The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-10-26

where 1t would not be used at a discount
If having introduced silver coinage, We
should next coin copper at the ratio they
now propose to coin silver silver would
fly. Then If we should coin lead. copper
substitute encaustic tile. lead would fly.
(Laughter.) 1t is simply the natural law
that men conserve that which is most
valuable; that man does not give a gold
dollar that is worth 100 cents for silver
out of use because it is the more valuable.
Just silver would. just as copper would,
Just as anything else would until we had
got down to the cheapest material that
would stick together under stamp. That
is the first result.
FIRST EFFECT OF THE COINAGE.
What Is the result OF that? Contract in
a day the circulating medium Of this coun-
! try, $500. 00o,0 00 That would be the work of
a. day, of an hour almost, under a free
coinage bill; and it would take some time
to coin that amount of silver. What would
be the result? My friends. some of the
leading authorities upon this subject, IA
vorable to free coinage, have declared that
the first effect would be a great panic
Business men of indianapolis; workingmen
in these shops, who know what a panic
does for you, bear in your minds that the
first result of free coinage is to be q ire
mendous and all-pervading panic growing
out of the contraction of the currency and
of the unsettling of all commercial basis.
(Applause.) They say we will get over it.
Mr.. Bryan thinks that when we have put
the ship through this. tremendous gale.
when she has been buffeted by the waves,
that outside somewhere we will find smooth
and favorable seas. He has never been out
there. daughter and applause)
What next? We drop to a silver basis The.
dollar you have been given will buy only
half as much as the dollar yeu have now.
What does that mean to the workingman?
he will have to get twice as many dollars
for days work as he gets now, in order
that his wages may have the same purchas-
ing power in supplying his wants. If he
is getting s2 day now he must have 81
How will he get it? When will he get it?
Right away? l have repeatedly said. as
illustrating this subject, what / repeat TO
you; the man in this store can take
stub pencil and mark up his goods the
night the silver bill passes; mark them
up 80 per cent: mark them up until he
Will be getting in this deprecated currency
the same value he was getting in the gold.
How about the workingman? Can you
mark your wages up over night? Have you
lowed to touch it? How is it with the SOL
der who is drawinp pension? Can he
pension certificate? How is it with every
body that is drawing a stated salary? Can
deprecated dollar; he finds the cost of liv-
ing has doubled but his wages have not
doub&d; and he enters upon a struggle to
have them doubled.
SNAIL PACE OF WAGE INCREASE.
All, my friends, you know what that
means; you know how slow it is, and your
own experience has been supplemented by
a most careful inquiry made by a nonparti-
san committee of the Senate of the time
during the war. They wrote to hundreds
of little merchants all through the country
and they said: What did you charge for
bacon, and what did you charge for sugar,
and what did you charge for rice in those
years when we had the greenback that was
depreciated?" And then they wrote to the
factory men and they said What wages
did you pay to the blacksmith" What to
this kind of labor and what to another?
nj he nf
the war ana found that the prices of things
that man had to have to live went up
sna1fs pace. (Applause) That is the re-
suit of a cold, careful, statistical inquiry;
the folly of putting this country, prosper
gus, great and wealthy as she is, upon the
basis of deprecated silver. You who toll;
you who have stated salaries or wages;
you who have PENSIONS; you who have SIN Ill
Investments, will all find this blightng
a Where n p helm erect s upon your lives
has been wringfng over this country for
somebody who advocates free silver to
show the workingman how he is to get a
benefit and the question is still unan-
sWered. But who is to get a benefit?
There will be distinct enormous benefit
to class, to class now enormously rich.
to class rich, not by steady, quiet toll
not by business management in the conduct
OF great manufacturing establishments; but
rich fortuitously, rich by chance, rich by
luck in having discovered great mine
too good; the best dollar is none TO good for
him who gives an honest days labor in ex-
change for it. (Applause.) 1t is false doc
work1ngman needs poor dollar. OF all
men a, he needs the best; of all men he needs
he has saved one he put away
and keep for a year and take it out
(Applause) There is only disaster In this |
basis.
THE ASSAULT ON THE GOVERNMENT. |
ic
go platform that stirs me deeply 1t is
what L conceive to be "a most dangerous |
assault upon the powers of the national |
government. The Constitution commits to |
to the national government the establish |
ment of post routes and the carrying |
OF the mails of the country. No State |
has anything to do with it. The national |
government has, by law, declared every one
of our great railroads to be post routes |
The Constitution commits to the national
government the regulation of commerce |
between the States. No State has anything |
70 do with 1t. 1t cannot lay it's hand upon |
it, 1t cannot levy any execution uDon IL
1t cannot make any regulation concerning
it, The Constitution of the United States |
has established a judicial department and |
judicial power of the United States. With
these things the. State has nothing TO
Court is defined and limited. These are
national powers. The United States Cen
SllluLloH requires the president of the |
United States in the presence of that great
assembly that greets him on inaugura ton
day, to swear that he will faithfully dis
charge the duties of that great office and
one of the duties enjoined upon him is to
see that the laws are executed. (Applause)
In the Chicago convention they passed a
denouncing federal Interference
with local affairs AS general PROPOSE
ton that might pass unchalienged. but
1t had particular application, and thar
application this That on a certain
occasion in Chicago the mail trains of the
United States We're stopped; interstate
commerce was stopped; the United States
marshals were resisted in their attempts
to execute the writs of the United States /
court; trains carrying passengers between
the States We're stoned and the lives or
innocent passengers put in jeopardy; tracks
were torn up; stations and cars were
burned; mob had seized into its own
hands these great powers confided by the
Constitution to rhe federal government.
Mr.. Cleveland quietly, without any dispo-
and forces of the United States to open a
way for the United States mail, to open d
way for interstate commerce. and to rein
force the United States marshal that he
might execute the writs that the cour,
had put in his hands. What was the re-
suit? In that act he was supported by
every Republican newspaper in the State
Of Indiana. tApplause.) No man thought
Of politics then Everybody said he had
used the just powers of his Office TO pre-
serve the peace of a great city and to
keep open it's great avenues Of commerce;
hat hfah q Wi. tel u11e. |