Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1896-09-01

list platforms be realized.
h But. YOU have heard from our free
coinage friends here that other nations
have done this. And there are many good
people who believe that France IS doing
it, and that the Latin union-so7callei--- lis
doing it. Now. | would like to know Why
they can't tell the entire truth about this
matter. Let us not deceive each ether
and let nobody deceive us. The Latin
union is composed of France, Belgium,
Italy, Switzerland and Greece. 1t was
formed in 1865 by treaty between those
powers, whereby each agreed until the
year 1880 TO take the coins of the ether
powers at the ratio of 1Jta to !.
But Germany demonetized SILVER; she
had ceased to coin it, and so, IN 1913,
those great nations, headed by France
(the most scientifically governed country
in the world, and the one which has the
most accurate financial ideas), / say those
TIED silver in, 1873. limited their silver
coinage, and BY ISIS they suspended it
entirely. !, They, those great European
nations--Fr rance, the strongest monetary
nation in the world. with her allies-un-
| dertook with all their power to do pre-
cisely whst The free coiners Of the Unit
ed States are asking this government
| to undertake in the light of such COTS
sDicuous failures of other nations.
hRSartapie STANDARDS Needed.
Now, everybody admits--I think the
| most rampant free-coiner declaimer
| would admit-sthat the money unit should
remain, as nearly invafiable as possible.
| Now, l say gold has so remained. Sill
Yer has fallen commercially like Other
articles. This Is denied. They say sill
| yer has not fallen, that god has risen;
| Now. that is the way you look At it.
You can look at it through the deluding
glass of ideaism, and it may appear that
| #ay but it Is an optical illusion. Now
| The waters of Lake Superior, that great
| inland sea which floats so much of our
commerce and is slfch an element In our
| prosperity, have for many years been
| falling, until now they are lower than
they have been at any time for fifty
| years, and everything on their surface
| has fallen. The waters of Lake Supe-
| tl5r, like the universal. spread-out plane
of humanity, bearing everything upon its
surface-those waters boar the fleets,
vessels and craft of all kinds, and ves-
sells and craft and fleets of all kinds have
| fallen with the water What would you
| think Of a man standing on the deck Of
one. of those vessels saying. This yes
! sci has not fallen; this vessel stands just
where it did, but the universal shore of
| Lake Superior has risen?" Laughter
| and applause.
Now, l say, my friends. that since the
Latin union, from 1873 to 1876, aban-
| dOned free coinage, there has existed in
European nations and the United States
the only practical bimetallism. Let me
| repeat this. / feel that l cannot bear it
into your minds too often or too urgently
| that these nations, including ours, are
| the only nations on the face of the earth
| that have any bimetallism whatever.
| And why? Because they went to the
| danger line, as we went. and then
stopped. IApplause.l The universal
there was a dead line, beyond which
silver could not be pressed without the
| Immediate humiliation of its companion,
| gold, as useful. working money medl-
UNI. And when any man gets up and
| dreams and soliloquzes and philosophers
| before me and tells me he knows 1t won't
| be so If we try where others failed,
| tell him that an ounce of fact is worth
| n ton of theory. and that something bodi-
| ly is worth a million of disembodied
ghosts. [Applause.l
What is Ratio?
| And yet these gentlemen favor, in the
| face of these historical examples and
| warnings, that the United States shall
make the unit of coinage the silver dol
| lar at the ratio of 16 to l.
Now, what is ratio? 1t is not SIC 10
81, as some people claim. daughter
Ratio means this: That there shall be
sixteen times more silver in weight in a
silver dollar than there is weight of gold
in gold dollar. Or. to put the definition
in another form, that sixteen ounces of
silver, when coined, shall be the equva-
| lent of one ounce of gold when coined
| When gold measured by silver is worth
| $40 per ounce, no disparity in value can
exist: but when measured by silver the
| ounce of gold is worth S31 an ounce COM
| mercially, disparity results. Such is the
present condition, and yet the free silver
men assert that it will be no such thing
| in case legislative fiat endeavors to make
| two and two five instead of the old
| fashioned result, two and two four.
The trouble is that our friends have
confused the ratio of weight with the
ratio of value, and are trying to confuse
| the people with it. The ratio of weight
and the ratio Of value were once the
same, but they have changed. They
changed more than thirty years ago.
| Other nations saw it and obeyed the inn
perial behest of that change before we
| did, and the ratio is now throughout
the world 80, or about 30, to 1.
Now l say that no legislative fat what
| ever--it does not lie in the power of man
| Il was about to say something more ex-
| treme than that, which it would not be
| proper to say)-it dnes not lie in the
power of man to enact that a given di-
mension, volume or capacity shall be a
| hairs breadth greater than the laws of
| the Almighty have fixed it from the be-
ginning. (Applause.)
1t is necessary that the ratio or proper
| ton of value should be invariable. 1t is
| necessary for the production of the thing
| itself called money, speaking of it in its
great volume. as the volume of money in
the United States. We. see .analogies
everywhere; we see an analogy in nature.
| Take the air we breathe. 1t is COM
pound substance, made mp from oxygen
| and nitrogen at the ratio of about "a
| to %, and while this ratio lasts it is from
| it we all draw our lives and have our
being. But change to any material de-
gree and, instead of being the vital, life
| structive miasma.
| But the free-coiners assert that unlim-
| tied coinage of silver will restore it TO a
parity with gold. 1t has been tried by
many nations of this world. Has it done
| it in single instance? Not one. They
said the same thing when Congress
passed the Sherman act of 1890. They
said buy of us freely 100000 ounces q
month, or 54,OOO,OO0 ounces a year, and
| you will see that silver will go up to
| 81. 20 an ounce Immediately In the face
of clamor, in doubt as to what might be
| the result, in WILLINGNESS, Gt went too
| far) to give such claims every oppor-
| tunity TO be demonstrated whether they
were correct or incorrect, that legislation
was enacted. And silver did go in the
course of about ten days to SLID an