Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1897-08-26
WHEN. WHERE AND HOW

Questions Regarding the LewimlRtamms
Away OF the Bimetallic Standard.
We have been asked stsvhen and whers
and how were the people deprived of a
bimetallic standard 2" To answer the
6rst question when" it is only neces-
sary to refer once more to the crime
of 1873, when this country was using
greenbacks exclusively as circulating
medium with few national bank notes
on the side, and greenbacks were legal
tender for all debts. public or private.
Afterwards it was proposed to return
to the specie basis. The fact was then
overlooked that in 1873 law had been
passed suspending the coinage of sil-
yer, so that when the country came
down to a specie basis the people
found to their sorrow and dismRy
that they only had one kind of metal
to rest upon instead of two kinds, as
they had supposed. The consequences
was irretrievable ruin to many of the
business houses and manufactures,
strikes, lockouts and b1oodshed in al
most every state in the union, the
great railway strike that spread over
the entire face of the country, the
formation of that non-American insti-
buttons, the s'tramp-army." The eff
feet of this legislation spread like q
hot wave of destruction over the en-
tire country, and, as Mr.. Carlyle pre-
dicted, did more damage than war, pes
thence or famine could have done. This
was followed by unfair and unfavorable
legislation against silver which has con-
tinued almost without interruption by
the passing of such subterfuges as the
Sherman bill and the repeal of the same,
and other acts of discrimination against
silver and in favor of gold, until gold is
to-day apparently worth twice as much
as silver on the sixteen to one basis.
This answers the question as to when
it was done.
As to show it was done is beyond
the ability of anyone except some of the
conspirators who were connected with
heconspiracy to explain. Iti said that
the first act in the decentralization OF
silver cost several millions of dollars
all in gold. 1t was done by chicanery,
Misrepresentation, bribery, fraud. in
tiInidation and bulldozing, by ridicul-
ing those who were right on this ques-
ton, by threatening and cutting down
wages, and by underhand tricks known
in politics, and by the elections carried
on by the most wonderful contributions
by those who received the benefits of
single gold standard. This is partial
answer as to 'show' it was done. No
body could answer in detail how it was
done nor how it has been kept from
being undone.
As to the other proposition of the
question where" have the people been
deprived of a bimetallic standard, we
would answer, from Maine to San Fran!
cisco, from the northern line of the
state of Minnesota to the southernmost
extremities of Texas and Florida, and
every acre of ground within the con-
fines of the boundary of the United
States has suffered the blight of the
single gold standard. From 1879, when
the first act was passed discriminating
against silver and in favor of gold there
was commencement of what has been
known as ''these hard times" Nearly
all of the railroads of the United States
between that time and the present time
have been in the hands of receivers,
nearly all of the great manufactures
of the country have suffered from
strikes and falling prices, nearly every
large city in the United States has
suffered from tramps and men out of
employment. Every farmer has felt
the effects of the blight of the gold
standard in the lowering of the price
of his products, and every working
man in the United States has suffered
with the balance of the people of this
country. The answer to where" the
people have been deprived of the BIZ
metallic standard is as broad as the
confines of this country. The effects Of
this deprivation OF bimetallic stand
ard have been as fatal to business as a
wave of poison sweeping over the coun-
try would be to human existence,-Illi
nois State Register.