People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1893 — IN BEHALF OF SILVER. [ARTICLE]

IN BEHALF OF SILVER.

Aa AddreM by United State* Senator* afad Representative* and an Appeal by President Warner of the American Bimetallic League. Washington. Nov. 7.—The populist members of congress, including senators and members of the house, have issued an address appealing to the people to take up the silver cause, a synopsis of which is here given: . Tbe address begins with the statement of the aggregate debts of the world and of the gold and silver in existence, calls attention to the fact that the arts require almost the total gold production, and says the decrease of the volume of this metal caused by hoarding has caused it to appreciate 40 to 50 per cent The address continues: •"The repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman act destroys silver as money of ultimate redemption and reduces that metal to credit money to float only by redemption in gold. The 11,100,000,000 of paper and silver now in circulation must rest upon less than 1100.00J.000 of gold in the treasury as available for redemption. The only reason for demonetizing silver was to enhance the value of gold and obligations payable in money. It is further proposed to sell bonds of the United States and buy gold to strengthen the reserves in the treasury. National banks will use the bonds for banking and issue their notes, upon which tbe people must pay interest, as well as on the bonds.” After reviewing the silver legislation since 1873, it is asserted that the secretary of the treasury surrendered the option to pay in silver to the exporters of gold witbout cansideration, and then proclaimed that the Sherman act was driving gold out of the country. The address asserts in effect that the Sherman act interfered with the establishment of a gold standard, and that the New York and London bankers and the present administration in the United States and in the Gladstone government in England conspired to force its repeal, saying: “The president issued a jail for an extra session of congress in which he attributed the panic which he himself had aided to create to the Sherman act ” Referring to the contest over the repeal bill in the senate, the address says it continued until the gold power and federal patronage could induce a majority of that body to submit to executive dictation. The gold press in every commercial center teemed with misrepresentation, insult and abuse of the unpurchasable defenders of the people. Banks, boards of trade, and the commercial press demanded a vote without debate. The power of money was felt on every hand. Intimidation and threats of personal violence loaded the malls of senators. The document ends with an appeal to the people to study the question, and with this “trust no man who once betrayed you. Put no faith in any president who assumed dictatorial power. Do not be overawed or intimidated by Wall street and the power of the national banks. When the people rise in their might, intrigue, cunning usurpation, bribery and corruption will vanish before them.” The paper is signed by the following: Senators—W A Peffer, John P. Jones, William M. Stewart. James H. Kvle, William V. Allen. Representatives—John Davis, William Baker, H. E. Boen, John C. Bell, W. A. Harris. T. J. Hudson, Jerry Simpson, Lase Pence, O. M. Kem, W. A. McKeighan. The Bimetallic League. Washington, Nov. 7.—Gen. A. J. Warner, president of the American Bimetallic league, has issued “an appeal” to the people on behalf of silver. After dwelling upon recent anti-silver legislation, it continues: "No claim more ridiculous could be made ; than that the addition of from J3.0J0.0X) to $4,000,000 of standard money to our volume of currency monthly produced money stringency and brought on a panic. The bottom cause of the panic was the shrinkage in prices necessary to conform to the single gold standard, and the necessary consequences of the establishment of the single gold standard must be—after a possible temporary expansion of more credit—a still further and more rapid rise of gold and a corresponding fall in prices. There is no possible way to retain gold in this country but to bring prices down to the level of prices of other countries, so that gold will tend toward and not from the United States. Prices, therefore, must scale down and debts scale up, as gold raises in value. All products of labor must fall and eventually wages of labor must go down also. This is inevitable with a single gold standard.

“Will the people of this country consent forever to carry on business and pay debts by a constantly-increasing money standard in order that the debt-owing and money-lending classes may unjustly possess themselves of the earnings of others? A determined tight has been made in congress by the friends of a just money standard against the enactment of a measure fraught with more injustice to the people of this country than any other in its whole history. It is believed that no severer blow was ever struck at the rights and interests of the people since our government was established than that which subjects them to the domination of a money combination extending to both sides of the Atlantic ocean. The decree that the people of this country shall have no money that does not promise gold on demand, while- the gold is nearly all locked up in the vaults of a few great treasuries and banking firms, ought to beenough in itself to arouse the people to a sense of the danger that threatens them. This is a question that involves the very existence of the institutions on which the republic was founded. If not of civilization itself. ‘•The question now goes back to the people; it is for them to say whether they will succumb to the demands of a power alien to the eons.itution and subversive of their rights: whether they will permit their property to be filched from them by being scaled, down to conform to an altered money standard, while debts and taxes are correspondingly increased, or whether they will rise in their might and defend their rights and interests as becomes a free people. “The power is in their hands to right the wrong if they will but use it. The lines are clearly drawn. Shall the money power or the people, control this government? Shall this country control its own financial policy or shall it be subject to the dictation of foreign nations or of home and foreign combinations of capital! Shall the money standard be gold alone, with a paper currency issued.by innumerable banks and regulated, by no principle but their own interests, or shall it be the constitutional standard of gold and silver with the issue and regulation of all paper currency by the general government? “Tbis-question is pre-eminent-above all others and rises above mere party considerations. There can be no issue but this until this has been finally settled and settled rightly. It requires no prophet to forecast that, under the single gold standard and with the last source of supply cut off, pr ices must continue to fall, industries stagnate and indleness. want and misery fill tine land.” “The remedy must be sought at the ballotbox. Catechise every candidate for a legislative office apd pledge every candidate for congress to work and vote for the restoration of the constitutional standard of money, with the coinage of both metals without discrimination against either, and the issue and control of gaper money by the government of the United rates. -Retire every representative who has been unfaithful to his trust, and elect cnlv true and tried men to represent your interest in the grea t struggl - now before us.”