Year: 1878

the financial situation, and every business
interest in the country was forced to pay
tribute to its sordid power. The premium
on gold ranged high at times and less at
other periods and was a severe tax upon
those who were forced by circumstances TO
Use IL rs n factor in business transactions.
| The people bore the inhiction as they best
could, for the reason that there was no
alternative. Gold was King. and II ruled
the financial and commercial world with an
arbitrary sccptre, undl il was proposed to
remonetize silver and furnish the country
with q bi-mctaliic currency. This PROPOSE
ton was met and resisted with all the power
greed could muster. The friends Of the
silver measure believed that il would break
! the power Of gold over the business affairs
I of the country and cmancipatc our financial
condition from a scrvilty which had per-
mitted the rich to grow richer and COM
pcled the poor to grow poorer. The strug-
gle was fierce and bitter. The gold wor-
shippers denounced the silver advocates as
dishonest knaves and monumental idiots
but the contest was pushed to an issue
where gold was forced to surrender its
crown and sccptre and adjust itself by the
side of silver as its peer as q factor in our
currency.


The speculative power of gold has been
broken, and the people have been relieved
from its cruel oxactions, and our financial
condition begins to put on healthier aspect,
while the gold Spectator has shown signs
Of rapid decline, relapsing into a gloomy
and sickly mood. After the silver question
became q fixed fact, then the idolator Of
gold fell back and entrenched himself with
every available fallacy to prevent early re-
! sumption. Congress was assured that
specie payments could not be maintained
with the amount of gold in the country,
and that "the loss to the country since the
fall of gold from 10 per cent premium in
the depreciation Of property Of all kinds
exceeds the amount Of the national dcbt."
These are the sample lamentations which
the gold spectators have cast upon Con-
gress to alarm it into inaction. But 1t has
not needed these clamors. II has hastened
the hour of resumption and shortened the
days Of the gold power. In the meantime
silver is being coined and adds to the ability
of the country 10 sustain resumption in
October, when IL is to occur. Then the
fits of rcmonetizing silver. 1t is as good as
gold to lay in the vaults of the Treasury
and the banks to meet the call for redemp-
ton and the demand for it will be greatly
diminished by the additional fact that
greeubacks are by law equal with gold for
all business purposes relating to our own af-
fairs. There will be 10 necessity for gold,
except to accommodate European exchanges
and to pay interest on our bonds held in
Europe, and this will require but small
portion of what We shall have on hand,
since silver is its peer in the work of re-
sumption and in paying the accruing inter-
est on our bonds where coin is called for


The cry of loss to the country
under the depreciation of gold is
utterly specious, for there is no absolute loss
to the country except under destruction
of property. Our financial and business sea-
like the ocean, is in constant agitation. At
one moment the wave rises in one locality
and is depressed in another, but there is no
waste or loss of water, save by natural
evaporation. When an individual fortune
becomes dissipated it is simply under a
change Of position-some one else has it, as
it is usually divided up under the changes
, and alterations of trade among the more
fortunate. 1t is not loss, but it is great
gain to the country at large when the
power to monopolizc gold and force heavy
premiums is broken, and its value is held
within legitimate and proper bounds.
Spectators may lose, but the people are
the gamers, and the health OF business is
promoted