The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1904-07-16

country that had brought on the panic.
The democratic administration, with a
sufficient number of votes of both par
ties in the two houses behind it took
that view of the situation and demand
ed and secured the passage OF the act
repeating the purchasing clause of the
Sherman act, thereby, for the first time.
practically establishing the gold stand
ard in the United States. Without either
free or limited coinage of standard sill
yer money, the country was, immediate
ly after the passage of that act, neces-
saTily and actually as Ii has been since,
and as it is now and as it is destined
to remain for a length Of time beyond
my power of computation, on a gold
basis, | was not one of those who
thought the legislation adopted wise,
but, wise or unwise, the result Is an ac-
complished fact, plain, p~alpable and
obvious to all men who have common
sense, and like many another step in
history it is beyond recall, or hope OF
recall. This accomplished fact was the
fact Of a gold basis then, not by the re-
publican party, but by the logged per-
s~istency and indomitable will of Grover
Cleveland, aided 1t is true by republican
legislators, who thought they saw in
it the final disruption of the democratic
party. That was in the main their mo-
tive. Now they would steal his thun-
der" and this republican platform
boasts that it was the republican party
which established the gold basis. More
over. they would now eat their words
and their votes Of 1898 and tell us that
the panic was not brought about, as
they then said, by lack of confidence in
our money and too much silver" but,
forsooth, by a tariff act which was not
passed until more than a year after, to-
wit: in 1894, when the panic, that is the
acute and fright stage of depression, was
virtually over Do not misunderstood
me A panic, OF course, is not succeed
ed all at nee by the golden hues of
prosperity. Industrial depression must
follow it for awhile, as depression must
precede it. So depression continued un-
til when?
AS | have said, when the boil bursts
and the poison is eliminated from the
body commercial the flesh begins to
heal. 1t cannot begin to heal one min
ute earlier. The process Of recovery
was aided by many, for us, fortuitous
circumstances. The first Of these was
go ,fr, t., T.I,a no IrAtnn Y,,Lnnf 10
compete in the European market with
ours-simultaneously with an immense
American crop of wheat and small crops
elsewhere. Wheat rose from about As to
about 70 cents in a few weeks during
the Bryan-McKinley campaign while
Cleveland was yet president. There is
not a man within the sound of my voice
that does not remember that. With
70 cent wheat farmers could pay the
retailers the debts due them and the
retailers could buy more goods; the
retailers, with empty shelves or shelves
becoming empty by sales, could ORDER
from the jobbers; the jobbers, who had
been o~yer-stocked, were enabled then
to order from the factories. When the
factories got orders then they had a
reason for making goods and they pro-
ceeded to make them, and then the
wheels of industry went round. The
farmer in the wheat country, with 70
cent wheat could pay the baker, the
butcher and Candle-stick maker" and
then they could pay others and they in
turn could buy more goods. This end
less chain of human relationship in the
world of commerce is no mysterious
thing to anybody except a platform
making politician.
But wheat going up had another effect.
When wheat went up during the cam
paign, while silver bullion went down,
there was therby furnished a SEEM
ing object lesson of the inaccuracy of
the contention of Mr.. Bryan and his
followers, of whom | was n that there
was necessarily a connection in price
between the two. Western and border
state farmers in the wheat belt, who had
originally been republicans anyhow,
and who had gone off from the repub-
lican party because Of their belief in
this very theory, began to leave the
Bryan column and join the Mckinley
column, first by the dozen, then by the
score, then by hundreds and then in
shoals. Thus it came about that Mr..
Mckinley was elected, because wheat
went up and because the going up of
wheat and the consequent increased de-
mand for other things, leading to higher
prices and a better volume Of trade,
promised to their minds prosperity,
without free silver. A greater falsehood
was never uttered than that wheat, or
anything else, went up because Mr.
Mckinley was elected" Things had
struck rock bottom and had begun to
revive before Mr.. Mckinley was elected
and the first index of that fact was the
rise In the price of wheat, followed by
the rise in the price Of other agricultural
products alphabetically with 1t. Then
the immense increase OF gold out
put that kept prices UP here and else
where. Not only Is the boast that Mr..
McKinley's election was responsible for
high prices not true, but 1t is a very
falsehood. The populists
first taught the people In certain sections
Of this country that prosperity was
chiefly dependent on government. Some
men preach the doctrine with the hope
that during periods Of prosperity the
average man will let even an extrava-