The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-03-19
GAGE SPEAKS AT CLEVELAND.
Financial Question the Subject of
the Address.


Cleveland O., March 1S-Secretary of
the Treasury Gage delivered an address
this evening before the chamber of com
merce on financial questions. This was in
acceptance of an invitation given Secre-
tary Gage several weeks ago by the cham
Der of commerce. No one but members
were admitted.
After the address the Secretary was en-
tertained at the Union Club
Following are extracts from the Secre-
tary's address:
"The silverites claim that the money
standard, TO which for sixty years our in
dustrial affairs have been related. is an
oppression and a hindrance to prosperity.
They charge that its maintenance is the re-
suit of a conspiracy born of Unsuitable
sordid greed They seek to push our. in
dustrial social fabric from the good foun-
dation of the worlds money on TO the
shifting, uncertain sands of an obsolete
siyerism. They allege that we are in de-
cadence and decay, and that restoration
and prosperity will come by changing the
counters by which trade is finally settled.
can not take time to traverse their per-
nieious logic.
I'm spite of the unsettling influence of
their WHICH nave dSdn oilb
again alarmed the forces that make for
progress, which have more than once sent
capital into hiding, crippled industry, and
sent labor into idleness, the evidences are
everywhere that We are in state of pro-
gress not decadence. Let me cite a few
Of the evidences. Within twenty-five years
according to them, the period of our de-
cline our population has increased 81 per
cent. Wealth has increased in a ratio three
f1.os LOT i'm n fha
distribution of increased wealth has been
general is proved by the savings banks, the
number of whose depositors and their ag-
gregated accumula atoms having grown rat
able with the increase of wealth.
''Our foreign commerce-now well on to
two thousand miIlions-has increased in its
ratio TO population. During these twenty
five years the foreign commerce of Great
Britain increased 10 per cent; that of the
United States, 81 per cent Compared with
Mexico, the idyllic land of the silverite, our
EXPORT trade has increased 11S per cent;
against an increase in Mexico of q per
cent. What of our domestic affairs? Our
railroads have increased in mileage from
seventy thousand in 1873 to nearly two
hundred thousand miles in 1897, with re-
duction In cost of freight carriage of 60
per cent. The mileage of telegraph lines
has, during The same period, increased
miles to over eight hundred thousand
miles, with an average reduction in mes
sage toll OF 40 per cent. The production
of raw iron has increased from less than
two million tons per annum 10
about twelve million tons; coal.
from forty-seven million tons to
one hundred and eighty mil
lion tons; petroleum from six million bar
rels to sixty million barrels.
new South boCOma
new manufacturing empire.
Our average annual exportable surplus of
wheat Is from three to four times greater
than in any year in our history prior to
1S7S-the fateful year which dates our
ruin Within fourteen years, the num-
Der of tons of freight carried on rail-
roads increased lis per cent, while the
number of passengers increased So per
cent. But why weary you with the re-
cord which supports the brave words of
a western Senator, who lately said: II
have seen a development in fifty years,
with which no Two hundred years, nay
no four hundred years, of the worlds his
tory can compare.
Does not the most common prudential
considerations dictate adhesion to a mon
ey standard which has been contempora-
neous with this great progress, If not an
efficient factor therein? Benton and Jack
son. more than sixty years ago. argued it's
superiority, and by their efforts the gold
standard came into practical use with US.
Are we, who seek to preserve the good
they secured, to be condemned by their al
legged followers? Is not the statsmanship
and far-sighted wisdom Of Webster at least
as safe a guide as the economic hereses
OF Democracy's leader? Hear Webster:
"A sound currenry Is an essential and
Indispensable security for the fruits of in
dustry and honest enterprise. Every man
OF property or industry, every man who
desires to preserve what he honestly pos
sesses, or to obtain what he can honestly
earn. has a direct interest in maintaining
a safe circulating medium; such medium
as shall be a real and substantial represen.
tative of property. not liable to vibrate
with opinion, not subject to be blown up
or blown down by the breath of specula-
ton, but made stable and secure by its i'm
mediate relation to that which the whole
world regards as of a permanent value .