San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-10-31
THE IMPOVERISHED SILVER
STATES.


They Are the Most Rapid Acsumulator'
of Wealth In the World, Says Mulhall.
The inhabitants OF the Pacific states
of America Gin which term Mr.. Null
hall, in his concluding article on "The
Progress of the United States" in The
North American Review, includes Colo
RADIO, Utah, Montana, Idaho and Wyo-
ming as we'll as California, Nevada,
Oregon and Washington are by far the
rapidest accumulators of wealth In the
world.
In the 20 years preceding the last
census they laid up four times as much
treasure ON earth as did Americans gen.
orally, their annual increase Of riches
per capita being $3.50, as against $50
for the whole Union. Their farms yield
more than twice as much grain as the
average American farm-30 tons to the
farmland, as against 20 in the prairie,
2 in the southern, s in the eastern and
IA in all the states. They have nine
folded their total wealth in 90 years,
II of those years elapsing since the
"crime" (which they invented and la
ment) "of 1873" They were worth
$727, 900, 900 in 1870 and Sc, ,000,-
900 in 1890. Since that year, as before
that year, they have enjoyed annually
the advantage shared by none of their
fellow Americans of taking 55 tons of
one precious metal (gold) and 1900 tons
of the other precious metal (silver) out
of the ground. This yearly product,
worth 500, 900, 900, exceeds, accord
ing to this authoritative statistician,
"the value of precious metals that any
country has yet produced in the history
of mankind
But this wealth is mere additional
godsend, windfall, to people enriched
already in the ordinary industries of
their country. Their precious metal
output is little over third of their
agricultural product of 1894, 100000
year. 1t is not very much more than
fourth of their manufacturing output
of $500, 600, 900 a year, which quad
rupled in the 20 years between 1870
and 1890.
These are the whole states" whom
a temperate and discreet "bimetallist"
English authority on American affairs,
Mr. Moreton Frewen, saw ''goaded in
to fury" by the lash of poverty which
the gold standard laid ON their ragged
backs. These are the people to whom
III 10 years we, the rest of the country,
the $50 average wealth people, the IA
ton average grain people, paid $780,
900, 900 for silver worth $3.50, 900, 900.
These are the states which, one and all
(save California and Oregon), threatened
armed revolution because their sister
states refused to take the whole of one
of their less important products at two
prices and told them to go to the regu-
lar market with their silver as we'll as
their lumber and their grain. These are
the people who have made a national
issue and are now making an interna-
tional wrangle Of the question, not as
to whether this single one of their in
dustries should be suppressed, or even
suspended, but as to whether they
shodld receive profit of 100 or 400
per cent on its product.
1t is with no feeling of anger or
scarcely of irritation that the rest of us
we $50 Americans-contemplate the
collected proof of the thoroughness with
which we have been "done" by these
$156 Americans, who have been crying
all the time that we were eating them
up with the interest ON gold clause
mortgages. Nay, it is with a more than
national, it is with a family, pride, a
pride which a thrifty Yankee father
feels in being bested in horse trade by
his offspring, that we contemplate this
magnificent record Of bamboozlement
And when we realize the further fact
that these brethren of ours, by plying
threats of our reputation of our foreign
debts, have cozened the old lady of
Threadneedle street into an offer to take
some $50, 900, 900 of their wares off
their hands, we fall PROSTATE in rever-
ence before their argent shrine of St
Bunko. New York Press.