless of what party
they may belong to. The new organiza--
ton is headed by that veteran Peoples
party man and free silverite, Isaac Bur-
field, who was elected president, and the
other officers are D Feldman, vice prcs;-
dent; A. c. Buck, secretary, and O. c.
Deterling, treasurer. The last three
are about evenly divided as regards poll
tics. 1t is the intention of the club to
have regular meetings during the COM
ing campaign, for thorough discussion
Of the question, and with that end in
view prominent speakers will be invited.
Free coinage literature will also be pro-
cured and attributed so that all may be-
come familiar with the subject We are
firmly convinced that the more the peo-
pie read and think on the question the
easier will it be to convert them from the
single gold standard to true bimetallsm,
which, as understand it, means the free
use of both gold and silver as a money
metal, not gold as our standard and silver
as subsidiary coin, as at present. A
large majority of the people of this coun-
try are today, or rather claim to be-, BIZ
metallists, and only differ on the question
of proper ratio. Some want the old,
established ration of 16 to 1, others want
ONE according to the present value of the
two metals, which would be about 80 to
1; while others want an international
agreement to fix the ratio The latter
are better known as Sound money" men,
which is only another name for gold
standard men. Now these men, and |
am sorry to say, that majority of them
appear to be in congress. ought to know
and if they don't, soon will, that England
will never consent to an agreement of
any kind and there fore holds the key to
the situation. Nothing remains for us to
do then but to establish a ratio of our
own, and trust to other nations to follow
u.s. which they will undoubtedly do If they
see that we mean business. AS to what
would be the proper ratio at this time
that cannot be determined without trial
AS 16 to 1 was the last ratio we used,
and previous to 1893 was amply suf1ic-
lent. in fact little more than was needed
as we are told that the silver dollar was
constantly at permium of from one to
three cents, for one, am willing to go
back to it and give it trial. If, after a
careful test, it proves insufficient: cong
ress can easily change it, as has been
done before. But think this would hard
ly become necessary, for from the time the
United States established the ration and
gave the. world to understand that she
meant to stand by it and that it would
not be repealed, the other nations out of
protection to themselves would have to
come up to it, and thus an international
ratio would be established of itself. The
European nations cannot get along with
out silver any more than this country
can and in order to kepe it at home they
would have to establish similar ratio or
suffer the consequences, Fraternally
yours, "A. C. Buck.
Arlington, Mimi.