Birmingham state herald., 1896-01-05

The regulation of it's money system is
 one of the very highest prerogatives of governments, and they have no need to
 abrogate any portion of that high sov- ereignty.
 A return to bimetallism would cause temporary distress anS dislocation among money dealers and the stock ex-
 change habitues. Probably some banks would go by the board. But 1t could not be as bad as the panic which monometal-
 lsm inflicted in 1893, for that went to all circles This change would hurt a few for awhile, but in the multitudnous mill
 lions of homes of the sober and industri- ous. and now suffering people, 1t would bring slowly and steadily increasing comfort and happiness.
 Moreover, the world is in no humor, the nations are in no humor for pooling their prerogatives of sovereignty. The present half century is one of the blood fest in all the annals of the world. The Crimean war, the Franco-Italian war,
 our own civil war, the war between Ger
 many and Austria, between Germany
 and France, between Russia and Turkey. Chii and Peru, Japan and China, the innumerable wars and revolutions in Central and South America, the cease 1 less fighting in Asia and Africa as Flu | rope marches to their subjugation or settlement. Every nation armed to the teeth. Such preparations for war, such expenditures, such universal war spirit as no age ever saw. I read MT. Cleve- lands Venezuela message only this morning, and a minimum of 5000 900 | young men in the states are ready to die | for the right of a half civilized republic | to control some swamps and woods. Call up the histories you have read, l Has there been a half century like 1t !? | The last century wound up to the music | of Napoleon's guns But what were the | Napoeonic wars compared to the over | whelming disasters that threaten the closing years of this? Compared to a | war between England and America, or a | general European conflict now imminent over the unspeakable Turk and his un- | speakable barbarties?
 Concert of action? International agree mentS in the exercise of national sover- | eighties? Possibly peace may be in the | hearts of men. but as never before war | and jealousy and hate and scheming for advantage are in the thoughts and the 1 practice of nations.
 | The United States must solve her own | currency difficulties, and do the best she | can for her own people. Gold and silver
 were a success. Gold is failure. Try | the two together once more.
 As to the matter of paper substitutes | for money, my own judgment is against | the greenbacks as an original proposi- | ton. It would be best, under our theory of | government at least. for the government | to confine its operations so far as money is concerned to the function of selecting the material, fixing the unit and denom- | nations and providing place where the | people can have the material minted | The people can be trusted to nave the | money metals turned into money to meet their own requirements. Such a | thing as the government buying metal | and minting it is and was wrong-funda- | mentally so--and was only an effort by | wrong method of getting around and staving off the evil consequences of the original wrong perpetrated in closing the