People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1893 — LAST APPEAL FOR SILVER. [ARTICLE]

LAST APPEAL FOR SILVER.

Th* Friend* of the White Metal Make a Final Struggle for Ils Recognition. When it became evident that the repeal bill would finally pass the senate the friends of silver made their last rally in defense of a bimetallic standard by appealing to the country and sounding notes of warning in the ears of the advocates of unconditional repeat Long speeches gave way to earnest protests. Before the final vote Mr. Teller (Col.) began with a discussion based on propositions which he regarded as incontrovertible, that the supply and demand of money determined its value, and that the amount of money in circulation determined the price of a commodity. Mr. Teller contended there had been a general fall of prices for twenty years, beginning with the demonetization of silver in 1878. The price of corn and pork had been affected in a large degree by optional trading. Wheat was selling in London, Paris and New York to-day at a lower price than ever before, Mr. Teller said. Within ten days wheat had sold in New York at 68 cents, and the best wheat from Minnesota and the Dakotas had*been put upon vessels at New York lately for 70 cents. He denied it was a blessing to the country or the man who buys it to have cheap wheat. In reply to a question whether he agreed with those on the democratic side of the chamber who favored cheap prices for everything, Mr. Teller said: “1 am sure that I don't know what the democratic majority wants or what it proposes to do, but I know about as much of what it wants as I know what the majority (the republican) side of the chamber wants—just about the same. The difference between the majority of this side and the minority of the other side is so trifling (so far as this session Is concerned) that I don’t know where the difference begins or ends. And I do not know anybody who does. They all seem to be in accord in producing cheapness. Every effort made on both sides so far has been in favor of the reduction of the volume of money of the country. It has been in favor of contraction, which, they all know, means low prices If that is the democratic doctrine and if cheapness is what democrats want, it seems that doctrine and that desire have pervaded this (the republican) side of the chamber quite as much as, and 1 think, a littles more vigorously, than the other."

Mr. Teller did not believe any legislation to increase the volume of money by legislation favorable to silver would be had in the next four years. There would be no effective legislation in that direction until the great American population was heard from. It was said prosperity would follow the repeal of the Sherman law. This country was not to see prosperity immediately. The world was disjointed and out of shape on account of the monetary conditions and there would be distress, stagnation, paralysis of business wherever the gold standard prevailed and nothing else. At one time during the closing debate Mr. Teller said with much feeling: “To me this is the most terrible moment of my le islative life. To me it brings more fear than anything that has occurred since I entered public life. I fear we are entering upon a financial system from which there is absolutely no escape. I know there will be no favorable legislation for silver until the American people are heard from at the ballot box and heard from in a way that will compel attention to their desires. Mr. President, lam not a pessimist; I have never been. lam an optimist. 1 have never seen disaster and distress growing out of policies simply because they did not meet my approval. I have had faith in the American people. 1 have faith in men. I can see the silver lining in a cloud as quickly as any man living. There never is a storm so dark I cannot see the coming light on the mountain top, but J cannot contemplate this condition of things without absolute terror. It strikes to my very soul and I want to enter this as a warning to the American people that if they do not resist they will enter upon a system of industrial slavery that will be the worst known to the human race.”

Mr. Wolcott (CoL), after advocating the right of debate in the senate, closed his appeal thus: “Out of the millions of annual appropriations no dollar blesses our great section, and now you are to deprive it of its chief industry because a contracted currency appeals to eastern greed and meets British approval. The real struggle has only begun. and will not end until silver is rehabilitated as a money metal and a standard of value. The action you contemplate is as if you should take a vast and fertile area of eastern lands, destroy the structures upon it and sow It down with salt that it might never yield to the hand of the husbandman. These are grave and sad days for us. We shall not eat the bread of idleness, for under the shadow of our eternal hills we breed only good citizens. The wrong, however, which you are inflicting on us is cruel and unworthy, and the memory of it will return to vex you.” Mr. Jones (Nev.) said a lawyer arguing a case would not proceed with much enthusiasm if he believed a decision had been rendered and the seal put upon it by the clerk. He traced the competion of India in the production and exportation of wheat and cotton to the demonetization of silver in 1878, which was not done by nature, but by legislation. By legislation bringing the price of silver to SI. 10 an ounce, where the fathers of the republic placed it, and not by market price, there would be absolutely a certain method without any cost whatever to the country of giving protection to the farmers and cotton planters, both north and south. The demonetization of silver, said he, was but half of the scheme of the banks of the great money centers. The banks wanted a monopoly of the issue of money. They wanted the government, after the issue of money ceases, to turn their prerogative over to them. They will now demand an

issue of 1200,000,000 in boa ds, believing that the distress of the country will follow, and, as a result, contraction will become so great that the government will be unable to resist Instead of issuing bonds to relieve a currency famine, the government, in his opinion, should issue greenbacks. In concluding Mr. Jones said: “This may be regarded by some of my confreres as the doom of silver, but, sir. it is only the commencement of the fight We who favor this policy and we who are against constantly increasing values in the unit of money propose to go to the American people and see to it that every mm, woman and child in the country understands fully the meaning of what we intend to do next We may be fewer in number, though I doubt it, but we shall show them that though there are lords on the lowland, ■ there are chiefs in the north.” Mr. Morgan (Ala.) severely arraigned those of his party who so vehemently favored repeal and he vigorously protested against the action already foreshadowed. The situation in the senate seemed to him to be a very lamentable one, one on which he could speak only with pain and which he could contem--1 plate only with serious apprehensions for the future welfare of the country. Mr. Morgan said the passage of the bill would be an irrevocable surrender to the demands of the most insolent and overbearing corporations. He warned his democratic colleagues, who favored repeal, against the steps they were about to take, and said that if he had told the people of Alabama that the first efforts of Cleveland, if elected president, would bo to put silver in a position from which there was no possibility of extrication, that it was to die in the senate at the hands of its friends, or in the house by his command, that state, at least, would never hove cast its vote for him. Mr. Vest (Ma) expressed his sympathy with the people of the silver states, and said no czar or kaiser would desolate an insurrectionary province us congress was almut to desolate the silver states of the west He argued that the seigniorage in the treasury should be coined, and ridiculed the business method which would allow this vast sum of 558.000,000 to lie idle in the treasury and sell bonds to secure gold. Mr. Harris (Tenn.) declared the puttsage of the repeal bill meant unmistakably the utter demonetization of silver as a money metal. He characterized as supremely absurd that the American senate, representing 70,000,000 people, in legislating should consult the ideas of policies of foreign countries “I want to state to the senator from Indiana and the balance of the world,” said Mr. Harris, “that the time has not been, it is not now, nor can it ever come when I will desert the convictions of a life time in order to obtain allies from the camp of the enemy.” Mr. Stewart (Nev.) closed the debate by declaring: "The surreptitious and fraudulent act of 1878 demonetizing silver is ratified and confirmed. The gold kings are victorious; the labors of | their champion, the senator from Ohio, are crowned with success. The Trojan horse was within the walls of the national capitol, but the betrayal and capture of the* White house and the capture of the two houses of congress was not the end of the war.” Mr. Stewarts last words were: “Let the vote be taken; let the object lesson be given. We will abide by the result”

••The Die la Cast.” When the Voorhees bill reached the house the friends of silver made their last stand. The debate was brief, but sharp. Mr. Bland (Ma) sent to the clerics desk and had read his amendment. It revived the free coinage act of 1887. Mr. Bland said a vote must now be taken upon the all important question of returning to the Sherman law of 1878. The recent panic was precipitated by the moneyed interests of the country for the purpose of affecting legislation. With that law to be wiped from the statute books he had no sympathy, and he and those who believed with him had only been battling that it might not be wiped out until after the political party to which he and they belonged had performed its pledges by restoring the free and unlimited coinage of silver. He declared that the advocates of silver were not discouraged. On the contrary, when the Sherman law was wiped out, the sole issue would be made whether this country should go to the gold monometallism which had practically bankrupted Europe or re-establish the monetary system of the constitution. There might be a spasmodic revival of business now,” said Mr. Bland, “but it conld not last. In this country stocks had already began to fall, and if anything should rise on account of the repeal of the Sherman law and the going to a gold standard, it should be stocks, for the legislation had been in the interest of stockjobbing operations The old world was in distress, however, and American securities were sent back to this country, notwithstanding the repeal of the Sherman law. The law had been repealed in the interest of stock gambling, and wheat, cotton and the products of the farm had been depressed by it" Mr. Bryan (Neb.) referred to the bimetallic declaration declared in the bill as it passed the senate, and said congress was not established to promise, but tn legislate. At the time of the Homestead trouble it was said that the means by which the American people remedied their grievances was the ballot What would the people say when they elected representatives pledged to a platform and to principles and then found those pledges were not binding when the representatives came to represent the cause? It was a blow at representative government Realizing that defeat was inevitable, Mr. Bland give up the fight with thia * final admonition: “I hope the results of this measure will be better than we ■ believe they will be. But if we are ; right and you are wrong, I warn you a day of reckoning will come. And I I here register the prediction that the j American people will never agree to the action you have taken.”