The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-09-15
SILVER DAY AT OMAHA
FREE COINAGE DISCUSSED AT THE
MONETARY CONFERENCE.
Addresses by Messrs. Crawford,
Towne, Carey, Williams. Fowler,
WOIcOtt, Sheldon and others.

OMAHA, Sept. 14.-This was silver day at
the monetary conference. At the morning
session Mr.. Crawford, of Dallas, Tex who
was to have spoken yesterday but did not
reach Omaha in time, read his paper He
opposed the free coinage of silver. IF you
make dollar that is not worth gold dol
lar" he said, you derange the currency
confuse all values and infiict great injury
upon the people of this country. More than
cne-tenth of our commerce is with gold
standard countries; cur exports vastly ex-
coed our imports; the balance of trade is in
our favor, and to settle it gold is pouring
iE upon us in an almost unbroken stream
Our locomotives pull the trains in Siberia
and Japan; our reaoers can be seen in the
harvest fields all over the world. Even
European dudes ride the American wheel
We have entered the contest for the COM
mercial supremacy of the world. If we win
we should have gold for a standard and
smokeless powder for our guns This coun-
try is not going to ruin. We are better off
row than ever before, and conditions are
improving all the time We pay higher
wages than any land upon earth, and our
laboring people enjoy more of the comforts
and luxuries of life. What country has
made such progress in so short a time? We
don't want to change our policy. We can
rot afford to risk an experiment. All we
want the government to do is to maintain
a financial system in harmony with the
oIher great nations of the world and give
Us d banking system that will equaliZe the
interest rates and lOanable capital between
all sections of the country. The good sense
and enterprise of the American neonle will
do the rest
When Mr.. Crawford had finished Chair
man IoWne, of the Silver Republican ma
uonal committee, who was presiding, called
senator Allen to the chair and delivered
lis address. Mr. Towne subdivided his adj
dress INTO eleven propositions, as follows:
money IS purchasing power Stability of
prices an evil" 7'Appreciating money
neither sound nor honest .The gold stand
ara unsound and dishonest" There was
every reason 10 anticipate the results of
demonetization,' THE effects of demoneti-
cation We're foreseen and foretold'' Vain
efforts to break the force of conclusion ,.
Present condition intolerabIe. The res
toration of silver the only alternative"
me united States alone can maintain the
parity at 10 to l." Mr.. Towne argued that
the freer coinage of silver would not drive
gold out of circulation. In closing he said
IF there is an available silver flood to re-
place three or four hundred million dollars
of gold certainly our gold-standard friends
ought to be willing to show US where 1t is
and just how it would get in its deadly
work. Until they do so we shall rest Sc
renely content in the confidence of our
great country to restore and maintain a
system of bimetallism. Let her but take
the initiative and it will at once become the
Europe 10 support her action. Our coun-
trys power is rising: The next great con-
quest of commerce is in the Orient. The
exploitation of China is an impossibility
without the establishment of a stable par
of exchange between ourselves and that
country, nor can we make il profitable if
her developing forces are to continue to
receive the progressive stimulus afforded by
falling exchange"
piled to Mr.. Towne, and concluded as fol-
lows: THE agitation which has been kept
alive with reference to the free and I'M
limited coinage of silver a quarter of a CEN
fury in this country has done more dam
age than all of the failures of crops
plaques and nestilences that could befall
the American people in a century. The
greatest hardships in this regard have
fallen on the people of the Western States
The West is settled by people generally
young and imnressionabie; In political
campaigns they are easily led to the right or
left, but in the end they go to the right
side of great questions The people of a
new country should mot be judged too
harshly They may follow false teachers
for a time. but they discover their errors
and get on the right side of every national
question before its final settlement. new
people take an advanced stand; they make
experiments, and in the end reach sound
conclusions"
session were George Fred Williams. of
Boston, and Congressman G. n. Fowler, of
Elizabeth, N j. Williams was the first to
speak. His conversion to the silver theory
he attributed to asphilanthropic reason in
volved in what was to him great ques-
ton. He was followed by .Anson Wolcott
of Indiana, who reviewed financial legisla-
tion with a purpose to show that it had
been destructive of the circulating medium
Judge Joseph Sheldon, of Connecticut who
upheld the quantitive theory of money
President Thomas E. Wills, of the Kansas
Agricultural College, who discounted the
value of academic opinions on economic
questions generally Wills said wealth dom
mated institutions of learning and he cited
the case of Professor Andrews, of Brown
University, to show that college professors
dare not teach views contrary to the inter-
ests Of the rich. Then Congressman Fowler
occupied the platform for half an hour with
the defense Of the gold standard