Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1896-07-07

question or two before we go on,
which,we expect Mr.. Haselton to
give an explicit answer: LIST. If
the existing gold standard is the
acme of financial systems, why
do you demand (?) free coinage of
silver by international agree
ment? If you are opposed to in.
juring o. the laboring man in this
country alone, why are you in
favor of injuring him with. inter-
national agreement?
Next we are challenged to ap-
ply the ::test.'' If we were hon.
est we would want to put dol
lars worth of silver in a dollar,
he says. Yes that is what we
want to do, after we have deter
mined the true value of silver.
But to establish a ratio on the
commercial value of the two me-
tails after one has been discrim-
mated against for a quarter of a
century by the laws of the land
would not be honesty. We want
to restore the conditions of the
metals to what they were before
one was demonetized, give both
an equal chance. and then if
they wouldn't circulate at par,
or it for any other reason it
would be desirable to change the
ratio, it might be talked about
There is no sensible man doubts
that when it becomes certainty
that free coinage will win at the
polls, silver bullion will rise in
when measured in gold, and that
when a free-coinage president
and congress have been elected
gold will continue to decline, and
before a bill can have been pas
sed and coinage commenced does
any sensible man anticipate that
there will be any bullion for sale
at less than the coinage ratio?
TO coin dollars with twice the
amount of silver of the present
ratio with at best be miserable
expedient. 1t would be'similar
to raising the price of wheat to a
dollar by establishing bushel
of 100 pounds.
Further he says the TRIBUNE
lies against the records of the
nation when it asserts that silver
was demonetized in 1873, by
stealth and fraud. We defy Mr..
Haselton to show by the records
of the nation that a bill was pas
sed openly to demonetize silver.
The bill which did the fearful
work was discussed openly
enough as a measure pertaining
to coinage and mintage, but that
it demonetized silver was not
generally known in the congress
that passed it, nor was it
suspected at all by the pub
lie press or the people of the
country. For SOME REASON the
clause providing for a standard
silver dollar was omitted on the
final passage of the bill and a
number of the foremost states
men of the day, whose testimony
we could give, did not notice the
omission. Now if this was not
stealth or fraud, we wish Mr..
Haselton would give it the pro-
per name. What more is neces-
sary to prove our case than quote
from the Republican platform
of 1888:
1.-The Republican party is in
favor of both gold and silver as
money, and condemns the policy
Of the Democratic administration
in it's efforts to demonetize sill.
Ver.'
Why would the Republicans
thus accuse the democrats of
trying to do something which
Mr.. Haselton claims they them
selves had openly done fifteen
years before?
In regard to Haselton's No. 8,
let us repeat, if Lincoln lived to-
day. he would certainly never
join the party dominated by COR
porations and trusts. He was
too much man of the people for
that. In a letter to a Mr.. Elkins
of Illinois in 1864 Mr.. Lincoln
wrote:
''As a result of the war corpor-
ations have been enthroned and
an. era Of corruption in high
places will follow, and the money
power of the country will en-.