The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-07-08
"ADvERsE L~EGlsLATIoN."

never Deen so anu thai
money was never so plentiful as al
the present time, some Of the demo
ne to float the white flag of distress
and attempt to make the people be
lieve that the opposite is the truth,
Adverse national legislation has
crippled Montana" they say. BY this
they mean, of course, the adoption OF
the gold standard, pretending SINGER
ity of belief that because Of the re.
sultant depreciation in the price of
silver, affecting only a few individ-
uals and corporations, the entire state
has been injured beyond reclaim.
This wall goes up with particular
%stridency from papers published in
the mining camps, especially at
Butte, mindless of the fact that the
party responsible for the adoption Of
the single standard has enacted other
legislation far more helpful to the
state at large than if it had adopted
the Bryan fetch cf free silver as it's
idol and passed a law making silver
the standard and absolutely demone-
thing gold. By it's re-enactment of a
protective tariff law it gave value to
the herds and focks of the state; it
made it possible for the producer of
raw material to obtain a market for
his products by barring the foreign
competition. which, under the Cleve-
land administration, had been given
full swing and all but driven u own
goods from every shelf and ware
house. Hundreds who were distress
ed and impoverished under demo
cratic misrule are now prosperous and
content and smiling plenty is to be
found at every hand where formerly
only quaint hunger and poverty show
ed their skeleton faces and drove
the suffering ones to despair.
Free silver means free everything
else and those who are still clamoring
for it exhibit none of the American
spirit of which they boastingly de-
clare themselves to be the only real
opponents. They would have the
many suffer in order that the few
might prosper. So long as the mine
wner were growing rich they would
not care fer the thousands of others
who might be suffering and in want.
The creed they preach is one of sell
fshness and their judgment is warped
through Observation-Disclosures. "The
greatest good to the greatest number"
is something they know net of, or
knowing do not care. But there is
little likelihood that the people of
the country are to be deceived by the
sophistry by which it is sought to
induce them to be responsible for
their own undoing. They have tried
the democratic way and are satisfied
that it is not the American way. Even
here in Montana, as in the other min
ing states of the west, it has been
demonstrated that the adverse leg
islatiom' of which so much is still
being said by the democratic news
papers has resulted in the greatest
good by stimulating other industries
of far more consequence and of great
err Importance than that of silver
mining. -
Free silver as advocated by those
who continue to clamor for it means
free soup houses and free bed and
board at public expense for those
who are denied the opportunity to
earn their living. Free silver is
also free trade. The party that adj
vocates the one desires the other also.
1t is not satisfied with the one, but
must have both and could it have it's
way would speedily plunge the coun-
trv into such depths of poverty and
misery that to reclaim it would be
the accomplishment of generations.