The San Francisco call., 1898-02-17
THE THREE SILVER MNNTFESTOES.
THE Bryan Democracy, Populsts and free silver | Republicans have sat upon and incubated trune manifesto to their follnmers s11mmnnnQ

HE DIydu OSIHOCIdCyp OpuiSlS diu AiSS oii'Ni Republicans have sat upon and incubated a
 triune manifesto to their followers, summonng them to fusion on free coinage of silver at I6 to I.
 lh1s document, abundantly fathered, impeaches the administration for maintaining the gold standard and making the lives of the people bitter with a hard bondage" This is also an impeachment of Andrew Jackson, who said in 1856 that "god is the universal and only honest standard of value" But Jackson IS dead and cannot defend himself even agalnst the attempt to identify him with fiatism
 The address, continuing, says: "The continued rise in value of gold-or, which is the same thing, the continued fall in prces-must inevitably transfer the property of all those engaged in active business the actual creators of wealth, whether b hand brain or capital to those who, avoiding the risk and effort ot active business, only draw interest"
 The address fails to state what these wicked men will do then when they have destroyed their capacity to draw interest by destroying the power to pay it.
 The farmers of MT. Bryan's State paid off S26 ooo,- 900 of mortgages in 18o7 and Kansas proposes to exhibit at the Omaha fair full carload of mortgages paid off last year.
 When MT. Bryan was in Congress in his speech on the Wilson bi in reply the claim that protection wisely distributed lowered instead of raising prices to the consumer he said that the general fall in prices was
 
 inventions. Now he sees new light and lays low prices to the gold standard
 It needs no argument to prove that if the so-caled demonetizng of silver in 1873 made prices fa nde- pendent of supply and demand of production and consumption, the fall would have been immediate. sudden and final. It would have affected not few but all values
 The fact is that silver has been more coined and uSed effectiuU Inc changes since 1873 than before Of the specie used in moving the foreign trade of the United States Great Britain, France and British India for the four years ending in 1864 the proportion of silver was 4o per cent; for the four years ending 1890 it was 45 per cent
 MT. David A. Wells says "It would seem that if the scarcity of gold on prices had originated and operated as the advocates of this theory clai such influence would have been all pervasive synchronous. irresistible and constant the influence of gravita- ton, and that something of correspondence as re- spects time and degree in the resulting price move nentS of commodities would have been recognized" !"
 Saurbeck's tables, dealing with forty-fve articles. show an average fall in price, but they do not show universal fall for all articles nor uniform fall for such as have fallen Pork fell points and cotton Ao; beet Io and petroleum 6S oats 28 and wheat g. tin 19 and iron 4o coffee rose 23 points The nvestipa tons made by sub-c committee of the Finance Com mttee Of the United States Senate in 1892 traced the price fluctuations of 223 articles since 1860 and showed the same lack of uniformity Fifteen articles ot house furnishings fell 30 points thrtyve articles of lumber and building materials rose P points, metals and implements fell 26 points; food rose 3 poinis wages rose Co points. Between 1880 and lSoo farm lands from SIS go per acre to S21 3r i've stock per head from SI3 o3 to S14 6, the average wages Of factory laborers from ss46 $4S4 per an mum, and of teachers from Sos to $251
 In economics theory is not good unless it ac. counts for all cases to which 1t is applied Those who say that the gold standard has made low wheat must explain why it has not made low beef, wages, veal, butter, eggs and milk
 In fine, the theory of these three manifestoes is fallacy Its statement of the motive of the advocates of the gold standard is appeal to prejudice and a demagogic folly. The persons who own the money Tn the loan fund of the country and get interest on it are very largely the working people and widows. orphans and estates, for whom the savings banks and trrst companies act trustees