Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1896 — CHAIRMAN DANIEL'S SPEECH [ARTICLE]

CHAIRMAN DANIEL'S SPEECH

Virginia Senator States Hia Poaition , to the Convention. Temporary > ha ft Daniel, upon takins the chair. K|>oke in euioxiatie terms of Senator Hill, of New York, and expressed satisfaction that the majorityin the convention was.gglpicetieaaL l'pan points at issue he said: x Do not forget, gtotlemsa. -that for thirty years we of the foeth Kire supported the oieu that you have ualaed for I‘resldent. Ho not forget at the layt National ( (invention of the Democratic party In ISU2 you proclaimed youraiHves to’tx- In favor of the use of both gold nod silver as a standard mocer of the country. Do not forget that just four years'ago. In a Democratic convention ip this city, the New York delegation stood here solidly and immovably for a candidate committed to thj free and unlimited coinage of silver.and gold at a ratio of 16 to 1. Ail'd if we i*re still for it, let It not forgotten that we otvc it in some measure fo"thelr teachings. 1 That we owe yo« much, of the East, is readily acknowledged tn»d trill be ever most gratefully .remembered. Ilut If you gentlemen have helped to save the South, it also has helped to save you in the East. The majority of Democrats is not sectional. neither does It stand for any privileged or class legislation. The active business men of this country, its manufacturers, its merchants, its farmers, its sous of toil, know that a contraction of currency sweeps away the anuual profit* of their enterprises. They know. too. that the gold standard means contraction. Do lint the people know that It was legislation dictated by the advocates of the gold standard that hag caused and how continues the financial depression? I)o they not know that when their demands upon Democracy were complied with lu 19U8 and the Sherman law repealed without a substitute, that the very States of the East that demanded it turned against the Democracy who granted It and swept away their majorities In a torrent of ballots? Had the silver men lmd their way then Instead of the gold monometallists what storms of abuse would here to-day be emptied upon their heads. Democracy in 189* inherited from its Republican predecessor the tax system nnd the currency system, of which the McKinley law ami the Sherman law Wefe the culminating atrocities. It came to-power amid a panic which fitly followed upon their enactment with strikes, lockouts, riots and civic commotions, while the scenes of peacerm iudnstry in Pennsylvania had become military camps. Resides manifold oppressive «rjwivwL.!,k , ‘ McKinley law had throwu away it i, 000. is Si of revenue derived from sugar undar .the spectral plea of a free breakfast table. <apd had substituted bounties to sugar planters, thus decreasing revenue and increasing expenditure. From the joint operation of the MeKlnlev lnu aim Suprnian law an adverse balance of trade was forced against us in 1893. a surplus of ¥100.000.01100 in tiic treasury was converted Into a deficit of $70,000,000 lu 1804, and engraved bonds prepared tiy a Republican secretary to borrow money to support the Government were the HI omens of the preorganised min that awaited the incoming Democracy, and a depleted treasury. Moresignificant still, the very authors of the Illstarred Sherman law makeshift wereatreadv at confessional upon the stool of penitence and were begging Democrats to help theni to put out the conflagration of disaster that they themselves had kindled. So far as revenue to support the Government is eoncerned the Democratic party, with but a slender majority in the Senate, was not long provid,am* * la< * not the Supreme Court of the 1 nited States reversed its settled doctrines of 100 years, the income tax Incorporated In the tariff hill would long since have abundantly supplied It. Respecting finance, the Republicans. Pop“Jlsta and Democrats, while differing upon almost all other subjects, had united in 1802 In declaring for the restoration of our American system of bimetallism. The Republican party has now renounced the creed of its platform and of onr national pledges and presented to the country the issue of higher taxes, more bonds, and less money It has proclaimed at last, throwing away the UisKloses, the Rritish gold standard. Then consider, gentlemen: The Federal State and municipal taxes in this country are assessed and paid by the standard of the whole mass of money In circulation The specie resumption of ] 87.7 gave the surplus revenue in the treasury.yn>t gold only the money of redemption. Some $350,000,000 of Standard silver money, or paper based upon L ,E USt n lnod . at . P " rit)r " lrh K»1<1 I'.v nothing but the Silver in it and the legal-tender functions imparted to It by law. We have no outstanding obligations in the United States except the small sum of $44,000,01X1 of gold certificates, which are specifically payable in gold and they, of course, shonid he so paid, riicro is more silver, and paper based upon Silver, in circulation to-day than there is of gold or paper based on gold, and that the gold dollar is not the unit of value is demonstrated by the fact that no gold dollar pieces can now. under our laws, lie minted. If we should go upon the gold standard, we must change the existing bimetallic standard of payment of all debts, taxes and appropriations, saving alone those specifically payable in gold We pray you. no more makeshifts and straddles. Vex not the country with the prophecies of smooth tilings to come from the British-Republican propaganda. The fact that the European nations arc going to the gold standard renders it all the more impractical that we should do so. for the limited stock of gold in the world would have longer division and a smaller share for each nation. Previous predictions have been punctually refuted when prosperity was prophesied to come upon the unconditional repeal of the Sherman law. Instead of prnteeling the treasury reserve, as was prophesied it would do. an unprecedented raid was promptly made niton it. and $262,000,000 of borrowetl gold have been in sufficient to guarantee its security. The public revenues have fallen, wages of labor have fallen, and everything on the face of the earth has fallen but taxes and debts, which have grown In burden, while, on the other hand, the means of their liquidation has been diminished. In the meantime, gentlemen, commercial failures have progressed with devastating effect North, South, East and West In this nation. The dividends on bank stocks have shrunken. Three-fourths of the railway mileage of the Failed States is now in the hands of receivers, and the country has received a shock from which it will take many years to recover. Yet, in this distressed and contracted condition, the new-fledged monometnllists ask ns to declare for a gold standard and to wait for relief upon some ghostly dream of international agreement. liut the people do now well know that the conspiracy of European monarehs, led by Great Britain, has purposes of aggrandizement to subserve in tlte war upon American silver money, and stands in the way of such agreement. With their credit they seek to enhance the purchasing power of thousands of millions which is owed to them all over the world, and which you owe to them. They draw upon the Fnlted States of America for their food supplies and raw material, wheat, corn, oil. Cotton, iron, lead and the other like staples, and they seek to get it for the least money. No nation calls itself free and independent that is not great enough to establish and maintain a financial policy of its own. To pretend tljat this, the foremost, richest and most powerful nation of the world, cannot coin its own money Without suing for an international agreement at the courts of European autocrats, who have none but primary interests to subserve, has for many years been held out at every Presidential election. They have made useof such an agreement and have foiled it afterward, and we have never in all our history had an international agreement upon a money system, and none of the founders of this republic ever dreamed that such an agreement was essential. The npijority of this convention maintains that this great American nution with a natural base of fixed empire is fully capable of restoring this constitutional money system of gold apd sliver at equality with each other.