People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1895 — CONSISTENCY THOU ART [ARTICLE]

CONSISTENCY THOU ART

A Jewel. In the. Inte.r-Oeean Heroin- .. iny Hoeialintie, Hop u Untie, Pate.malintic and Had? The inconsistency of the In-ter-Ocean is strikingly manifest in its recent utterances upon finance. No journal was more pronounced in its demand for .the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman silver law, and no organ of the old parties greeted the populist doctrine of free silver and fiat money with greater contumely. It has advocated the gold basis theory of England, the theory of our noble ana uncrowned Sherman and Cleveland. But read what it has just said editorially on “The Great Fraud of 1873,” -'a fraud it has often vehemently denied: “The late Congressman Post once remarked in a speech on the floor of the house that the last section of the act of 1873 demonetizing silver reads, ‘This act shall be known as the coinage act of 1873.’ but ought to have been amended so as to read, ‘this act shall be known as the great legislative fraud of 1873.’ Until that time, for more than two hundred years, there had been no material fluctuation in the relative value of the two metals. The ratio in 1665, for example, was 15.10 in France, fixed by law, and the ratio fixed by the London market in 1873, was 15.92. In discussing the great fraud of twenty-two years ago, Gen. Post maintained that the men who voted for the bill had no idea what they w r ere doing. ‘The demonetization,’ he says, ‘of silver was the most peculiar legislative transaction that ever occurred in this country,’ adding, ‘lf anyone connected with it appreciated what its effect would be, it was not avowed, and it is charitable to suppose that no member of the congress w T hich passed the law had the slightest idea that the law would create consternation and distrust throughout the civilized w’orld, and that within twenty years the most important question before Congress would be how safely to restore the coinage law as it existed prior to 1873.’ “These words were spoken in May, 1890, almost five years ago. They were true then, but time has greatly emphasized their truthfulness. In the light of the current proceedings of congress they read like burning and

clear-sighted prophecy. President Cleveland, Secretary Carlisle,. Mr. Springer and Speaker been baffled in their attempt to secure a new currency bill by the stubborn hostility of a large element of their own party in the house. In fact, the democrats in congress are divided into two factions on this question; which shall it be, free wild cats or free silver? The administration is committed to the policy of placating the south and detaching it from free silver by restoring the state bank bills of forty years ago. Anything seems to Mr. Cleveland and his advisers preferable to free silver.

“The Republicans should not in any way countenance the idea that there is no other alternative than free silver or free state banking. If such were the case then the president would be justly chargeable with choosing the worse of two evils. But no such alternative presents itself. Even if the old system of banks of issue were restored the coin problem would still confront the public and call for solution no less urgently than before. In fact, there will never be financial rest in this country until in some effectual ard conservative way the great fraud of 1873 be wiped out. Congress thought it did that in 1878, but the persistent efforts of the goldites to neutralize that remonetization have been largely successful. “It is now seventy-nine years since Lord Liverpool wrote in a letter to the King of England that ‘as a nation increases in wealth the material of its money should be made more valuable.’ adding as the practical corollary of this broad proposition that ‘Great Britain has reached that height of influence which requires the single gold standard.’ In other words, it was the creditor nation of the world, and should have the monetary sy •

tern most profitable to creditors He left out of the calculation the industrial and commercial inter estu, both of which are to-day suffering in England, as in this country, from the prevalence of the single standard policy. “Until just about the time that' silver was stricken down in the United States, mo no me tai ism was confined to Great Britain. There were two or three other countries which professed to have the single gold standard,' but in point of fact they had an irredeemable paper money. “It was estimated by the great bankers of Europe in 1868 that if the single gold standard could be universally introduced the circulating medium of the world then existing would suffer a sudden reduction of 381 per cent. It was assumed that the working of gold mines would be stimulated, but not to an extent to prevent a heavy appreciation of gold and a corresponding depreciation of silver. The problem, as Gen. Post maintained in 1890, is to undo the mischief done. How to do it without falling into some other, and perhaps greater, evil, is the difficulty. If merely restoring the legal status were all that is needed, the task would be simple; but it is genuine bimetalism which the country needs, and without which it can have no financial security or general prosperty.”