People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1894 — SILVER SHOULD BE FREE. [ARTICLE]

SILVER SHOULD BE FREE.

So Say Resolutions Introduced la House of Representative*. Washington, Aug. 22.—Representative Hartman (Mont.) presented in the house Tuesday resolutions for the free coinage of silver, which are regarded by the free-silver associates-as one of the most significant expressions in favor of their doctrine which have been elicited by the agitation of the last year. The resolutions have been considered and adopted during the present session by the most powerful | labor organizations of the country, are strongly worded and are signed by the chief officers of the various unions. The signers are: J. B. Sovereign, general master workman, and John W. Hayes, secretary and treasurer, of the Knights of Labor; Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor; Marion Butler, president of the National Farmers’ alliance; Henry H. Trenor. president, and P. J. McGuire, secretary, of the Brotherhooo of Carpen- | ters and Joiners: P. M. Arthur, chief of j the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers; C. j A. Kobinson, president of the Farmers' Mutual Benefit association; Frank Sargent, grand master workman, and F. W. Arnold, secretary and treasurer, of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, and John Mcßride, president of the United Mine Workers of America. Accompanying the resolution is an address “to the members of organized labor and all other producers and toilers throughout the United States,” which led to their adoption. The address declares that “in view of the general distress, at a time when granaries are full and in the natural order of things producers and toilers should be enjoying the fruits of their labors, it seems that the time has come for united action on the part of those who create the wealth of the country.” One of the causes which have brought about this condition, the address savs, is the “departure from the wise bimetallic financial principle of Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton and the substitution of the monometallic policy dictated by- the European money holders and their American allies.” A review of financial legislation is given to >,v what part was enacted in the in: rest of the producing and what <u the non-producing classes. The proposition is set forth that before the demonetization of silver 3,500 bushels of wheat or 35,000 pounds of cotton equaled the annual pay of a senator or congressman, while to-day 10,000 bushels of wheat or 100,000 pounds of cotton barely suffice; that formerly 35,000 bushels of wheat or 250,000 pounds of cotton would have paid the salary of the president, while to-day he receives the equivalent of 100,000 bushels of wheat or 1,000,000 pounds of cotton, and the same proportion applies to all other fixed salaries and increases. Demoralization of the food-pro-ducing sections is said to have caused the manufacturers to lose the markets for their goods so that hundreds of thousands of workmen have been thrown out of employment, and the demonetization of half the world's volume of money is said to hare made it comparatively easy for capitalists to corner and manipulate the other half. In the review’ of financial legislation it is charged that all acts since the civil war have been in the interest of bondholders and against the producers, and the Sherman law is said to have been repealed at the demand of European financiers, although a grand fight was made by the people s representatives. The resolutions are as follows: "We demand of the present congress the immediate return to the money of the constitution as established by our fathers by restoring the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the present ratio of 16 to 1, the coins of both metals to be equally full legal tender for all debts, public and private, as before the fraudulent demonetization of silver in 1873. "We also condemn the increase of the national debt in the time of peace and the use of interest-bearing bonds at any time.”