People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1894 — THE LEADING QUESTION. [ARTICLE]

THE LEADING QUESTION.

Silver Now Comes to the Front as the Main Issue. Now that the tariff has been disposed of, the silver question is pressing- itself to the front and will hold a front rank until it is settled. Fortunately it is not a question to invoke partisan bitterness, but it is one that will equally engage the attention of all parties and will command the thoughtful study of all classes. It is a question so intimately interwoven with all branches of industry, and so directly affects the earning capacity of the people, no one can afford to be indifferent to it. The question of wages and of the price of our products is one that touches the personal interest of at least nine-tenths of our population. We have become so accustomed to associating prosperity with high wages and high prices that it is now next to impossible to disassociate it. We may talk as we please about the benefits accruing from a reduction in the cost of living and a reduction in the cost of labor, yet we will never get over the idea that high wages and the high prices for our American products are the only representatives of prosperity. To get back to the old-time conditions of prosperity, we must rebuild on the old-time foundation of bimetallism. The only argument against bimetallism is that the conditions of prosperity which existed under the bimetallic standard were fictitious, that it was not genuine prosperity, but only the appearance of it. Whether this be true or not, it is hard to convince the masses that the shadow was not as good as the substance,so long as it brought good times. If it was fictitious prosperity, the fiction lasted a long time, and had the pleasing semblance of reality through successive generations. Possibly the masses of the people need instruction and enlightment on this question, but it takes a great deal of theoretical knowledge to overcome a little bit of practical experience. If chewing the bag is proof of the pudding, then the people are prepared to say that they prefer bimetallism to monometallism. They have tried both, and it must be admitted by even it* most earnest ad-

▼ocates that the comparison is not favorable to the single gold standard. It is true, our experience with the single gold standard has been of short duration, but it has been one of those experiences where a very little goes a long way. But if it be. as it is claimed by its advocates, that the single gold standard is in the end the best for the country and the world, even though its establishment be marked by the wreck of property values and the stagnation of industry, then it would be a mistake to abandon it after having once adopted it. That is the real question now open for discussion, and we want to hear the arguments. Let the debate proceed.—Portland (Ore.) Telegram.