Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1897-09-17
Is GAGE PAST CRITICISM?

The Intelligencer has method of ar
get out of that is peculiar to all servile
organs. Whenever one of the bosses
high in power makes a slip or shows
indefensible ignorance, the organ SIM
ply says, "Why, it's foolish to criticise
a great man like that. He's beyond
criticism" This forcibly reminds one
of Boss-of-them-all Hannas argument
against his many enemies in his own
party in his present campaign in Ohio.
Hanna doesn't make reply, because he
can't. He simply says, They're all
crazy"
That is the way the Fourteenth street
organ defends Secretary Cages aston
ishing display of ignorance in his
statement that the mint price has moth
ing to do with the commercial price
of gold and silver. The organ says
that all financial experts are on the side
of Secretary Gage in this matter and
uphold his ridiculous assumption
against fact and history. The truth
is that there is not a financial expert
in this or any other country that ever
advanced so wild and absurd a theory
that taking away the prime use of
money metal by demonetizing it would
not affect almost at once it's commercial
price, or that restoring this demand
would not restore that price. 1t amounts
on Secretary Cages part simply to
an assertion that the natural law of
supply and demand is suspended IN
the case of gold and silver, which is
contrary to common sense and all ar
guments on all sides that have ever
been advanced on this money question.
Not only that but it is contrary to the
utterances on this point of every Re-
publican of prominence and expert
ence in the country, from John Sher-
man, himself, accounted the greatest
OF Republican financiers, on down
through the whole long line to our
own Senator Stephen B. Elkins, who
after the passage of the Sherman sill
yer purchase act, Dragged in the Opera
House, how the Republican party by
the passage of this nondescript meas
IRE had restored the demand for silver
and raised the price in a few months
to Sl.20 per ounce from the neighbour
hood of Is cents. If the Sherman act
did this for the. commercial price of
SlIver-and it did-what would free
coinage of that metal on an equality
with gold at the present ratio do? If
a halfway measure like the Sherman
act could almost Immediately raise the
commercial value of silver bullion
from 10 cents to S1.20 an ounce, what
would the complete restoration of sill
yer to it's time-honored place as a
money metal together with gold do for
the commercial price of that metal?
1t would raise it at once to S1.29 an
ounce, for no man with more than an
ounce of brains would sell his silver
bullion for less than he could get for
it in good dollars of final redemption
at the mint-dollars as good as gold
for the payment of debt.
We repeat that Secretary Gage in
stating that the mint price has nothing
to do with the commercia price of
gold or silver-a statement that is en-
tirely without precedent-has convict
ed himself of gross ignorance of the
primary principle underlying the coin
age question. And this is not the first
time that Mr.. Gage has shown this as
tonishing ignorance since his eleva-
ton to the high office which he is evil
IDENTIFY incompetent to fill. And the
Fourteenth street organ is the first
even of its kind to defend him. It
evidently knows no better, itself.