People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1895 — FREE SILVER IS SURE. [ARTICLE]

FREE SILVER IS SURE.

□OLD STANDARD ADVOCATES ABANDON HOPE. Their Crowd Now Knterini; the Speculative Market and Buying Silver Bullion by the Million —Why the Price of Silver Ih filing. “Uigantio Combine." Under the above heading, the socalled “metropolitan press” of the country, that is, the press that has been hired or bought to make the fight of the English money-lenders and buyers of American bonds, stocks and mortgages, has been showing up the alleged combination of "western mine-owners and speculators in silver bullion.” The object of this alleged combination is said to be to make a profit of the rather neat sum of $75,000,000. It is claimed that the combine has already acquired control of silver bullion worth at present market rates about $75,000,000. This bullion is stored, and the daily output if the mines is being bought and added to the stock on hand. The plan of the combine is said to be to enter politics and secure the adoption of the free coinage policy. “The moment the United States government determines to coin all silver brought to its mints as it now coins gold, that moment silver bullion will double In value, commanding as high a price as it ever commanded in the history of the world.” Thus it is that the silver speculators expect to suddenly convert $75,900,000 of silver bullion into $150,000,000 of lawful, debt-paying, 100-cent dollars, nearly half of which will be net profit. The following quotation from the article alluded to will speak for itself: “The combination is playing desperately and courageously for a splendid stake. If it can force this government into free coinage it stands to make anywhere from $50,000,000 to $75,000,000, depending on the time, the amount of bullion it will have on hand, and other circumstances and conditions now largely speculative. "People have wondered al the extent, the dash, the persistence, and force of the free silver campaign. They have marveled at the energy displayed by the apostles of silver, their ability to cover territory, and the unfailing regularity with which the leaders turn up in the thick of the fight, whether activity is centered in Memphis, New Or'eans, Denver, Springfield, Chicago or Kentucky. Most of the talkers of note are poor men—statesmen out of Jobs—yet they travel in palace cars, put up at the best hotels, take long jumps, and are here, there and everywhere, marshaling forces, infusing enthusiasm into the masses and keeping up interest by every known artifice. "How can they do It?

"The answer is simple. The silver combine is paying tho bill. The stiver campaign now raging with such an appearance of violence In half the states of the Union Is inspired by the silver conspirators, and is purely as business an enterprise as a wheat, a pork, or a stock "corner” ever was. It Is sordid from the ground up, but so cleverly have the conspirators kept themselves in the background that the truth is only beginning to appear. Even now many of the details are lacking, but the main fact is known, and the particulars will be tilled in as they come to light. The great mass of silver bullion has been acquired by the combination under 70 cents per ounce. If the campaign now on foot can be carried to a successful issue, the holders hope to be able to unload at $1.20 and above. By keeping up the agitation they Imagine that within two years they will secure such legislation as they need. "The campaign will be directed for the remainder of the summer, as it has been thus far, from the Plaza Hotel, In New York City. It is there that the wires of the silver bullion combination center. It is from there that the financial and political operations of the conspiracy originate and are given form. The contributing members living in San Francisco, Helena, Salt Lake City, Denver, Cheyenne, Omaha, St. Louis, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, New York and London, keep in touch with their representatives and trustees in New York, though the details of the management of the campaign are matters for star chamber deliberation. The magnitude and working power of the silver combination is only dimly realized as yet, but it will not be long before its full extent and significance are laid bare before the world.”

The foregoing is suggestive of at least three things: First, that throwing open our mints to the free coinage of silver will enhance its bullion value to the full limit of its face value as money, just as the most rabid silverltes have always claimed. Second, that the speculators of the large cities care only for their pockets and use politics, politicians and people solely for purposes of private gain. Hitherto, the speculators have stood for gold monometallism, because of the profits they have seen for themselves in such a course. Now some of them, for exactly the same reason, favor free coinage of silver. Third, that the gold speculators from this time on are to be met and fought by the silver speculators by the same means and methods which the gold speculators, since 1873, have so successfully employed to enrich themselves and plunder the people. Let the fight go on, but let the people remember that good as free coinage of silver will be, and sure to come as it is, that their interests demand, among other things: 1. Gold, silver and paper legal tender money. 2. The abolition of national banks. 3. Government ownership of railrods and telegraph lines. 4. The preservation of the land for the people.—Vox Populi.