Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1900-11-01
The Cause OF Free Silver.

| the relation that gold bears to other
things in exchange. An increased
gold supply means that an increased
amount of gold must be given in ex-
| change. for other things until an
equilibrium is restored by an increase
of the things to be exchanged. 1T a
great increase of golo be sudden, a
rapid advance in prices viii take
| place, and if it continues through a
long period, an era of great prosper
ity will ensue. On the other hand, a
diminution of money supply causes
falling prices, and, if long continued,
universal bankruptcy will be followed
by a general paralysis of business.
For a score of years prior to 1896 a
condition OF falling prices was general
throughout the world as the result of
curtailing money supply through leg
i~slation adverse to silver, without any
increase in the worlds gold output,
An acute stage was reached when
England sought to extend the gold
standard to India and the Sherman
silver purchase law was repealed in
the United States. Had there been no
increase in the worlds output of gold
during the past four years the worlds
price level would have continued to
sink lower and lower, and the indus
trial depression that hung like a pail
over all civilized nations would have
grown more severe.
But an all-wise providence directed
the prospector to hidden treasures in
the frozen north and science revealed
a new and wonderful cheapened pro-
cess of extracting gold, SO that the
annual supply which began to mater
tally increase in 1896, is now three
FOL what it was then. Money supply
has been so augmented during the
last three years, through the in
creased output of gold, that the rem
eral price level has materially risen
in all g~old-using countries. This has
been the cause of the universal i'm
improvement, thus making the claim
The whole world has shared in the
Improvement thus making the claim
of Hanna and Mckinley, that the
share of this universal improvement
hat came to us was the result of re-
publican policies, absurd and ridicu-
lous.
The United States has been blessed
with extraordinary crops for a num-
Der of years in succession, which we
have been enabled to sell abroad at
famine prices, out Mckinley and Han
ma cannot lay claim to the bounty of
God, neither were they the cause of
the famines. We have a natural mo-
nopo1y in the production of one of the
worlds great staples, cotton, but Han
ma and Mckinley can hardly claim
the credit for this. The Dingley bin
is their product, but the Dingley bill,
while it had nothing to do with bring
ing prosperity, enabled the trusts and
monopolies to become the chief bene-
ficiaries in this country of the inn
proved condition that was universal.
If the people have shared in any de-
gree in the improved condition result
ing from the increase of money sup
ply and rise in prices, it has been in
spite of the Dingley tariff bill, and
because it's provisions could not be
so extended as to enable monopoly to
take all.
Hanna and Mckinley presume too
much upon the ignorance and credul-
ity of the American people when they
ask to be given credit for prosperity
that came to the people through
sources they knew not of, and by the
schemes of the gold contractionists
being defeated by the discovery of new
gold deposits and the cheap cyanide
process of extracting that metal
which has so greatly increased money
supply.-National Waterman.