The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1896-03-14
PLOT AGAINST LABOR.


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American Workmen.
"The republican silver senators"
hacked by the democratic silverite SEN
ators, are reported to have signed q
declaration to the effect that the in
dustrial prosperity of the United States
is threatened by China and Japan as
result of the decrease in the value of
silver and the difference in the value of
exchange between silver and gold using
countries. Therefore they favor "the
free and unlimited coinage of silver at
ratio of sixteen to one for the purpose
of obliterating tilis difference OF ex-
change"
This is plausible way of stating
their case to ignorant people, but the
scheme is full of mischief for the
American worknien. In all the bullion
markets Of the world one ounce of gold
is rated as being worth about 81 ounces
of silver. 1t has not been worth much
less than that any day in several years
Fast, and at times a single ounce of
gold world have purchased more than
80 ounces of silver. This, the CONNER
cial ratio has obtained in all countries
in the world, whether they be on the
silver basis or not. The merchants of
Mexico and British India, of China and
Japan, have had to pay for gold at least
81 times its weight in silver when they
wanted the yellow metal to pay for
foreign goods or meet other interna-
tional Indebtedness, and they could get
Fl times its weight in silver for any
and all gold they might receive in the
course of business. The difference
in exchange" which these free silver
wiseacres profess to be anxious to Job
literate' represents the difference be-
tween the actual or commercial value
OF silver and the theoi etical value
which has been assigned to it hy coin
age laws in different countries. That
difference" no more would be oblit-
Grated by the adoption of free silver
coinage than the distance of the earth
from the sun could be changed by an
act of congress to make the distance
seem twice as great by enacting that
hereafter the miles shall consist of $50
yards instead of 1,760. They might
just as well demand that 16 ounces of
copper shall he equal in value to one
ounce of gold as to insist upon that as
the ratio between silver and gold.
The difference of exchange" they
want to soblitcrate" is the higher pur-
chasing power of the wages of Amer
lean workers due to the fact that they
are paid on the gold basis instead of
in as many haif-worth dollars as they
now receive fuli-worth dollars The
destruction of that higher purchasing
power. is the only way in which the
adoption of Stree coinage at sixteen
to one" could help the employers to
sell their goods in competition with
those turned out by the low-priced
labor of China and Japan, and these
fellows know it. Hence they DELHI
erately are counting on the change to
depress the value of all American la
Der by about SO per cent: this to be
accomplished by cutting the buying
power of the dollar paid to labor in two
without any increase in the number of
dollars paid to the toilers pei week
or month. This is nothing short of dia-
bolical, but one might think that even
the arch fiend would hesitate Mt the con-
summate iInpudence of the silver mon.
ometallists in expecting the working
men of the United Staes to vote for
the carrying out of the scheme de-
signed to work their own ruin. Com
paratively few of the toilcrs seem to
be aware of the important fact that the
free silver monometallists are calculat-
ing on the buying power of the dollar
being decreased one-half without any
nominal increase in the wages paid,
the result of this to the toiling masses
being substantially the same as if they
should have their wages cut down one
half without any change in the buying
power Of the dollar. The workers ought
to be informed thoroughly in regard
to this between this and next Noveln-
ber.-Chicago Tribune.