The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-02-01
NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE.


BILE speeches were made during the debate
on the Senate silver substitute for the
House bond bill. These were made by
Mr.. Perkins of California and Mr.. Mitchell
of Oregon. Mr.. Perkins remarks were
spirited REPUTATION of the charge made by
New York paper that California was not
silver State, it being necessary only to
quote resolution adopted by the last Cali
fornia Legislature declaring unqualifedly
for the free coinage of silver at ratio OF
16 to l.
Mr.. Mitchelrs speech was one of those
rousing appeals to the patriotic sense OF
our people that are too seldom heard in
the Senate. He took the ground, while
advocating the silver substitute, that
the welfare of the country does not
demand the issuance of bonds or the
perpetuation of the single gold standard.
He said that it was time this country
should assert its independence, establish
its own monetary system and cease bend
ing the knee in subservience to any policy
that Great Britain might choose to adopt,
maintaining the doctrine that we have the
power so to do. The following extract
from his speech will live in the history of
the country:
HAS the more than century of our Ma
tional life, with all the prestige and in
fuence and power and glory that have
come to US in our unparalleled progress as
Nation, and in the development of
civilization than which none so grand has
ever existed since the creation of man,
still left US poor, weak dependent on the
British crown? Because England, since
L. Az 4
ard in the interest of the gold-brokers of
Lombard street. are we to forever bend the
supple knee, acknowledge our impotency
as a Nation, and surrender the preroga-
tives that ought rightfully to attach to a
free and independent peopleP In my
Judgment, the United States, as Nation,
in whatever aspect Observation-Disclosures
nationally, intellectually, scientifically,
commercially or fnancially-stand, or, at
least, should stand, in the very vanguard
of nations; pre-eminent in every element
of greatness, in every aspect of grandeur,
in every attribute of glory and in every
essential or sovereign power. Resource
full In physical elements Of every conceiv-
able character in a measure and TO an ex-
tent unparalleled by any country on the
globe, if she will but assert herself as be-
comes her as the proud, aggressive, indie
pendent leader of nations, New York, and
not London, will become the clearing
house of the world, and our country, pre-
eminent over all, will no longer be slave,
either in commercial or monetary sense,
but the distinctive and primal sovereign,
the mperial master and dictator, fnan-
cially as well as commercially, among all
the nations of the world"
The imperious policy of England has re-
ceived another shock in the remarkable
speech made by A. ]. Balfour recently at a
meeting of his constituents at Manches-
ter, England. In the course of his re-
marks he said:
II may perhaps add that all this diff |
Guilty in connection with the cotton duties
would never have risen, nor would it even
have been needful to put duty, an i'm
port duty, at all in India upon Lancashire |
had it not been for the I'M
happy fall in the gold value of silver, |
which has been productive of such i'm |
mense misfortunes to trade and commerce |
in every part of the world Once again I |
express emphatically my own private per-
sonal conviction that it is a misfortune for |
this country, misfortune for India and a |
misfortune for the world that the British |
public is so slow to follow the teaching of |
science and to throw itself |
heartily into the policy of an interna-
tional agreement on monetary subjects"
1t can hardly be doubted that such an
of National independence as that
upon which Senator Mitchell insists would |
have the instant effect of bringing Eng
and to the terms which Mr.. Balfour pro-
poses. 1t is altogether inconsistent with |
our National pride. independence and |
wealth of native resources that we should |
fringe under the financial lash welded by |
Lombard street and SO vigorously laid
upon our backs by the reflex and embodi-
nent of that interest in this Countrywide
President of the United States,