Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1900-02-14

The Cause of Free Silver.
ON THE DEFENSIVE.
The Republicans and the Gold Stand
ard-That Fifty-Cent Dollar
BuEabOO.

| ~1V0AA0S = AANJ.OcAI OOA1AE
| BuEaboo.
| For the first time since the money
question became political issue, the
republican party has taken clear and
unequivocal position. It has lodged
and hedged, and equivocated and de-
MED until now. All its leaders, from
the president down to the smallest
touter, have at one time or another
given their support to the free coinage
of silver; all have on various occasions
strenuously denounced the gold stand
| ard.
Now, however, the party has COM
mitted itself to the single gold stand
ard, and the very first development
| of the debate on the financial bill dis
covers the republicans to be on the
defensive. This was demonstrated by
the fact that the hard ticks which Con-
gresham Maddox, of Georgia, gave the
republican leaders caused them to put
forward their readiest and most elo-
quent speaker, Mr.. Deliver, of Iowa.
And it is worthy of note that this
man of nimble wit and tongue made no
attempt to answer the charges of de-
ception and double-dealing which
Judge Maddox brought against the re-
publicans. The most that he could
| say, in response to direct question,
was that he didn't propose to be hum
plugged any more by talk about inter-
national bimetallism. We think this
is true also of the people; they are
not likely to be humbugged by the
republicans on this question any more.
Indeed, the republicans have placed it
out of their power to deceive the peo-
pie any further. After standing shiv-
ering on the bank for many years,
they have at last taken the final
plunge; and being in, they cannot
crawl out and deny that they never
went near the water.
They are on the defensive That
which their leaders have denounced
most strenuously for years they are
now compelled to defend. They can
not turn to the people in the next
campaign and say: eve are just as
good bimeta1lists as the democrats are,
but We want to make sure about it;
we want some of the other nations
to join us in maintaining the parity
OF silver" They cannot go to the peo-
pie, to the workingmen of the coun-
try, and tell them that an increase in
the volume of circulation does not
make higher prices, for the wheat
famine abroad last year, and the ex-
traordinary disbursements made nee
essary by the Spanish-American war,
have added enormously to the amount
of money in actual circulation, and the
result has been higher prices for all
kinds of products.
The republicans cannot go to the
Wage-earners and say that higher
prices do not result in higher ages, for
the increase of wages has followed
higher prices as promptly as an echo
follows sound. They cannot go to-
business men and say that ''50-cent
| dollar is thing to alarm the public,
for the extraordinary and purely adj
| ventitious circumstances which we have
already noted have created a rise in
prices, which, in fact, gives us so
cent dollar as compared with nearly
all the products of human labor We
have 50-cent dollar as compared with
cotton goods, and a 5O-cent dollar as
compared with iron and the products
of iron.
In other words, the value of the gold
dollar, as the result of accidental cir
cumstances- wheat famine abroad
and the extraordinary disbursements
made necessary by the war-has de
preciated when compared with the in
creased value of commodities, and this
depreciation has been so significant
and so far-reaching that one of the most
pronounced gold-standard organs, the
Springfield Republican, has been
moved to ask if this Reputation of
debt values would have been any more
criminal if it had ccurred as the re-
suit Of the free coinage of silver.
A truely searching inquiry this, and
the republican party, which has been
placed on the defensive by it's indorse-
ment of the gold standard, will have
to answer it and a good many others
just as searching before the next cam
paign is over. For instance, how will
they explain the fact that this depre-
citation of the dollar as compared with
commodities has produced prosperity,
unless they adopt the democratic doc
trine that an actual increase in the
volume of currency always and every
where produces higher prices, and that
prosperity is the result?
AS a matter Of fact, we cannot al
ways have Spanish-American war
on hand and we cannot always have
to order a wheat famine abroad. Mean
while, the republicans will be put upon
the witness stand in divers ways and
they will not have as happy a time
as they now look forward ta.-Atlanta