The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-10-11
Purified Journalism of That City,
Young and Champion of the
South and West.
South and West.

To the Editor: Perhaps no feature OF
the present national campaign has
given men of thoughtful minds more
pleasure than the splendid advocacy
of the cause of free manhood and freer
money made by the young millionaire
editor of New York and San Francisco;
Mr.. William Randolph Hearst, who in
his papers, the New York Journal and
the San Francisco Examiner, is making
such splendid fight for the election of
William j. Bryan and the consequent
extension to every American of a
broader and more equal opportunity to
make the mast of his or her existence.
1t is an unusual thing in this period
of pampered plutocratic princelings
for young men who are so entirely in
dependent of their own exertions as Mr..
Hearst, to engage in any more arduous
occupation that coupon clipping or
dividend drawing, and it is still more
rare for them to voluntarily devote
themselves to the exacting and eX-
hausting profession of journalism, es-
pecially with such earneStness and
attention to details as Mr. Hearst be-
slows upon the papers he controls.
And it would seem that when this
young man-almost alone of all the
rich mems sons of this country, and
certainly single among those whose
fathers fortunes were made in the eX-
IRENE West-sets the splendid example
of giving up his life to a cause which
offers so little of the ordinarily ac-
cepted allurementS of life that some
desire that humanity at large might
be permitted to profit by his example,
as we'll as some sense of the ethics of
decent controversy might restain
other members of the same profession
from uncalled for and gratuitous as
saults upon him, or slanderous impugn-
ments of his motives. 1t seems, how
ever, that such is not the case, and that
Mr. Hearst is to be assailed and the
cause of Democracy damaged if pos
sible by the establishment of the al
legged fact that Mr.. Hearst, as an heir
of the estate of his father, the late
George Hearst, of California, is enor-
mously interested in silver and that his
advocacy of the reconciliation of sui
yer is, therefore, selfish, insincere, and
If not exactly purchased, at any rate,
purchasable and to be despised. While
Mr.. Hearst himself can we'll afford to
smile at the banality of the accusation,
it does not become the Democracy OF
this nation, whom he is so ably defend
ing. to permit him to be assailed in
silence. When ! say that though have
had a long acquaintance with Mr.
Hearst, and an intimate knowledge of
some of his affairs, it has been my
misfortune TO be employed by cor
poraaion having interests inimical to-
his own, and to be made party to liti-
cation hostile to him and his interests,
I am sure / will be acquitted of render
ing unto Caesar anything but that
which is Caesars, when / say that the
suggestion that Mr.. Hearst is actuated
by ANYTHING but the most honest, I'M
selfish and admirable motives in this
t,amIaign is utterly false and without
foundation. And / will tell you why.
Less than 10 per cent of the value of
the estate of the late Senator Hearst
which the young proprietor of the
Journal and Examiner and his mother
have inherited is invested in silver
mines or mines in which silver forms
an important ssby product" of the met
ais produced. According to the theory
of control of selfish motives Mr.. Hearst
has ninety-one reasons for advocating
the gold standard to one which would
induce him to support free silver. But
there is an ever more powerful rea-
son which would induce Mr.. Hearst
il he were actuated by selfish motives
from advocating the opening of the
mintS to the free coinage of silver and
Ii is this. The silver mines in which
Mr.. Hearst has any interest at all are
mines which it will pay him better to
work at the present price of silver
than at the prices which it will COM
mand with free coinage. 1t was shown
in 1893 by Professor BeInds, of Chicago
University that almost the only silver
mines in the West that could produce
at all with silver ait the then and now
prevailing prices were the particular
mines in which Mr.. Hearst is inter-
ested Outside the "MolIie Gibson"
mine at Aspen, Colorado and the
Amethyst" at Creole in the same
State together with the Ontario" and
|'Daly'' mines in Utah there is scarcely
a mine in the West that can be worked
at all with the present prices of silver.
Mr., Hearst is interested in the Mol
lin Gibson" "Ontario" and "Daly"
and there is more money in 1T for him
tn have these mines worked with sill
yer al it's present price and all the
other mines closed down because OF the
greater cost of getting out them. ores
than it would be if they were unapled
to resume work of a restoration OF the
prices of silver. AS it stands his mines
and few others have almost monop-
oily in supplying the demand for silver
which while limited is sufficient to
consume their output. If the other
mines were enabled to resume, this
market would be gone and the output
of the Hearst mines would produce
smaller profit for their owner with sill
yer at $1.29 per ounce then they return
with silver at from 70 to so cents.
There is scarcely mine in Utah that
can produce silver at less than ST per
ounce except the Ontario" and that
can only be worked at all because it
costs only GO to 63 cents an ounce to
get silver out of it which silver as /
have shown has almost a monopoly of
the market. If this is not sufficient
to show that from a selfish stand
point Mr.. Hearst would be better off
without the competition in the silver
I, s,.F.