Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1896 — Germans for .Sound Money. [ARTICLE]

Germans for .Sound Money.

During the last two weeks the German-American money league has received from nearly 16,000 German business men replies to the question whether they are for sound money or free coinage. Taking the country as a whole 88 2-5 per cent of these business men are for good money and the rest for free coinage. The percentages vary slightly in the different states. Those for lowa, New York and Wisconsin are decidedly above the average. These percentages are true not merely of the tierman business men but of the Germans generally. Then after giving these figures the League asks if the democratic party can win without the votes of the German Americans.

It certainly cannot elect a president without them. Their votes elected Cleveland in 1892. They voted for him because the money plank he stood on was sounder than the Minneapolis straddle. In 1892 out of 259,000 registered votes in this city 45,000 were German Americans. The open revolt of German democratic papers since the adoption of the free silver platform and the nomination of Bryan shows that more than 90 per cent of the Germans here and elsewhere will cast their votes for sound money candidates, —Chicago Tribune.

The Republican party is unreservedly for sound money. It caused the enactment of the law providing for the resumption of specie payments in 1879; since then every dollar has been as good as gold. We are unalterably opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our country. We are therefore opposed to the free coinage of silver, except by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until such an agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard mttet be preserved. All our silver and paper currency must be maintained at a parity with gold, and we favor all

measures designed to maintain inviolably the obligations of the United States, and all our money, whether coin or paper, jat the present standard—the standard of the most enlightened nations of the world. —Republican National Platform, 1896. ’ In 1873 the world’s product of silver was 61,000,000 ounces. In 1895, owing to new mines and improved methods, it was 16;),000,000 oniices; or almost three times as much. But while the annual supply of silver has thus increased at such an enormous rate, there has been nor could there be, no cqi responding increase in the demand for it. Hence what else could happen butjs fall in the price? What else could happen to any other of the world’s gre»t. products, under the same circumstances? To, iron, for instance, to coal, to copper, to corn, to wool, to wheat? Vastly increased production is the principal cause of the decline of silver, and if people wi’l look at the subject with the same common sense they use in otMer mattefs they can not fail to that it is.