The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1896-08-13
|TOM REED ON FREE SILVER.
THE MAINE STATESMAN ARGUES
FORCIBLY AGAINST THE
DOUBLE STANDARD.
REVIEW OF MONETARY LEGISLATION
Showing That the Market Value of the
Two Metals Never Was Kept
at Given Ratio by Act
of Congress.

Nlc., aug. ". hOllluS i''
\ Reed was today nominated by acclama-
ton for congress by the republican con-
vention of the first district 1t is the
& tenth successive term for which Mr..
a Reed has been nominated Putting Mr..
Reed in nomination, Fred G.. Chapman
u expressed regret that he was not the
\ presidential candidate of his party.
But" he said. "we will put aside
4 feelings of disappointment and we are
a now looking to the time when Mr.. Reed
will become the republican standard
bearer and as president of the United
States he will still more honor bis dis
trict."
After the nomination Mr.. Reed was
escorted to the platform amid cheering
He seemed to be considerably affected
by the ovation.
Mr.. Reed thanked the convention for
the unanimous nomination, saying that
in so doing he had been relieved of the
duty of attending to his district and
given the opportunity of paying atten-
ton to the wckedness of the rest of the
world.
Certainly Mr.. Reed said, we in
Maine have got to make up our minds
on the great issue of this compagn and
Il great deal depends upon what we do
in September. When we see two men
standing on a corner and both men seem
to be somewhat uneasy and unable to
fully comprehend what they are talking
about, you may rest assured that they
4 are talking about the money question.
4 shall not attempt to fully explain the
currency question to you, but | shall say
something about it,
N "Ne often hear that silver was de-
mOnetized in 1873, stealthily and by the
influence of foreign embassies. As a
matter of fact the congressional record
of that date had 196 columns of speeches
on the silver question, and the foreign
embassies had nothing to do with it.
No fraud or wickedness was practiced i'll
1873.
j. 'The only question is what monetary
Y system is the best You hear Il great
deal about bimetallism. The platform
of the Chicago convention was not Il
bimetallic platform, and don't let them
try to make you believe that bimetallism
is what they are after.
@ what is the object of bimetallism?
The object of it is to give to the country
greater stability by spreading It over
more surface. A very common illustra-
llOll VI IL 10 lulS. IL NOu lliNt IL HiN'
anywhere and it is subject to Ill the
peculiar incidents of the region in which
it is; the rainfall may lift it. drouth may
lower it. Now, if you want Il perfectly
stable surface you have got to get it by
some appliance outside of the lake. Sup
pose you can join it to another lake in Il
different climate which is differently
affected. If you join them perfectly to-
gether then there will be the same level
in both lakes ana the disturbances in
one lake will be c0unterbalanced by the
disturbances in the other lake and the
tendency will be to have Il steadier
level. That will all be perfectly true,
"a provided your two lakes do balance and
"A you get more stable current.
Nov, there is some reason and sense
in the idea that the whole world, if it
took gold and silver mt proper ratio
could preserve Il tirmer level Of prices
This no one could doubt, However,
that is question of legitimate discus
sion. In this case it is not proposed to
have two lakes. 1t is proposed to say
that we have two lakes and shift the
one we have to the one we have not.
(Applause)
LET us see if the history of this
country shows us anything upon the
subject. Real bmetalism, that is the
kind we must have. because. as | said
to you before, if this is Il disease at all
it is a world disease and has got to have
a world remedy. Nothing else will at
tend to it. Why. we had some expert
ence in this country, but memories are
short. In 17SS our earlier fathers de-
termined to marry the two metals to-
gether. What is the first thing they
did? 1t ,was to ascertain the market
value of the two metals as they stood
side by side then and they thought that
they were 10 to mot IL to l, hut -
Il to l. What was the effect? 1t was
,I,,t, II. IL,
gold in Il gold dollar was worth more
than the silver i'll Il silver dollar. What
was the result? Why, if II man had
two dollars. one of which was worth
100 cents and the other worth 102 cents.
he. kept the f02-cent dollar longer and
paid off the other one quicker. Cap
plause.)
81 do not mean that the average man
did that Two cents on dollar, even
+ Ill those days. was not worth making
much fuss about. but the money
changers were on the alert. and when
ever silver dollar came into the bank
or reached the money changer he put
it out of circulation.
81 have misstated | should have said
that gold was more valuable, so that we
had silver alone during that period. The
gold. being more valuable, fled away.
We'll, now, the gold disappearing, our
Fathers. in 1884, thought they had bet
Ter make change and see II they could
not keep gold and silver together; so they
changed the ratio from - to / to 16 to /,
or. to be exact, 1898 to /. That turned
out to he an generalization the other
way and what was the result? The re-
suit was that gold reigned supreme.
Then in 1861 we had a war and we
issued greenbacks, and greenbacks be-
ing cheaper for seventeen years drove out
both gold and silver. but in 1879 we re-
CImpI Snncin no and tbn racnlt
was that we resumed them as we agreed
to do in 1873, upon gold basis And
that has been the case ever since.
This then, is the experience of the
United States cncountering singlehandcd
the question of currency. We never