Birmingham state herald., 1897-04-22
THE PROSPERITY NECESSARY TO
 KILL THE "SILVER CRAZE"

KILL THE SILVER CRAZE.
 Everybody comedies that for number
 of years past business conditions have
 been very unsatisfactory. says the Ma
 tional Bimetalllst. Tn short, that the
 country has been almost paralyzsd in
 the grasp of hard. times
 During the last political campaign
 the condition was, of course, intensified
 by the insistent claim that the triumph
 of the ,.free silver idea meant "utts r
 ruin" Naturally enough. the defeat of
 that so-eallsd ''heresy' should have
 brought some improvement. There should
 have been a restoration of confidence" :"
 if nothing more, and even this ought not
 to have been entirely without it's effect.
 The most lavish promises were made, but
 we are well into the fifth month sincs
 the ''landsids'' for honest money" and
 still with no material and substantial
 change for the better. We are now as
 sured that the enactment of a new tariff
 on high protection Ifneswi9 restore pros
 perity."
 This is certainly little hard on all of those fTse trade democrats who opposed MT. Bryan upon the avowed ground that the maintenance of the gold standard would literally flood the land with sun- shine, and that nothing else was neces- sary.
 The idea of the gold standard people | seems to be that if they can only pro- duce the slightest improvement in some l other way the claims of the silver msn are refuted, and the "craze" will be dead. In this they overlook the fact that | there may easily bs some improvement with nothing like even an approach to I genuine "presperlty." In truth, pros l perity," as the term is used, is a ques-
 ton Of degrae- Under any system times | are not always uniformly good or uni 1 formly Lad. During the last four years
 some weeks or months have been better | than others. Some have been above the average and some below. Sometimes | there may have been four millions of workmen idle, ard sometimes only three l millions. But there has been no real pros- l pertity any of the time. So It may be 1 again. Many people are building great | hCrs's upon the revision of the tariff. Should 1t be revised to their liking it | might give temporary stimulus to bus mess on certain lines. Some localities, some industries, and some individuals 1 would be given a real or apparent advan- | tage, thus leading to a reaching out and enlarged production, which would set | some idle men te work
 | But all this would not necessarily be l "prosperity.' Much less would it prove | that bimetalhsm is a bad thing Unless 1 some conditions are created that the fac 1 tories can sell their products at fair l prices, and keep on selling them, the im-
 provement suggested would not only be 1 local ard temporary in character but the l reaction certain to set in would make us 1 verse. off than ever.
 l Other clements might come into play I and improve conditions. There might be another failure of the wheat crop abroad, 1 which would raise the price of that real i The foreign cotton crop might be short, 1 and the American cotton planter there ! by realize an advantage. But any of 1 these things, or all of them combined, i would not give us genuine prosperity. l Neither would they have the slightest ! tendency to prove that the country is
 benefited by the gold standard.
 In all of the cases above mentioned the
 condition would be still farther improved under binletallism, and. what is far 1 more important the condition would be a l permanent one.
 | To kill the silver craze" the gold people must not only restore prosperity, | but they must demonstrate that it is of l higher and better grade than we could | realize under bimetallism.