People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1895 — SILVER MEN AT MEMPHIS. [ARTICLE]

SILVER MEN AT MEMPHIS.

Monster Mass Meeting of Free-Coinage People Begins. Memphis, Tenn., June 12.—The largest meeting ever held in this country for the discussion of a single economic question convened at the Auditorium in this city this morning. While an overwhelming majority of the delegates to the convention called in the Interest of the free and unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio of' 16 to 1 come from this section of the country, the representation includes almost every state south of the Ohio river and west of the Mississippi. While the gathering comprises democrats, republicans and populists and is supposedly nonpartisan, there is much of interest to the political observer. There were probably over fifteen xhuhdred delegates on hand when the convention was called to order at 2 o’clock. President W. H. Brown of the Memphis Bimetallic League, called the gathering to order, and ex-Congressman Casey Young delivered the speech of welcome, saluting the delegates as the advance guards of a mighty army to overthrow a power more ruthless and rapacious and more hurtful to human happiness and prosperity than any despot that ever shackled liberty and oppressed mankind. Senator Turpie of Indiana, upon being introduced to the convention made a long speech, his principal effort being to destroy the contention of the enemies of silver, that the white metal was not “honest money.” Alexander Delmar of California, the next speaker, said the only monetary principles upon which all parties unite was stability, and that, he believed,’ could only be brought about by a restoration of the ancient coinage laws of the republic. The fact that 95 per cent of the exchanges of the world were transacted with checks and bills or exchange proved that metallic coin, both gold and silver, was inadequate to measure the parity of exchange.