People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1896 — WHEN HE WAS HONEST [ARTICLE]

WHEN HE WAS HONEST

WHEN HANNA'S GOLD HAD NOT TOUCHED HIM. Terry Powderly W»» For Free and Unlimited Coinage of Sliver Extract from Hie Article In the North American Review Printed In 1891. Terrence V.* Powderly, ex-general maeter workman, was once an honest man with honest convictions. Now he is receiving gross gold for his services to the enemies of labor—Mark Hanna, H. C. Payne and the republican party. In 1891 he wrote for the North American Review an article entitled “The Workingman and Silver.” Here are some extracts therefrom: • * • “The mechanic and the laborer are as deeply Interested in the free coinage of silver ae the farmer can possibly be, since in earning a livelihood and in paying as they go all are equally concerned in the medium of exchange. The farmer been heard on the money question, and the city workman, although he has not spoken out on the subject, holds views identical with those of his neighbor on the farm. * .• • “In congress, at the behest of the owners of gold, silver was secretly and stealthily demonetized. , This the laborer did not see, nor the president who signed the bill; and within the last few months statesmen, who were senators and congressmen in 1873, when the demonetization of silver was accomnlished. have admitted voting for the bill without knowing tnat it containeu

the demonetization clause. One statesman has not denied a knowledge of the act of treachery to the people—John Sherman—and he is to-day the subject of adverse criticism by nearly every living man who sat with him in the Senate when that bill was adopted without question, on his word that it contained 'nothing that Interfered with the coinage of the silver dollar. » * * “Gold is the legal standard to-day because the bankers, brokers and gold owners of the world Influenced con- ! grees to make it so. The people z n ever that could be construed in favor of monometallism, never petitioned congress to pass such a law. It was done' when a bill with sixty-seven sections, as long as the moral law, was under discussion, and was passed through congress without question, because that body had faith in the honor of a committee of three, of which Mr. Sherman was chairman. * • ♦ “THE TERM ‘FREE ANIS UNLIMITED COINAGE OF SILVER’ IS MISUNDERSTOOD. MANY BELIEVE IT TO MEAN THAT EVERYTHING IN THE SHAPE OF SILVER BULLION AND OTHERWISE WILL AT ONCE BE COINED IN UNLIMITED QUANTITIES AND THROWN INTO THE STREET. ONLY THOSE WHO HAVE SILVER TO COIN WILL TAKE IT TO THE MINT, AND ONLY THOSE WHO EARN IT WILL, OR SHOULD LEGALLY BE PERMITTED TO POSSESS IT. ‘BUT THEN THE FOREIGNERS WILL SEND THEIR SILVER HERE TO BE COINED IF IT IS FREE. AND THAT WILL GIVE US TOO MUCH MONEY’ IS ANOTHER CRY. IF A DOLLAR’S WORTH OF SILVER COMES ACROSS THE WATER, A DOLLAR’S WORTH OF SOME AMERICAN PRODUCT WILL BE EXCHANGED FOR IT, UNLESS THE FOREIGNER IS RECKLESS ENOUGH TO SEND HIS BULLION FOR NOTHING. IF HE DOES WE ARE THE GAINERS.’ * • • “The cry that ‘we will have too much money if silver is remonetized and made the equal of gold’ is unworthy of consideration. No nation ever yet complained of having too much money or suffered through that cause. Hard times and panics are due to contractions ,and not expansions, of -the currency. Contraction of the currency Is not possible where the government Itelf, acting under its constitutional right, issues the currency directly to the people without the intervention of individuals and corporations. • • •