Los Angeles herald., 1909-09-29
FIRES OPENING GUN IN CAMPAIGN
FOR THE RESTORATION OF SILVER
Judge C. c. Goodwin Tells American Mining Con
gress at Goldfied That Prosperity of Trade
with Orient Depends on Enlarged
Use of White Metal as Coin
Lsnecial to The Herald. l

GOLDFIELD, Sept. 2S.-Ihe nrSt gun
in the campaign for the restoration of
silver as primary money or for the en-
larged use of the white metal in the
trade with the yellow man of the
orient, was fired today by Judge {. {.
Goodwin of Salt Lake in an able re-
sumo before the American Mining con-
gress of the history of mining in the
west, and particularly of the Comstock.
The address, which was read by John
H. Dern of Salt Lake, was received
with close attention by the delegates
and the large crowd which filled the
Hippodrome theater until standing
room was at a premium, and was
punctured many times by applause.
Judge Goodwin did not advance any
definite plan for the extended use of
silver, but contented himself with a
graphic recital of events which during
the past thirty years, he declared, have
we'll nigh annihilated our trade with
silver-using countries.
EITHER silver must be remonetized or
| gold be demonetized, or trade with the
orient must cease and grow less and
| less with all silver countries declared
the speech. mo purely agricultural
country was ever rich or very great.
All the money of the world came orig
inally from the streams, the hills and
the desert; it must continue to come
from them"
For Secretary of Mining
Judge Goodwin made a special plea
for recognition of the industry of min
ing by the government, and said: Had
there been a live and enlightened secre-
tary of hnining in Washington thirty
six years ago he would have seen what
was intended and would have sounded
the alarm in the country, and the in
20 1ooisIat which n1SGn6 then
would have been defeated and all the
woes that followed that legislation
would have been avoided.
such an office and officer are needed
to gather data of mining from all over
the world, to be guides for men engaged
in that business; to be guides for
financiers and the financial officers of
the government; to keep up with the
production and reduction of ores; to
make needed experiments; to do in the
| line of mining what Secretary Wilson
has done and is doing for agriculture
and horticulture.
"It is quite possible, too, that an
alert, enlightened and patriotic secre-
| tary of mining, having grasped the full
significance and sensitiveness of real
money and the effects of its increase
and decrease on the business of a
country. would be able, after a while,
to suggest for the country financial
system, not founded on an interest
| bearing debt, for the people to pay the
| interest on annually and not contem-
plating the making of that debt and the
payment of that interest perpetual
Authority on Bimetallism
Judge Goodwin has long been recog-
nized as a leading authority on BIZ
metallsm. He was one of the group OF
brilliant young men who gained ma
tional and international fame as news
paper chroniclers of the doings of the
| big men and little men of the Com
| stock and was associated in those
days with Mark Twain, Bret Harte,
Dan De guile, Sam Davis and scores
of lesser lights. Although he has passed
the Biblical age of three score years
and ten, the Judge is still in harness
battling for the right through the
columns of the daily press.
| The address is given herewith in full
| On a July day, just fifty years ago,
two placer miners that had worked
their way up East Cor SeYen-Mlle)
canyon, toward the, height on which
Virginia City now stands found what
| they supposed was an extraordinary
rich bank of gravel, and the result OF
their days washing was astonishing.
| They really were on the Comstock
! lode. and what they supposed was
gravel was but decomposed rock from
| the great ledge They took up large
placer claim along the lode and con-
! tinued their work. They were on the
old Ophir groupings.
About the same time two or three
miners who had in the same way
worked up Gold canyon found Gold
Hill. All the way these miners had
been annoyed by blue-black sand
and rock that clogged their rockers.
News of Strike Spreads
Remote and sparsely settled as that
region was, the news of what these
placer miners were making with their
rockers spread. A man went up from
Truckee Meadows to see the find, and
picking up a piece of this blue-black
rock put it in his pocket as a pocket
piece.
He had lived in Nevada City, Cal.'
and soon after returned there and gave
this specimen to a friend. The friend
| had it assayed, and seeking to ascer-
tain what other metal besides gold 1t
contained, the assayer, as an expert
ment, tried it for silver.
The result was many hundreds of
dollars in gold but many more nun
dreds in silver. The mysterious metal
was black sulphuret Of silver
Then the rush began Then men
who had measured the fortunes they
hoped to make in thousands now ex-
panded their thoughts and measured
them in millions.
Begins Forward March
Then quartz mining began in
earnest, then the study of how to re-
duce silver ores began, then for
ward march of the nation began, for,
lol the desert had been transformed
and even men could see, in thought,
rich mines everywhere beneath the re-
pellent mantle of desolation that had
been drawn around it to conceal It's
treasures.
The history of those days has been
written. its comical side, its pathetic
side. its business side. California was
peopled by the pick of men of all the
states; the Comstock was peopled by
the pick of the brave spirits OF Call
fornia.
In three or four years mining was
reduced to a system and mills had
been invented that saved fair per-
centage of the gold and silver in the
ores. Roads were built so was city;
| order was maintained when there was
no written code to enforce. Some of
the brightest minds. some of the high
est souls ever congregated on one
spot were there, and While not all
angels. while there were some char
acters there which would have been
called tough in other countries their
sense of propriety and the accuracy
| of their shooting were protection TO