People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1896 — AN ENORMOUS LOSS. [ARTICLE]

AN ENORMOUS LOSS.

AN EXPERIENCED MINER OF MONTANA WRITES A LETTER. Mr. Joseph K. Clark In a Letter to General Paul Van Dervoort Gives Some Valuable Reasons Why Silver Should Be Remonetized. feutte, Mont., Dec. 18,1895. Hon. Paul Van Dervoort, Omaha, Neb. Dear Sir: Agreeable to promise I send you a few of the material facts relative to the silver question, and Which I trust may throw a little more light on the great problem of the day — a problem with which many, of the eastern people are not familiar. In 1893, when the price of silver dropped to 59 cents per ounce, the deep ■liver mines of Montana, and in fact all mining states and territories, had sufficient ore reserves opened up and exposed to last from one to two years. The great drop in silver, with its attendant general financial crash in 1893, ■o discouraged the silver producers that development work on the large mines came to a standstill, and only the reserve bodies of ore were taken out and treated. These reserves have been completely exhausted up to date, and no profit accrued to the owners. I will cite you to the Alice, Moulton and Lexington, which were numbered among the largest silver producing mines of the world, and fifty other mines in Butte alone, whose machinery is now lying idle. There are in this, the greatest mining camp on earth, a few leasers working some of the best properties, and making only a bare living. In Philipsburg, Granite county, the Bimetallic and Granite Mountain, two mines which have paid several millions of dollars in dividends, are now closed down on account of the low price of silver.

} The Elkhorn, in Jefferson county, which has been a divident paying bonanza for fifteen years, recently published to the world the fact that it must succumb to the inevitable—that their great ore bodies were exhausted. Look carefully over the mining field, and see if you can find one rich producing silver mine. The bonanzas, which held such' conspicuous places in the mining world, are things of the past. Today but one is left —the Ontario, of Utah, and that is being worked at a small profit only. It is true that there are left a few silver urines from which the rich bodies of ore have not been all taken out. These, however, will soon become exhausted, if steadily worked. When and Where have any large silver mines been found of late years? The Molly Gibson, located in Colorado, is the only one, and like the Alice, Moulton and Lexington, it is lying idle today. I mention, these facts as evidence that silver mines are not being sought after or prospected for, because they may not be found, and would not pay if discovered. When one is found, in the search for copper, the claim is recorded, represented, and left idle in hopes that some day in the near future silver will reach a paying basis. There are, no doubt, very many small silver leads yet undiscovered, and had silver not been demonetized, there would be today at least three thousand of them, in the states and territories, working steadily. These three thousand mines would give employment to fifty thousand men. Look carefully now for the result of the labor and product of these fifty thousand miners. These men, kept steadily at work, would fcause, indirectly, the employment of from 500,000 to 1,000,000 workmen in the east, simply because to open and develop three thousand mines, vast amounts of machinery would be required, and the army of men engaged in these mines would have to be fed and clothed. To produce the machinery, clothing and food, would require the services of a ten times greater number of men. Again, the product of the mines would increase the number of I wage earners who manufacture works of art —every article for which silver is used.

Remonetize silver, and at least onehalf million men in the east who are now idle will have employment, and I firmly believe the number would be twice one-half million. At the same ' time there would be an increase in wages, for when the west is prosperous high wages ,are always paid, and high wages mean a more generous distribution of money. TSe gold bugs say we “are making an overproduction of that “it can be produced for 25 cents per ounce with profit.” Let us look at this matter intelligently. When we take into consideration the immense number of men who have been engaged in prospecting for silver mines; the hundreds of “niinlS” which do and never have produced; the millions of dollars expended in the erection of buildings, purchase and planting of machinery on properties which have never returned a penny of profit, or even returned the original investment, and with these expenditures made an honest comparison, it will be plainly seen that the gold bug estimate of 25 cents per ounce for cost of production loses its honesty of statement, and appears only as a ridiculous assertion, made with deliberate intention to falsify. I will illustrate with indisputable figures how rapidly the silver production is falling off, and more particularly with the price at or near 67 cents per 'ounce. In 1891 the production was $75,416,500. , In 1882 the production amounted to >74,989,90Q. In 1894 it dropped to 49,500,000 ounces. For 1895 tjihe actual production will not exceed 33,000.000 ounces.

At this rate of decrease the produetion in 1896 will be less that 25,000,000 ounces. Every laborer, artisan, mechanic, farmer, merchant and professional man in these United States should give this subject his earnest thought that his mind may more easily grasp the monetary situation- with a realizing sense of its importance. With our mines idle this decrease will continue until, in a very few years, silver will only be known as a by-product with copper and gold, and will not exceed, all told, over 15,000,000 ounces. The demand for silver to be used in art and manufacture may possibly act in a certain degree as a stimulus to silver mining industry.- Without a demand of this nature it will require the entire amount of the by-product to supply the art trade only. With low prices where is the world’s supply to come from? America will have no silver to sell. This country and Mexico have produced over onehalf the silver in the world at this time. Mexico is using the greater part of all the silver she produces, and we can readily see how th£t country makes herself prosperous by so doing. She pays all her help with silver at a ratio of 16 to 1, and sells her products, aside from silver, in gold countries, receiving payment in gold. Such manner of transacting business makes silver countries prosperous, while gold countries deteriorate commercially and financially. Many of the politicians of today are coupling silver with tariff. While I am for tariff, I am for silver first, as being a paramount issue. Japan and China are both silver countries. They can as easily make or manufacture any needed article as can the United States. With monometallism, Japan and China are given 75 per cent advantage to start with. The difference between gold and silver at present gives them 50 per cent advantage, while the difference in price of labor in other countries and ours is over 25 per cent; hence 75 per cent is a small estimate. With their cheap labor to contend with, how are we to shut out their wares and products? Can we raise the tariff high enough to do so?

This is one of the gravest’ questions we have to contend with. Shall we allow the gold bugs of England and the United States to reduce our free-born laboring classes to a 16vel with the Mongolian or enslaved coolies of Asiatic countries? Emphatically, No! But how prevent it? The simplest thing imaginable. Throw political affiliations aside; ignore all party ties on this important issue, and vote for the presidential candidate who is known to favor the free coinage of silver at a ratio of 16 to 1. Take John Sherman from 1873 to the present time for example, with Grover Cleveland and John G. Carlisle as auxiliaries, and see where they, with their monometallist proclivities and teachings, and administrative acts, have placed us. In the mining states and territories we see deserted towns, idle machinery, desolate houses, poverty, starvation, misery, misery, misery, and a terrible increase in the crime which follows and is the outcome of want and suffering. Railroads, too, are mostly in the hands of receivers, and trains are running short-handed with crews working at pitifully low wages. Farmers are in a still worse condition. For all they sell they receive less than the cost of production, and apparently do not khow the cause. A few days since .1 met a farmer in Omaha, Neb. He told me corn in the country was worth but 12% cents per bushel. That farmers were selling their hogs at so low a figure they had to do without meat at home. That they were compelled to do this to procure the necessaries more essential to life, and also to pay their taxes. I regret to learn that this state of affairs exists to a great extent in all the agricultural states. In some of the states farmers are burning corn because they have no money to buy coal, or they find corn so much cheaper, as fuel. I ask in all honesty, Are such things necessary in a land so naturally blessed as our own America? So rich in its millions of resouces?

Is there no remedy? I answer, Yes! By the ballot. At the coming presidential election vote for a candidate who is a pronounced silverite, who favors the free coinage of silver and gold at a ratio of 16 to 1, and who will not betray your confidence after his election. It will require several years to place us on the prosperous footing we enjoyed twenty years ago. There are but few in the east who realize the great importance of this silver question or understand it in its entirety; who appreciate the fact that we have but just passed through the greatest silver producing era the world has known for four thousand years. It is the third of its kind, and coveys a space of thirty-five years, or since the discovery of the famous Comstock in Nevada. . With most of the silver nearly worked out history is liable to repeat itself, and may not favor us with another such production for a thousand or even five thousand years. Allowing silver is remonetized at 16 to 1, the production will increase but slowly. The reason is that the greater number of old mines are worked out, and there is but little hopes of finding new ones of their past magnitude. People in the east, generally, have but little knowledge of the silver mines in the Rocky mountains; know nothing whatever of their workings; are ignorant of how silver is produced, where it comes from, how it there, or why it should beconhe exhausted. I have personally examined very many mines on the Pacific slope, and in the interior, and have reliable informa-

tion from other mines as to their present condition and wealth. I can say truthfully that the number of silver mines showing good ore below the 1,000 foot level will not equal the number of fingers on one's hands; and further, I may say that I am familiar with many mines throughout Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada and Colorado, which do not show good paying ore below the 600 or 700 foot levels. Copper mines are not referred to. They are different. The copper mines of Butte, for instance, improve with depth, and some of them are nearly or quite 1,700 feet deep. They produce, however, but little silver. Seven million ounces per annum will cover all the by-product from copper and lead in Montana at the present time. Silver produced in this way is very expensive, as it must necessarily go through several treatments before it gets into fine bars. With silver at a low figure it does not more than pay for treatment when it is produced with copper. I could give a thousand more reasons why this country should have free silver coinage at a ratio of 16 to 1, but my letter has grown longer than I at first intended it should be. The things mentioned are matters of history, some of them unwritten, it is true, but nevertheless truths that will remain with us forever. With every wish for your success in the great cause you have so nobly es-_ poused, I have the honor to be, very truly yeors,

JOSEPH K. CLARK.