The Courier. (Genoa, Nev.) 1899-1904, 1902-01-03
Our Senators Interrogated.

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the pen of the eminent lawyer and old
time Nevadan, @. G. Hillyer, will be
read with interest by all residents Of
the State.
EDITOR PosT:
For the seventeen years before be-
coming resident of Washington was
citizen of the State of Nevada. /
there passed the most active portion of
my life, and still claim to be identified
with its citizens, than whom-though
relatively few in number-I have met
none elsewhere more entitled to re-
spect for intelligence, enterprise and
morality. |, therefore, feel authorized
to interrogate respectfully concerning
political questions the conduct of those
who now represent that State in the
Senate of the United States.
! l Observation-Disclosures it is so pub
lished and not denied--that both these
Senators have reaffiliated with the Re-
publican party, and in doing so have
both declared as their reason or excuse
that they considered bimetallism or
the restoration of silver no longer a
living issue.
| wish from these Senators answers
to few questions, and that their an
swers shall be made from their places
in the Senate chamber Iwish that
the reasons for their recantation shall
be given the same publicity with which
their previous professions were made.
First-Do you consider that the ar
guments for bimetallsm which you
have been making for many years were
unsound?
Second-If not, what sufficient rea-
son. has occurred since that period to
justify a change of your convictions?
Third-If you say that within the past
few years the large returns from gold
umne of standard money as to make
silver restoration unnecessary, l ask
you to look over your own speeches
and see how often and how emphatic
ally you have stated, and how clearly
you have demonstrated, that all min
ing for precious metals, and especially
for gold, is preearious, and not few
years, but long periods, must be taken
into account in estimating the average
or probable metallic supply, and that
the nearest approach to stability in
INV ~, atalIio otan6a,A Y,1.ct ha Fnr~J
in bimetalhsm.
Fourth-Have you not often stated,
and is it not clear, that the principal
Significance of money standard con-
sists in the existence of an immensein-
debtedness, which must be discharged
in standard money, or that which must
be maintained as its equivalent?
Understanding that you still rec
ognize this truth is it not fact that
in this country and almost universally
elsewhere, btedness--national mu-
nicipal, corporate and Individuals
greater to-day than at any time since
the question as to a money standard
has been agitated in the United States?
And is it not also true that most of
this Indebtedness was created and the
foundation of all of it laid under BIZ
metallic standard, at the ratio of Is or
l53 to l?
Sixth--Is it not true that this i'm
mense Indebtedness, amounting in the
United States alone to more than ST.
600, 100000 of longtime Understanding
obligations, must be discharged by
property and labor, will be nearly
twice as heavy under single gold
standard as under bimetallic stand
ard of silver and gold at the present
ratio?
Seventh-Does the fact that under a
nominal gold standard in the United
States the coinage of silver has been
continued and the volume of represen-
tative paper money increased, and
thereby prices stimulated, offer any
guarantee against such currency con-
traction as the law now places in the
power of the holder of money obliga-
tons, and by which property values
and labor prices may be SO reduced as
to create the calamitous conditions
which you have so often depicted as
the result of gold standard?
Eighth-Is not the interest of your
constituents in this question practically
the same as it has been for the past
twenty years, and as it was when you
were chosen Senators upon a free
silver platform?
think it proper to say, in reference
to these interrogations, that my per-
sonal relations with both of these Sem
ators are friendly, and hope will con-
tinue to be so, but, politically, they
have placed myself, and, l am sure
many of their present constituents in
an embarrassing situation. We must
either part company with our Senators,
or we must repudiate everything which
for twenty years they have taught us
to believe, and which most fns, at
least, still believe.