The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1900-07-27

*Ten months.
"Our railroads and other carriers have
never been so busy nor had their car
rying capacity SO taxed nor had better
earnings than within the last three years
Our manufacturers have found ampler
and better markets and paid better wages
than ever before. The mechanics and
laboring men are no longer idle or work.
ing at reduced wages and reduced hours,
as under Clevelands administration. Ev
cry person anxious to work has found
ample employment at fair wages, and in
many instances and callings at a higher
rate of wages than ever before. There
have been times and places in some
classes of employment within the last
two years when the demand for help was
greater than the supply, and this assur-
eGly tokens good wages And our farm
ers have found better markets for their
products, and at higher prices in the ag-
gregate than during the years 1893, "a,
'95 and 60
1T is unfortunate that, owing to a pro-
longed and severe drouth prevailing in
certain portions of our state, the farm
ers in these localities cannot this year,
as in former years, participate in that
prosperity which is the lot of their breth-
rem in other parts of the country, and
which would have been theirs, too, with
a bountiful harvest. But there is at least
one comfort for our unfortunate farmers
and that is this, that their lot is not as
bad as it would have been if such mis-
fortune had occurred during the hard
times of Cleveland's administration when
money was scarcer and interest higher
than now. They are now in better condi-
ton to endure the calamity than they
were then.
"In the financial world a complete revo-
luton has been effected in our country.
-Four years ago, owing to the fear of a
Democratic administration, with free sill
yer in its wake, money was scarce, in
terest high, and we were a debtor nation.
struggling for the surplus gold of Eu-
rope to maintain our credit. To-day
money is abundant, interest lower than
ever before, and we have become cred
itor nation, investing some of our sur
plus money in the securities of the old
world, and our exports have brought a
steady flow of gold to our shores, so that
our national treasury is supplied with an
abundance of the precious metal for the
maintenance of the integrity of our cur
rency
Recent Financial Legislation,
by establishing in law-as it had long
, been in fact-the gold standard has placed
our currency on Rock of Gibraltar and
placed our nation at the head of the
front rank among the great commercial
nations of the world. Whatever else may
be said of our national banks, their bills
have never failed US, as was often the
case with our paper money in ante-bellum
days; and under the recent act, by per-
hitting the establishment of small banks
in the smaller towns, safe avenue for
increased paper circulation was provided
and in providing it we have demonstrated
that the credit of our country is so good
that it can dispose of it's per cent bonds
at para rate of interest which no other
country can show in it's entire history
and these bonds are now at premium
of 8 per cent
Our currency now so ample, so safe and
so sound, the Democracy are still striving
to destroy by the heresy of free silver;
as they sought to do in 1896. Nothing
more clearly established the utter per-
verseness of the Democratic party and
its total unfitness for government than the
fact that in spite of present conditions,
which I have briefly described, and in