San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1896-08-09

4
silver circulate together, we have always
married them according to their market
value. Today we find them not 10 to l,
but 81 TO 1, and we are going, they say, to
lift silver to twice its value, not by the
universal sense of mankind, which alone
makes values, but by the statute of the
United States, single handed against the
civilized world
Why should tho United States try to do
this alone?
If the demonetization of silver is dis
ease at all, it is world disease 1 defy
anybody to find a single argument which
proves that the reconciliation of silver
would be good for the United States that
does not prove that 1t would be good for
the whole world If it is world disease,
how can it be reached except by world
remedy? International bimetallism can
understand, but this driving out of gold
and substitution of silver is only silver
recommendation for the United States
1t is not bimetallism for the world and
a stable currency, but the shifting from
gold currency and civilized Europe and
going over to silver and Mexico, Japan,
India and China. Oh, but China and
Japan, India and Mexico are prosperous
| just now! Yes, but what kind of prosper
ity? The prosperity of cheap labor, grow
ing cheaper every day. Manufacturers
there may be prosperous, and traders may
be prosperous, but the people are not pros
porous at all. Up here in Maine and New
Hampshire paper pulp is made cheap.
How? Because the manufacturer is close
to cheap labor. In silver countries labor
is cheap and kept cheap by the silver dol
lar. For my part do not want that kind
of prosperity l want prosperity which
by good wages TO all is shared by all We
want a broader life, broadening every day
! for all our people
won't discuss the question whether the
| free coinage of silver will raise it to par or
not Very few people claim that it will,
and if they did l could not believe them.
was told in 1890 by two of the most
sincere as well as the ablest men that the
purchase of 100000 ounces a month
would raise silver to par, and when we did
buy it silver went down like lead. Silver
men have not been good prophets in the
past.
If, then, we are going to have dollar
inferior to what we have today, what will
be the effect of it, Higher prices, they
say. Not for everything. If you have
500 in the savings bank today, you can
get 100 gold dollars from the bank. If this
wild project succeeds and you are paid in
silver, you will get 500, but they will be
80 or 60 or 20 cent dollars. If you have
pension, that must be scaled down. If you
have bond, that goes down too.
Will the wage Garner be any better Off?
What you buy will go up. Will your wages
go up too? There you have experience to
guide you. Wages during greenback times
measured in gold, did not go up as other
things did. They went part way, but not
all the way up, and were very slow about
that. But wouldn't business be better for
more money? 1t might be after terrible
crash with bad currency, and then we
would have to get back again. Brandy may
seem to strengthen, but plain bread and
! meat are the surest.
What we want is not more money, but
more cap4l Money always comes with
capital. We have money now, more than
we can use, lying idle. We have just OK
ported lot of it. Money is the transferrer
of capital, as hayrack and horse is
transferrer of hay. More hayracks will
never make more hay, but more hay will
require more hayracks and is sure to get
them.
A look at the Past.
If 1 sell you my house in Portland or
mortgage it for SIS, 900 and send the result
to Washington state coal mine and 1t Is
spent and comes back to Casco bank, my
IS, 900 worth of capital is in Washington
just the same What this whole country
needs is capital from abroad, from the
whole world. l expect some of you will
be surprised and ask whether the world Of
the United States is not immense and
sufficient. Immense, yes; sufficient no.
Our capital is great, but the United
States is very much greater There are
millions of square miles and 75, 900, 900
of people and undeveloped riches without
stint. But there is not capital enough to
keep $4,000, 900 Of people at work. When
are we the most prosperous? 1t is when
the 70, 900, 900 are all at work, and when
that happens we borrow of the rest of the
world thousands of millions of dollars.
Let me give you one plain proof of the fact
that money comes with capital.
In 1890 we were prosperous. Our peo- |
pie were all at work. Consequently there
were good wages, and wealth greatly in |
creased. At that time the figures show
that in that year we had $3.50, 900, 600 Of !
gold more than we had in 1882 Every bit |
of that had been imported or kept, the |
product of our own mines. 1t was busy |
transferring this vast capital we had Dor
rowed and that which we owed ourselves.
Now, just as soon as this election is over |
and the future position of the United |
States is assured, both as to money and to
the employment of our people, capital Is
ready to come to us from abroad and from |
our own people, and we shall again be
prosperous.
know this plain, temperate statement
does not seem so highly colored as will be
given by speakers who are not really re-
sponsible for what they say, but it has one
advantage-it will be found to be true.
God keeps the future for himself. Only
his eye can see in the fullness of truth the
days to come, but he has left us some
glimpses of them In the past, and II men
will only take guidance from experience
they will, as they can do in no other way,
III |