The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-07-30
Even Czar Reed Is Not Sure of
Republican Victory.
SILVER CAUSED A CHANGE
The Issue Clearly Drawn on the
Financial Question.
THE REPUBLICANS FOR GOLD
Their Leader in Congress Has Pledged
the Party to the Single Stand
ard in Opening the
Campaign.

Alfred, Maine, July 29.-This quaint
country seat was the scene to-day of
the opening of the Republican Ma
tional campaign of 1896. People from
all the country round about came to
town to listen to a speech by the Hon.
Thomas B. Reed, and to congratulate
him upon the prospect of his re-nomi-
nation to Congress by the First dis
trict Republican convention. There
were present many people from near
| by sections of New Hampshire and
Massachusetts, giving the occasion
something of the character of an in
ter-State demonstration.
After the county convention had
closed it's labors, there was a mass
meeting on the public square at which
Mr.. Reed addressed the large gather
ing as follows:
'If / were going to give good advice
to the people of the whole United
State, I should take this time to do it,
''Just now there is a great deal Of
frOth and foam in the air, and some
time is really needful to disclose clearly
to every eye how much of it is the re-
suit of the temporary breeze which
is of that ground swell which shows
that great elementary powers are at
work How very suddenly all this rush
and stir has set itself into action. Two
months ago no man of any standing
would have risked his reputation as a
prophet by limiting the slightest doubt
of Republican success. Four years of
actual trial of the opposition under
the guidance of its best and twice
trusted leader had left no shadow of
question as to public duty.
Two months have slipped away
hardly time to ripen a strawberry,
much less a system of finance-and
there are those who tell us that all
things have changed, that these very
men who were being arrayed for de-
cent burial had burst the cerements Of
the grave and transigured by some
new arrangement of crowns of thorns
and crosses of gOld,' were to lead us
to new happiness, and even repair
all the damage they themselves had
wrought
1.-TWO months ago, / have already
said, everybody conceded the election
of the Republican ticket. What has
happened since then? Have the four
years of history been blotted out?
Not one scrap of them. Is our condi-
tion better? Rather worse. We are
all in bad way and something must
be done. Let us see what is proposed
by those gentlemen, who, within the
last two months, have discovered a new
cure for all i'll the flesh is heir to and
who proclaim as they did four years
ago that they alone hold prosperity
in their grasp.
Their remedy is the coinage of sill
yer, 16 to 1. What does that mean?
Heretofore, when gold and silver
have stood together it has been at the
market value. When we tried to make
gold and silver circulate together we
have always married them according
to their market value To-day we
find them, not 16 to /, but 81 to /, and
they are going, they say, to lift silver to
twice its value, not by the universal
sense of mankind, which alone makes
values, but by a statute of the United
States, single-handed against the civili-
zed world.
eve have money, now, more than
we can use, lying idle. We have Just
exported a lot of it. Money is the
transferer of capital as a hay rack and
horses is a transferer of hay. More
hay racks will never make more hay,
but more hay will require more hay
racks and is sure to get them.
when are we the most prosperous?
1t is when our 75,0OO,OO0 people are all
at work and when that happens we
borrow of the rest of the worlds thou
sands of millions of dollars.
Nov, 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"