The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1900-09-28
BRYAN DODGEs Sill YER
HE IS CONTINUALLY ENDEAvoRING
TO BEFoG THE PEOPLE.
While He Is Eauivocating Dick
Croker Says That 1t Does Not
Make Any difference what
Ratio Is Adopted.


It is not to be expected that the
Populist candidate will stop lodging
the silver question-and. perhaps. by
the silver question we mean this time
the very pointed inquiry which the
New York Herald lately addressed to
Mr.. Bryan, whether, in case he were
elected president, he would immediate
ly began to pay the coin obligations
of the government in silver alone. 1t
is known to ten million voters that
he declined to answer, and it is be-
lieved by every one of these that he
will never answer
How can he do so?
To say yes would be to shock and
drive away perhaps thousands, per-
haps tens of thousands, of Gold Demo-
Gratis of the East. To say no would
even more endanger the candidates
slim chances of being elected; for
that would surely discourage and dis
gust hundreds of thousands of Popu-
lists. 1t is, therefore, to be expected
that Mr.. Bryan will continue to dodge
though, of course, there is nothing to
prevent Mr.. Jones and his Democratic
and Populist committeeman from tell
ing the Gold Democrats of the East
that the candidate would never pay in
silver; then telling the Populists of
| the West that that is exactly what he
would do the first moment he got a
| chance.
| Much has been said in the last few
weeks to indicate that Mr.. Bryan
| would surely pay in silver. His idea,
expressed in dozen web known
| speeches, was that God had better
help the gold standard, for he never
| would. In fact, IL he ever got after
| it, that would be the last of it.
| There are two or three quotations
| from some of the four-year-
speeches of Mr.. Bryan, however, which
have not been lately quoted. In his
speech at Madison Square Garden on
Aug. IL, 1896, he contended that "the
| free and unlimited coinage by the
| United States alone would raise the
bullion value Of silver to its coinage
value, and thus make silver bullion
worth $1.29 per ounce in gold through
| out the world" Presumably, no mat
| ter what the ratio is now or ever
| might be-and so profound an au-
| thority as Mr.. Croker declares that it
| is no matter what the ratio is anyway
the parity of the two metals would
| be maintained. A baby in finance, or
in common sense, knows that this
| could not be; and what is worse. there
| would be the devil to pay in finance
| and in the lives of all who owe any
thing, or have got anything owing to
i them, and that practically includes the
whole population. Yet can it be
doubted that Mr.. Bryan would try this
reckless experiment?
In this same Madison Square Garden
speech the Populist candidate advo-
Gated the payment of government
bonds in silver. He said
''The right of the debtor to choose
the coin in which payment shall be
made extends to obligations from the
/ government as well as to contracts
between individuals"
And again in Buffalo speech, de-
Iivered on the 9th of August, 1896
Mr.. Bryan said:
'There is no way of taking the gov
/ eminent out of the clutches of those
| who have been bleeding it. except for
/ the government to resume its legal
| rights and use it's silver or its gold
wherever it p1eases, whenever it has
dollar to pay"
1t is not impertinent, indeed, it is
! wholly pertinent for every voter in
| this country, or, in fact, for every per-
son who has anything whatever at
stake, to ask whether Mr.. Bryan would
or would not do what he intends. II
he would, he cannot expect to secure
the support of any decent and fair
minded American man who has any
thing, property. credits, debts, any
| thing whatever: and if he would not,
| is he not simply a demagogue, a
| dodger and sneak?
Will Mr.. Bryan kindly tell just what
| he would do?