The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-08-19
c0cKRAN'S ANSWER.
tcontlned from First Page.l


 not be an abundant product unless la Dor is extensively employed. You can not have high wages unless there is an extensive production In every depart ment of industry, and that Is why I claim that wages is the one sole test of a country's condition; that high wages mean abundant production, and abun- dance necessarily means prosperity. (Applause,)
 MT Bryan, on the other hand, would have you believe that prosperity is ad- Vanced by cheapening the rate of wages, but the fall in that rate of wages always comes from a narrow production, and narrow production means that there Is little demand for labor in the market. When, after the panic of 1873, the price of labor fell 90 cents day, 1t was harder to obtain labor than when the rate of labor was $2, and the difference between the pop ulist who seeks to cut down the rate of wages and the democrat who seeks to protect it is that the democrat be- lieves that high wages and prosperity are synonymous, and the populist wants to cut the rate of W ges in or der that he may tempt tEe farmer to make war upon his own workingmen. (Applause)
 Well, but the populst tells us that MT. Bryan leads the van in saying that it is the creditor that he is after; that creditor is the person whose debts he wants to cut down, and MT Bryan makes an elaborate argument to show that when his system of coinage shall have been completed his standard of value shall have been changed, then the debtor will have an option as to which metal he will pay his debt in; that is to say, he shall be permitted by the law to commit an act of dishonesty. In order that you should understand just how a change in the standard of value enables men to cheat their credi- tors, you have to consider the func- tion which money plays in measuring debts.
 If had paid ten cents for ten yards of cloth to be delivered to me next week, and in the interim the govern ment should pass law declaring that hereafter the yard measure should con- tain IS inches, and that all existing contracts should be settled in that sys- tenn of measures I would be cheated out of half of the cloth for which had ' paid (Applause.) If, on the other hand, owed cloth merchant for ten yards of cloth, which he had delivered to me and which was payable next week, and in the meantime the govern ment would change the value and cut down the unit of coinage one half then would settle that debt in $5 and the cloth merchant would have been cheated That is just what this meas- ure proposes to do, and the important question that arises to workingmen Of this country is just who are the credi- tors and who are the debtors in this land.
 How the populist loves to paint that the creditor is a person who expresses the western farmer; he loves to paint him as loud of dress, coarse of feature, gaudy of ornament and with cruel ex pression on his face. He loves to de- clare that the money lenders and the creditors are always synonymous ex- pressions, but as a matter Of fact, the creditors of this country are not the bankers; they are not the so-called capitalists. They are the laborers, and it is at the expense of labor that this charge is made. (Applause.) I re- member in discussion in the house of representatives I was advancing the proposition that banker in the nature of things was a debtor, and I was in- corrupted by MT. Bryan, who put to me a question which contains exactly the same statement as that which he made here in his speech a week ago.
 If we want silver coinage to-mor- row, if we even debase our standard of value men say that still you would have the same property you have to- day; you would have the same soil; you would still have the same conti- nent And it is true. But so did the Indians have the same rivers that Till past our cities and turn the wheels of commerce as they pass. So the noun tains were piled full of mineral treas ures four hundred years ago. The same atmosphere enwrapped this continent; the same soil covered the fields; the same sun shone in heaven, and yet there was none but the savage pursu- ing the pathway of war through the trackess forests; and the rivers bore no single living thing except the Indian in his canoe pursuing pathway of de- struction. There was no industrial CO., operation, because the Indian was a savage and did not understand the principle by which men aid each other in taking from the bosom of the earth the wealth which makes life bearable and develops the intelligence which makes civilization. (Great applause and cheers.)
 Anything that attacks that basis of human confidence in a crime against civilization and a blow against the foundations of social order. Now the underlying trouble with all populists is that they have fundamental miscon- ception of the principles on which civ ilized society is constructed. All through MT. Bryan's speech, all through MT. Tillman's utterances in the convention wherever you find pop ulists assembled you will find discus sions proceeding upon the theory that men are hostile to one another in their interests; that the condition of life is one of contest. At Chicago MT. Bryan deciared:
 "When you come before us and tell us that we shall disturb your business interests, we reply that you have dis turbed our business interests. We have petitioned and our petitions have been scorned. We have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded. We have begged and they have mock n1 oIoy ty a