Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-10-04
BY MARK SULLIVAN.

QUESTION about the presidential
| politics of next year is a stimuli
i taneouS and equivalent state
! ment by two Senators, both
! eminent, both veteran, both Western.
and differing only in that Senator
| Walsh Of Montana is Democrat, while
| Senator Borah is Republican-which
| is not much of difference at all.
! Senator WalSh's statement, as sum-
married. in terSe headline, was: Walsh
| Sees Revival of Silver Question" and
his specific prediction, as summarized,
was: revival of the silver issue, which
made the presidential campaign of 1896
one of the bitterest in American his
| tory" Senator Borah's equivalent state
ment made apropos of the action of
| Britain about its currency was that
1.-The gold standard has failed the
money question will be one of the is
| sues Of the next presidential campaign"
The writer of this article wishes to
say carefully that he is not-at least
not yet-disposed to assent wholly to
this prediction. But the writer of this
| to go on record as belittling the pre-
| oiction. To have silver '(or more
| broadly and more accurately the
| money question: as the leading issue
in next years presidential campaign
would be very surprising. The writer of
this article, at the present time, doubts
it will be so-but is prepared to be
surprised.
Financier Shares View.
Senator Borah and Senator Walsh
both went through the silver campaign
OF 1896 I think, though I do not
know surely. that both, as young law
yers in silver mining States. were on
the silver side. But let not the reader
be misled by that, nor by any possible
identity OF these two Senator's with
from silver mining States does not
indict their judgment about this phase
of politics Whether in the fight that
lines up next year (if it does line up
both or either of these Senators are
on one side or the other does not
matter.
1t is a serious fallacy for those who
disbelieve the prediction about silver,
or those who deplore II, to think that
the expectation of silver being an issue
next year resides only in the minds of
those who, for either political or per-
sonal reasons, wish for the thing they
predict
The conviction that silver will be an
issue next year Is held by persons who
do not believe in silver in the politi-
cal sense, who derlore the arising of
some accident or gift from Providence
to avert the thing they expect On
the same day the prediction of silver
| as an issue was made by the two
Senators publicly, it was made pri-
vately to the present writer by a den
lzen OF the very heart of the New York
financial community, one whose mate
rial interests and intellectual convic-
tons are all against silver-but one
who is scholar in history as well as
an expert in finance.
Fears Revival Of Issue.
tThis particular prediction from a
/ financial quarter was not quite in the
same terms as the one from the two
Senators; the financial mans form of
/ the prophecy was that America is
headed into political CONFUSION over
either the silver issue of the 1905 or
the greenbackism of the l880s)
| To probably four out of five readers
OF this article the phrases silver is
sue" and 'greenbackism" will have no
meaning at all, and the sound of them
will be like some ancient shibboleths
of medieval religious diSputation. such
as the "Nicene creed" or "anti-Arian-
ism" The generation of Americans
who are, roughly, under so years old
who had not in 1896 reached the age
to take notice of newspaper headlines
and political campaigns-that genera
ton does not remember, and is utterly
unable to achieve the stretch of imagi-
nation necessary to visualize the furore
and fever that can accompany popular
excitement about money or currency
issue in a presidential campaign.
Not long ago a youth. seeking to
achieve fantastic distinction at some
sort of fancy dress" party. borrowed
from newspaper man at Washington
the collection of badges which the Hat
ter had acquired through attendance at
the national political conventions of
some IS years. One of the decorations
retrieved from the bottom of an old
closet was of the shape and size of an
immense bug, about 8 inches in diam
eter, with claws as numerous and re-
puls1ve looking as those Of tarantula,
the whole covered with imitation gold
plate.
! AS a decoration for a fancy dress
party in the year 1881, the thing was a
conspicuous success-but neither the
youth who wore it or any other guest
at the party knew what it was. None
| had known or ever read the part that
| the "Gold-Bugs" played in the cam
paign in which William Jennings Bryan
made his sensational bid for the presi-
dency as the Democratic candidate in
1896.
"Coin" Harvey Wrote Primer.
If silver. or greenbackism, or any
other form of the money issue" is to
come to the front next year, We shall
need good deal of education in terms
and phraseology, as we'll as in the the
DRY of money and currency. 1t is to be
hoped the education will come from
| the best informed sources. AS 1t hap
pened, in 1896, the bulk of the printed
information the public had came from
curious person called Coin" Harvey,
who wrote book which he called
Coins Financial School"
Coins Financial School" became
the primer and Bible of the free silver
ties. 1t was the largest help that
Bryan had, the equivalent in print of
Bryan's oratory called. with a double
meaning, "silver-tongued') The book
was and remains to this day an out
standing curiosity of American litera-
ture. Though some two million copies
were sold. it takes today some diligent
seeking to find copy. The author
of it, Coin Harvey. still lives; only the
other day he dug up his ancient here
/ sizes and called a meeting at Monte Ne,
Ark, for the formation of a new po-
litical party That emergence of a
prophet who had been in utter eclipse
for 35 years is itself an omen of the
thing Senator Borah predicts.
In what I have said so far I may
have given the reader an inexact idea
as TO what it is all about. Because
happen to have. begun with quotations