Daily Kennebec journal., 1897-08-17


ambitions. He found it impossible tt
triumph over the patriotic good sense
and sterling integrity of the America.
people.
Since the election there has been s
radical change in the current of events
The passage of protective tariff has
been passed. Great Industries that have
long lain dormant are awakening int
new life; the people are once more
finding abundant employment and good
wages; capital is coming forth from its
hiding to engage again in productive
enterprises. The whole country is
sprnging into new life with the tonic
of returning prosperity. In such an
already it is beginning to pine away.
A year or two of old time Republican
prosperity will suffice to lay it forever
a rest.
A severe blow to Bryanism has beer,
the prosperous season enjoyed by the
farmers of the great West. To this
powerful group, whose members had
been suffering severely from a dull
condition of the markets, particularly
the great home market, which had been
largely destroyed by Democratic rule,
Mr. Bryan made his most impassioned
appeals. He assured them that the
low price Of their cereals was due en-
tirely to the decentralization of silver
in 1S73," and that, as a result of that
legislation, prices had since followed
silver down. Wheat was the cereal
parisons, and long tables of figures
were deduced to show how close had
been the connection between these two
commodities in their common depres-
sions and sorrows since the awful
"crime of '73." To be sure it was a
severe strain upon the eyesight even of
some of the most vehement repudia-
tionists of the West to discover any
logical connection between wheat and
silver bullion; but Mr.. Bryan assured
them that such connection actually
existed and that furthermo ore he was a BILE
to establish the fact by indisputablu
figures; he could. in fact, prove to a
mathematical nicely that the price of
wheat was wholly dependent upon the
price of silver. This he laid down as a
political axiom, and many Western
see why it should be SO, accepted it as
an explana tion of their misfortunes
and determined to raise the price Of
wheat by giving the price of silver bull
lion lift Never, in the history of this
republic, has the utter folly and falsity
of popular fallacy been more thor
oughly demonstrated, than has been
the case with this one
since the national election.
The logic of events has been conclu-
sive. The price of silver has gone
down one-tenth until the market value
of the bullion in silver dollar amounts
to but 43 cents. Coincident with this
decline in the price of silver, has beer
marked advance in the price of
wheat, which has been selling for 25
cents bushel more than it commando
year ago. This, with an advance also
in the price of potatoes and other
cereals, has not only established the
entire truth of the Republican conten-
ton that there is absolutely no con-
nection between the prices of farm
products and silver bullion. but it has
also given the farmersOf the West, with
their immense crops, a season of splen-
did prosperity. Never again will they
be led astray by the old exploded fall
lacies of Bryanism.
Popocracy is on the wane. We do
not believe that any strong political
party will ever again undertake to
fight national campaign upon the
issue of the free and unlimited coinage
of silver at &c to or any other ratio.
1t is understood that a movement is
nf