The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1896-08-20
DR.. RIDPbqH ON SILVER
The Historian SAYS The Government |!
Drifting Away From The People.
CONTROLLED BY SPECIAL INTERESTS
IIc Claims There IL only one Unit
OF value and That IL the silver
DoiIar-Free Coinage will Break
the Corner on Gold.

Ut. JOIN Oihfk' hiophtt. tle ttuiueut
historian, who has recently been nomi-
mated for congress by the democrats OF
the Fifth Indiana district, said in re-
cent interview:
According to my way OF thinking our
government has been steadily drifting
away from the people and getting into
the power Of special interests. The circle
OF government has narrowed and narrow
ed till it appears to me the height Of alb
surdity to call it any longer a govern
ment of the people, for the people and
by the people, want to see this pro-
cess completely reversed. want to see
the government restored to the people.
believe precisely what Webster and
Theodore Parker and Lincoln declared,
viz: That our republic is, or ought TO
be, government OF the people, for the
people and by them.
'How can there be any harm in such
doctrine? In the name of common
sense, has it come to pass that patriotic
CtslLCb5 III th0 OnitCu GtutC5 VI AHcIir
cannot advocate the right of the people
to govern themselves? Has it come to
this that We have sure enough lot Of
self-constituted masters who shall tell us
what is good for us and how we shall OBJ
tain it? Are we Americans lot OF
younglings who are unable to lead our
selves, but must be led rather as with
string and fed on porridge as with
spoon?
among the methods as it seems to
me by which the government is to be re-
covered by the people is, first of all, as
the matter now stands, the restoration OF
our currency. We want our currency
system put back precisely where it was
under the statute and constitution for the
first 81 years OF our existence as anation.
Our statutory bimetallic system OF cur
rency was taken from US in 1873 by
process which do not care to charac
terize in fitting terms. Now we propose
to have it back again. The restoration
Of our silver money to the place it held
before is the peoples cause, and the peo-
pie in this contest are going to triumph.
They are going to triumph in the open
light of day under the clear CLEAN OF
light and truth.
"The silver dollar was from OF old the
unit OF money and account in the United
States. The dollar to this hour has new
err been altered by the fraction of grain
in the quantity of pure. metal composing
it. Every other coin, whether gold or
silver, has been altered time and again,
but the silver unit never. The silver
dollar was the dollar of the law and the
contract. 1t is to this day the dollar of
law and the contract. To the silver unit
all the rest, both gold and silver, have
been conformed from our first statute of
1892 to that ill-starred date when the
conspiracy against our old constitutional
order first declared itself. The gold eagle
OF the original statute and of all subse-
quent statutes was not made to be ten
dollars, but to be the value OF ten dollars.
The alf-eagle was not made to be five
dollars, but to be the value OF FIVE dol
lars. The quarter-eagle was OF the value
OF two and one-half dollars and the
double eagle was Of the value OF twenty
dollars. Even the gold dollar OF 1s49,
marvellous to relate, was not dollar, but
was made to be the value of dollar.
The subsidiary coins were all fractions OF
the dollar and the dollar was OF silver
only.
"Not single dictionary or encyclo-
pedia In the English language before the
year 1878 ever defined dollar in any terms
other than of silver. In that year the
administrators of the estate OF Noah
Webster, deceased, cut the plates OF our
standard lexicon and inserted new def
milton that had become necessary in or
der to throw a penumbra of nationality
around the international gold conspir-
acy.
"The way to obviate the future disas-
tiOub NlCCib Va thlS kOiQ
conspiracy is to stop it. We want the
system OF bimetallism restored In this
country. Bimetallism means the option
of the debtor to pay in either of two staiu.
tory coins according to his own convent
ence and according to the contract. This
option freely granted, the commercial
parity of the two money metals will be
speedily reached, nor can such parity
ever be seriously disturbed again as long
as the unimpeded option of the debtor
to pay in the one metal or the other shall
be conceded by law and the terms OF the
contract. The present commercial dis
parity OF the two metals has been pro-
duced by the pernicious legislation which
began % years ago and which has not
yet satisfied itself with the monstrous re-
suits that have famed therefrom
what do we propose to accomplish by
free coinage? We propose to do just this
thing, viz: to break the corner on gold
and reduce the exaggerated purchasing