Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1895 — FAVORS FREE SILVER. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FAVORS FREE SILVER.

SENATOR VOORHEES READY FOR FREE COINAGE. He Avers- the “Arrogant Apostles of Gold’’ Mean 11l to the People, and Demands White Metal at 16 to 1— Say a We Should Not Wait for England Wants No Straddling. Senator Voorhees, of Indiana, in an interview on the silver question said: I do not regret the agitation of the silver question. Sooner or later It had to be definitely settled whether the labor producing people of this country can be bullied out of half of their debt-paying money or that they will stand up like free men and protect and defend the money named and provided in the Constitution—gold and silver, or both—not one of the precious metals alone, but both, and on terms and conditions as to coinage and use of absolute equality. That is the question immediately before us, and no better time than now will ever be found for its settlement. The Sherman act, which was conceived in rancorous hostility to silver and brought forth into a law by an iniqultious betrayal of silver free coinage, has been burled in an unhonored grave, over which no lament will ever be heard. I have never been willing to admit that our system of currency should be dictated by England and other foreign countries, and I repel that idea now. The real and vital Issue now presented to the American people is the proposed elimination of silver from our currency. This movement means the destruction of half of the debt-paying money of the United States and of the world. If it should be successful It will double the burdens on every debtor and multiply the gains and income of every creditor wherever the sun shines. The debts of the American people at this time, both public and private, are appalling in amount. They have been contracted on a bimetallic basis and It Is now proposed to make them payable on a basis of gold alone. The two metals also constitute the specie basis for such paper currency us may be put In circulation, if silver money is destroyed paper circulation must be contracted In that proportion. Every form and kind of money must become that much scarcer and harder to get in exchange for labor and the products of labor. Such a policy Is to my mind simply horrible. I have not a particle of doubt as to the result of the contest now going on. The enemies of silver will be driven to the wall. Silver money will not only survive but it will be fully restored to Its old place as a lending and controlling factor In the development and the progress of the country. Danger from the coinage and use of silver ns money In this country' never occurred to the sane mind until greed, avarice, unholy speculation reared its serpent head and aimed a vicious, deadly blow at the honored dollar of the fathers In 1873. Since that

time we have had nothing but financial vexation, distrusts, business depression, ruinous panics, and confiscation. If I am told on this question that silver bullion as a marketable commodity at this time commands a low price, my answer is that if gold had been conspired against, persistently assailed by foul means us well as fair, stabbed in the dark and In the daylight, and in the back and under the fifth rib, and wherever else a dagger could be planted for nearly a quarter of a century past, It would be in a far worse crippled condition than silver. No other form of money on the face of the earth could have withstood as silver has done such a malignant, unsparing crusade as the last twenty-two years have witnessed in this country. It still holds Its place in the affections and confidence of the people. Battered, bruised, and tattered as It has been, yet It will buy to-day all that gold will buy. and pay all the debts’ that gold will pay, unless a special contract has been made for gold. The American people will never give It up. and the sooner the minions of aggressive, indolent, consolidated wealth and the arrogant apostles of gold monometallism realize and act upon this fact the better and safer it will be for them in the future of this country. The need of the white metal In the hands of the people is even greater now than ever before. There is scarcely a speck of gold In sight of the laboring classes. In round numbers there are nearly four thousand millions of gold money in the world and about the same amount of silver. With silver demonetized the plain people, the wage workers, and those who raise and sell the produce of the soil will handle specie money no more forever, and will catch even a glimpse of it but seldom. I wish to Impugn the motives of no one and to avoid hard words in discussion as much as possible; but Hie time has come when speech, though temperate, should be very plain. Party platforms from this time forward will not be framed to cheat on this subject, whatever may have been done heretofore. If the free and unlimited coinage of silver as full legal tender money and as a standard of statutes and the unit of account and payment, without a word of International agreement on the subject, will put this country on a silver basis, then we were on such a basis every day and hour from the passage of the first coinage act in April, 1792, until the demonetization act of February. 1873, a period of eighty-one years, during which we rose from weakness to the foremost rank among the nations of the earth. I commend to all croakers in regard to a silver basis a careful reading of the act of April 2, 1792. formulated by Hamilton and Jefferson and approved by Washington.

SENATOR VOORHEES.