The Houston Daily Post (Houston, Tex.), Ed. 1 Monday, September 11, 1893 Page: 2 of 4
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Johnson County and Cleburne Area Newspapers and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Johnson County Historical Commission.
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HOUSTON DAILY POST: MONDAY MORNING.
SEPTEMBER 11,
1893,
4
A FUNNY STORY.
Cor-
FERVERSION OF HISTORY.
The pur-
lin
the Bland act, which the
In answer to
the conditions were re-
From .1861
of silver.
PRO AND CON.
TO IMOGEN.
been
APPROACHING THE CLIMAX.
Highest of all in Leavening Power.—Latest U. S. Gov’t Report
Q
—Nomad.
PcJES
I
SENATOR COKE’S
GREAT SPEECH.
The man who notoriously writes the
worst editorial doggerel himself can al-
ways be counted on to criticize the work
of others. ________________
Confidence is returning so rapidly that
the premium on the old stocking has about
disappeared.
Ex-President Harrison thinks the moth
of avarice has eaten into the heart of this
generation. There would have been more
truth than poetry in the expression had
he but said “republican” moth.
If our people have now to begin a con-
test -with Chinese pirates as well as the
bullion kings and train robbers, we might
as well throw up the sponge.
When deep water is discussed the Hous-
ton Post blesses Buffalo bayou. When
cholera is discussed The Post tells the
people of Houston how five thousand peo-
ple were killed in Memphis by a bayou.—
Fort' Worth Gazette.
Which goes to show that a bayou is ex-
cellent for freight purposes, but not worth
a continental as a beverage.
For that, “out o’ sorts” feeling
Take Bromo-Seltzer—trial bottle 10 cts.
of
as
years
Le-
the
HOUSTON DAILY POST
BY THE
HOUSTON POST PRINTING CO.,
The daily dispatches as to the European
situation grow more alarming and war-
like.
The aggressive policy of France in Siam,
which England will certainly resist at
every step, appears 'to be the key to the
situation.
France does not abate its demands in a
singular feature and the possibility of a
struggle in the East between the great
powers of France and Great Britian has
put the rest of Europe on the qui vive
for the inevitable complications, alliances
and conflicts which must result. To in-
flame the situation the young German
As anticipated the failure of the house
of lords to pass the home rule bill has
started an agitation to abolish the upper
house. Just at this time we can sympa-
thize with the British commons—we have
got a house of lords ourselves.
The president’s anti-fat treatment will
have no‘effect on him for a few days at
least. _______________________
The people of the Fourth ward are to
elect an aiderman tomorrow. Let every-
body turn out and elect the best man.
This is a matter of a great deal more im-
portance than many people are inclined
to believe. ___________________
When minstrel winds are playing soft
On lutes the pine trees hold aloft,
Ah, then, my love, full oft, full oft,
Pray think of me!
4
For in these times and others all.
With songs unsung, when sad tears fall,
And thou art gone beyond recall,
I’ll think of thee.
The Silver bill has been virtually re-
pealed and yet business is still in a state
of stagnation, and cotton remains about
the same.—Corpus Christi Caller.
Does the Caller man read the dispatches
from the great trade centers? Has he
noted the,cotton quotations lately? With
ready sources of information at command,
with the market quotations published
daily, is does seem that such ignorance is
inexcusable.
language:
The act m;
demption issues
States notes, a.
pose of the m»uey
has been for yet^
—, -------- ... i-iiake'^pki
repeal of th$ Sherman act will complete..:
As before remarked, jiotwr.M'i
4
When songs are sung or sad tears fall,
When clouds hang like a funeral pall,
And friends have gone beyond recall,
Then think of me.
When night bird on a whirring wing
Doth to its mate a sweet song sing,
And warm dews to the roses cling,
Then think of me.
■■
I
Ft;
U,
The Houston gold-bugs seem to be try-
ing to intimidate Hutcheson and bulldoze
him into voting for the unconditional re-
peal of the Sherman law. They will hard-
ly succeed. “Hutch” knows ' while
Haiiston is in his district it is not by a
long jump all of it.—Waco News.
That’s where the trouble is. A great
many people are too apt to consider the
popularity of a movement rather than the
right of it.
r
The Dallas Times-Herald is authority
for the statement that “a Dallas gentle-
man who hts a business connection With
prominent business people in the City of
Mexico is .in receipt of a letter from a
gentleman there in which it is said that
there is widespread dissatisfaction all over
the Republic concerning the recent action
of the United States congress regarding
the silver question. As a result of this
dissatisfaction it is thought that railroads
there will be compelled to discharge, all
American help employed and engage Ger-
man or English to take their places. In
one particular case an order for $50,000
worth of machinery, an entirely new
plant, which had been placed in the
United States, has been canceled and for-
warded to Germany.”
In view of the fact that probably seven-
i tenths of the railroad capital in Mexico
is American, and the roads controlled by
Americans, it is somewhat singular they
would discharge Americans and replace
: them by Germans or English or place
orders for machinery abroad! But it is
more improbable than it is singular. Par-
’ ticularly so when the Eastern men who
control the roads are in sympathy with*
the financial policy of congress.
’ This "is ano ther instance of the ridicu-
lous statements and subterfuges indulged
■ in by the silver extremists to manufacture
public sentiment against the democratic
policy and in all probability has its
origin in Nevada or Colorado—if it had an
outside origin at all.
It is reported as an item of news that
Congressman Breckinridge “seems com-
pletely crushed.” What sort of a load
does the reporter expect a man to stand
up under?
lost-re-
United
li
Poor Baby Ruth! Like • all popular
favorites there came a season of eclipse
to her. Long live the new White House
girl! _______________
It now transpires that General Weaver
gets $25 each for his speeches. There’s a
striking similarity between the general’s
speeches and the silver dollar in their
face value and their actual worth.
have to be melted and recoined, so that
all loss by handling and abrasion would
be deducted here. The loss from this
source and from the discount by reason
of the smaller silver ratio, the expense of
shipment, insurance, etc., has been esti-
mated by experts to be from 6 to 8 per
cent, when without this loss this silver is
being exchanged every day at home at par
with gold, of course it will not be brought
here. European silver would not be
“dumped” into this country for the all-suf-
flcient reason that it is needed there to do
the very thing . it.'is doing—that is, to cir-
culate as money.
All the gold standard countries use silver,
Gold-standard England circulates $100,000,-
000 of it, of limited tender power. Ger-
many uses $103,000,000 full legal-tender silver
and $108,000,000] of limited tender silver.
Austria-Hungary, like England, and Ger-
many, a gold standard country, uses $90,-
000,000 full legal tender silver, while the bi-
metallic countries like France, Belgium,
and others, circulate great quantities of
silver. Gold can never be used for the
every-day purposes to which silver coins
are applied throughout the world. Its sub-
divisions would be too minute tor pocket
use.
So, Mr. President, the fear of an inun-
dation of foreign coin, if our mints should
be thrown open,, is groundless and illusory.
This is one of the chimeras conjured up
to frighten people into the belief that we
a mere
.uc, compared
dollar, will ba
dishonest, base, depre-
ciated coin, worthless in itself unless
made redeemable in gold. Those who
have been able to bring down silver from
a premium over gold, to its present de-
preciated condition as a commodity, and.
against the protest of two-thirds of the
American people shall pass the pending
bill abolishing its coinage, will find no
difficulty, in getting rid of the . silver. they
have succeeded in making intrinsically
It is true that the legal tender quality
and the debt paying power may preserve
the silver dollar at par; but this will not
prevent its persecution by the monometal-
lists, who are bent upon its destruction,
in order to supply its place with bank
paper. *
The issuance of bonds to. raise gold to
redeem these discredited silver dollars will
then be in order; and these bonds, of
course, will be a basis for the perpetua-
For The Post.
When lilies fade and withered lie.
When life is drear and fond hopes die,
And autumn winds go whistling by,
Then think of me.
emperor is cavorting on the soil of Lor-
raine and Alsace and exclaiming that by
the grace of GoiJ and the German sword
they shall ever remain part of Germany.
Then the Russian fleet makes a demon-
stration of the entente cordiale between
Russia and France at Toulon, until the
times really look more -unsetled and
threatening in Europe just now than
ever.
This tremendous end inevitable conflict
in Europe has been slowly approaching
the crisis in ever lessening circles and is
dangerously near the climax now. The
early approach of winter may postpone
it for a season again, but scarcely longer,
and then in all probability the thunder
of the greatest war in history will re-echo
around the globe.
tion, of the.National banks, whose present
experience in the contem-, iease of life is nearly exhausted. The pur-
...........v./* r. I' I „. .. c poWCT 'O'f 'tlHS country
for ye&<s past, and . now, to
A
day oi D^^^Bsse. in ;■
taking1 e&mpul&ory/"
-3 and reissue^-tof
and the act making com-
pulsory treasury purchases of silver, are
each a separate memance to the public
tranqu'iMty, are each injurious to the pub-
lic moraiis, the public faith, and the public
interest. _ ■ V
Secretary Manning 'Simply reiterated the
recommendations of his republican prede-
cessors. The scheme to fund the United
States notes or greenbacks went hand in
hand with 'that of demonetizing silver.
These notes, so embedded in the con-
fidence and favor of the people, are too
a query The Post will
, state that its local society department
will be resumed at an early day—probably
about the beginning of the coming month.
Senator Peffer’s recent speech added to
the notoriety he has obtained by his whis-
kers—and because of his whiskers.
*v
Following is the full text of Senator ’
Coke’s speech in the senate on the finance <
question:
Mr. President, the message of President
Cleveland on the financial condition of
the country is in effect a clear, ambigu-
ous and urgent recommendation of such
legislation by congress as will establish
and maintain the single gold standard 1
as the basis of our financial sys-
tem, discarding silver except in.a limited
amount and as a subsidiary coinage.
With characteristic boldness and direct-
ness this utterance of the president
sharpfully and forcefully presents the is-
sue between gold mono-metallism and the
bi-metallic currency of the constitution
and the democratic platform, champion-
ing the former in terms about which there
can be neither mistake nor misconception.
This country can not afford to be held
in suspense over such an issue thus pre-
sented. The highest public interest de-
mands its determination and settlement;
and that it can be settled finally and con-
clusively, and peace and rest, prosperity
and stability restored to the business and
commerce of the country only by the es-
tablishment of a bi-metallic currency as
it existed prior to 1873, when silver was
demonetized, the temper of the country
based on a maturely formed judgment
abundantly shows. A decision falling
short of this consummation will not be a
settlement, nor will it be a postponement
of the contest. The agitation, unrest, dis-
content and demoralization will continue
to vex and harrass the country and dis-
turb and unsettle business.
The people will never be content until
the wrong of 1873, through which one.-half
of the money of this country was stamped
out in order to double the purchasing
power of the other half, has been undone
and reversed. Since the demonetization
of silver in this country, prosperity, which
until that time blessed the agricultural
people of the South and West, has de-
parted, and their labors have met the
poorest recompense they have ever known.
They have in large part fed and clothed
the world, and their exported products
have maintained the balance of trade with
foreign countries in our favor, and have
brought to our treasury the gold on which
specie, payments were resumed after the
civil war and have been maintained. ,
Nearly 80 per cent of the exports of
this country have been of agricultural
products, while silver, the great factor
which produced and sustained remunera-
tive prices in foreign and domestic mar-
kets, making our agricultural communi-
ties the most prosperous in the world,
has been pursued with hostile legislation
until the American congress has been
brought face to face with the proposition
to perform the last act which shall ex-
punge from the statute book all recogni-
tion of it as money. The great agricultu-
ral staples, cotton and «wheat, have de-
clined as silver Iras gone down; and to-
day silver bullion, degraded as it has been,
will buy in the markets of the world as
much or more of either as it did in 1873
before it was demonetized, thus showing
conclusively, if proof were needed, that
it is not silver which has fallen in value,
but gold, which, under the influence of
legislation, has risen.
In the striking down of silver in 1873,
twenty long years ago, the values of
houses’and lands, of cattle and horses, of
flocks.ad herds, of all the products of the
farm throughout the South and West,
were likewise stricken down and have re-
mained down ever since. Who can .esti-
mate the loss which has accrued to these
people in all these years from this' cause,
S’ loss almost fabulous in'amount, all in-
flicted upon the great mass of the people
for the purpose of enriching inordinately
a comparatively small number. These
things have been burned into the minds
and memories of the people as they have
passed through the fiery ordeal of adversi-
ty, and can never be forgotten or for-
given.
Hence I repeat, Mr. President, if the
power of gold-—of which it has been said
that “Philip of Macedon refuted by it all
the wisdom of Athens, confounded their
statesmen, struck their orators dumb,
and at length argued them out of their
liberties”—shall again succeed, as it has
heretofore done, in defeating the demand
of the American people for a full and com-
plete restoration of silver to free coinage
and full money power, the financial ques-1
tion which now agitates this country will
remain with us, and this congress will
have done all in its power to perpetuate
it; for the people will never cease to re-
sist the attempt to fasten upon them gold
monometallism with its inevitable conse-
quence of chronic money famine.
The constitutional right of our people
to a gold q,nd silver currency can not be
gainsaid or questioned. Gold and silver
are the money of the Constitution. The
States are expressly prohibited to make
any other a legal tender in payment of
debts. To the National government has
been granted the power “to coin money
regulate the value thereof, and of foreign
coin;” in other words, to create from gold
and silver bullion, coins ■ of prescribed
weights and fineness and to stamp their
values and designations upon them. The
power to give the legal tender quality to
any money other than this thus coined, or
to foreign coin, the value of which has
been regulated by congress, has been ex-
pressly prohibited to the States.
The constitution grants to the National
government the exclusive power to coin
and declare the value of money, and re-
serves to the States, respectively, the ab-
solute right to make gold and silver coin
and prohibits them absolutely from mak-
ing any other money a legal tender. The
power of the National government to
coin money and the power of the States
to make gold and silver coin legal tender
are correlative powers. The enjoyment by
the States of the rights reserved to them
in this regard, the right to make gold and
silver coin a legal tender, is dependent
upon the due performance by the National
government of its duty to coin these met-
als—not gold alone, but gold and silver.
All the recognized rules of construc-
tion require that the clauses of he con-
Bcitution be construed together, giving
the National government the full measure
of power- granted and the States the full
measure of power reserved, and imposing
upon each the corresponding duties in
respect to the subject matter. If silver can
be demonetized, so can gold. If either
; can be demonetized, on the same principle
both may be demonetized. It would be no
more a violation of the constitution to de-
monetize both gold and silver, and there-
by deprive the States of the power to
invest coins of these metals with the legal
tender quality, than it is to deprive them
of silver when the constitution reserves
to them the right to both gold and silver.
Nor would the force of this argument be
weakened if it be admitted that the Na-
tional government can constitutionally
make other money than gold and silver
coin a legal tender, for whatever power
the National government may possess in
this regard can not impair the absolute
recognition in the constitution of the
rights of the States to make both gold and
silver coin a tender; and as long as that
right IS recognized and the exclusive right
of the National government to coin
money for their use or that of the people
is admitted, so long of. necessity,must it*
be the duty of the government to coin
both gold and silver. In other words, the
constitution itself, in express terms, es-
tablishes bi-metallism.
The alleged excessive production of sil-
ver is now the argument of those who
The production
but the
insignificant compared
Will not be feared again.
The great argument now heard against
silver is overproduction. An examina-
tion of well authenticated figures showing'
the production of gold and silver from
the year 1493 up to and includsive of the
year 1892 will puncture the argument
most effectively. I invite attention to
senate miscellaneous document No. 17,
Fifty-third congress, first session, giving
a statement of the production of gold and
silver since the discovery of America,
which I ask be published at this point
in my remarks.
It will be seen from tfrls table that
from 1801 to 1820 the average yearly yield
of gold was $9,710,500; silver, $29,823,500.
From 1821 to 1840 the average yearly
yield of gold was $11,466,000; silver, $21,-
968,500. From 1841 to 1860 the average an-
nual yield of gold was $101,019,000; silver,
$35,660,000. From 1861 to 1880 the average
annual yield of gold was $120,691,500; sil-
ver,-$71,287,500. From 1881 to 1812 the aver-
age annual yield of gold was $113,200 500;
silver, $153,036,000. It will be seen from this
table that the average yearly production
of the two metals for four hundred years
run closely together, the estimated pro-
duction in the world for that period stand-
ing thus; Gold, $8,204,303,000; silver, $9,-
726,072,000.
The experience of the world for so
great a period should exempt us from
any fear of an undue production of either
metal. During all the mutations of time
a.id circumstance and of varying produc-
t’Mi of wie two metals for four hundred
years, gold a??d silver were held in parity
without disturbance throughout the world
by /the legal tender money function which
both possessed, until silver was demoiie-
tiifed in 1873, and at that time silver out-
valued gold. The people who have no
access to trie truth as"'exhibited to cof-
rept statistical figures are led to belieye
wp are about being inundated with silver
when nothing can be further from the
truth. Relatively to gold, the production
of silver was much greater from 1801
to 1840 than it is now.
From the beginning of the present cen-
tury up to 1820 three times as much silver
as gold was produced, and from 1821 to
1840 the production of silver was double
that of gold. In the next period of twen-
ty years, however) the conditions were re-
versed and the output of gold was three
times as great a " ™
to 1880 the prodt ition of gold exceeded
that of sliver by wo-thirds; while in the
last twelve years, 1881-1892, the total yield
of silver is only a lout one-fourth greater
than that of go 1.
silver in later 5 Jars has increased
compared with g Id production,
ratio of increase : ! inrignifl-rint ■
with the ratio offearlier years,from which
no disturbance of
as a money meL
coinage of silvei
gold only about
have shown, tlj
has repeatedly bl
200, and as higM
Succeeded in turl
production of gold.
died, possessed and cornered than silver
that the great money barons of Europe
and their coadjutors in America, designing
to rule this country as Europe is ruled by
the power of money, and to reduce our
people to the same condition in which the
common people of Europe, under the pow-
er of a great monied aristocracy, now ex-
ist, are moving heaven and earth to de-
stroy silver, the whole obstacle which
stands in the way.
If the Sherman act shall be repealed
without being substituted' by some other
which shall provide for the free coinage
of silver, what will become of the silver
already coined and the bullion now in the
treasury? There are of coined standard
silver dollars $419,335,450, and enough of
bullion in the treasury when coined to
swell this amount to about $600,000,000.
What under these circumstances would be
the status of this silver? That with the
unconditional repeal of the Sherman act
silver will fall heavily, nobody doubts.
The depth to whic it will tumble must be
a mere matter of conjecture.
Producing, as this country does, 47
per cent of the silver produced in the
world, its public sentiment the strongest
of that of any one of the great powers
of the earth in favor of its equal use
with gold as a money metal, its abandon-
ment by us will be its death knell so
fae as respects its use as money, except
in such subordinate ways and such limited
quantities as obtain In all gold standard
countries.
Our experience since 1878, when the
Bland act was passed, as silver has been
hammered down and boycotted by the
National banks, by the officers of the
executive department of our government
without regard to party, who in every
conceivable way, in the execution of th®
laws, have discriminated against and
j prejudiced our silver money, would be
worth very little if it did not teach us
that the same arguments and agencies
which assailed the silver dollar all along
the line as it was made to decline, first
as a 90-cent dollar, then as an 80-cent
dollar, a 70-cent, and a 60-cent dollar,
down as low as silver has fallen, would
be used with tenfold greater effect against
the coined silver dollar when its intrinsic
bullion value has been reduced to 30, 46,
or 50 cents. To stop the coinage of silver
in the United States is the. object of the
present contest, and to remove from our
statute book
money.
on this point will be insured by the pas-
sage of the bill for the unconditional re-
peal of the socalled Sherman act.
Our coined silver, reduced to
bagatelle in intrinsic value,
with its legal value as a C-
scoffed at as a
coin, worthless in
redeemable
E. P. Hill, President; T. W. House, Vice
■President; A. F. Sittig, Secretary;
J. L. Watson, Treasurer.
would destroy that metal as money, cre-
ating, as they say, a greater supply than
the demand, resulting In its depreciation.
In 1873, when silver demonetization was
consummated in the United States, we
heard noting of the staple argument
of today against silver, that it is a cheap
dollar; a 70-cent or a 60-cent dollar,a dis-
honest dollar. Nothing of that sort was
said or could be said, because a silver dol-
lar of 412% grains, exactly the dollar we
have now, commanded a premium of 3
per cent over what is now called the
standard gold dollar. Silver was more
valuable than gold, yet the bankers and
capitalists of Europe and America en-
gineered its demonetization with the same
earnestness and zeal which now character-
izes their opposition to its restoration
to free coinage and full money power.
Since 1873, when silver was stripped of
its legal tender power, and of all its
money functions, except that of a subsid-
iary coinage, and relegated to the list of
commodities as bullion, it has declined
largely when compared with gold, say
from 45 to 50 per cent. Gold mono-metal-
lists, virtually abandoning their old Soph-
istries on which they produced the demon-
etization of silver in 1873, have planted
themselves on the depreciation of silver,
ascribing it to the increased production
of that metal, ignoring the fact that the
coined silver dollar) possessed of full legal
tender power, is the equal in purchasing
power of gold.
Having shifted their ground, their Euro-
pean allies have tome to their aid in
the very nick of time, just before the
meeting of this congress called to act on
this subject,' by closing the mints of India
to silver coinage except on government ac-
count. Aided by the most powerful forces
that ever combined in this country for
the accomplishment of any purpose, the
great combined money powers of Europe
and America hope and are striving, by
the passage of the bill now pending in
the senate, to expunge from our statute
book any recognition of silver as money
and thereby reduce the bullion value so
low in the markets of the world that its
competition with gold as a money metal
It Is a common charge that Ernest
Seyd, a London banker, came over to this
country and in 1873 secured the demone-
tization of silver, and the story is widely
believed.
A recent contribution to financial litera-
ture is a letter written twenty years ago,
or about the time of the demonetization
of silver, by this same Seyd to Samuel
Hooper, a Massachusetts representative,
in congress.
The latter had asked Seyd, who was a
noted bi-metallist, for his comments on
the bill of 1873. In his reply, according
to the letter published, Mr. Seyd earnestly
combatted the proposition of the bill
which dropped the silver • dollar and ar-
gued for. its retention. The St. Paul Pio-
neer Press says in commenting on this
circumstance that Seyd was probably the
only man in the world at that time who
raised his voice against our stopping the
coinage of the silver dollar. Not a single
member of congress did so in the three
years it was before that body. Although
copies were sent to monetary specialists
and financiers all over the country, from
no source did it elicit a word of objection
except from this one man. It is a whim-
sical example of the way in which history
is often perverted for political purposes
that this one man in all the wide world
who protested against the demonetization
of the silver dollar in 1873 became four
years after his death the subject of the
startling accusation that he had come
over to this country in 1872-3 and bribed
congress to demonetize silver by distrib-
uting half a million dollars among its
members.
ground” of thl
silver. A brief I
are not contr
theory. It is
on
Secretary Windfim,
Fifty-first congress,
suggestive of t!he supreme excellence bf a
uniform National currency, issued directly
by the government, ’backed by its power
and credit, redeemable at the will of the
holder in coin, as are the United States
notes, not to have incurred the deadly
hostility of the National banking inter-
est. A currency issued by themselves,
put out and called in, expanded or con-
tracted at 'their pleasure, is the object
of their desire. Control of all the fiscal
affairs of tihlis government and country
they have constantly aspired to and hoped
to achieve)
While not mooting the subject to any
great extent in the last few years, the
recent financial discussion through the
press lias developed the. fact that this
design is as vigorous an^ unyielding as
ever. Having accomplished the demone-
tization bf silver, if this bill passes, with
renewed strength and prestige and as-
surance, they will address tlhemse.lves
to the accomplishment of their cherished
purpose. We have, Mr. President, to deal
with the exigencies of the present, but our
action should be so framed as to provide
well against 'the dangers of the future.
Our people demand bi-metallism almost
with one voice. All the organized polit-
ical parties in the United States, without
a single exception, demand bi-metallism.
Yet we are urged to pass the pending bill
which places the country avowedly on
the single gold standard. We are prom-
ised bi-metallism in the distant future
on the impossible condition ot' an Inter-
national agreement—a condition demon-
strated by actual experience to be impos-
sible. England must be a party to any
International agreement, and England has
repeatedly, over and over again, refused to
be a party to such an agreement.
English capital, English diplomacy, Eng-
lish intrigue, co-operating with allied con-
spirators in the United States, have pro-
duced this panic, this financial convul-
sion, which now paralyzes the business of
this country for the purpose of coercing
the people of the United states into the
adoption of the mono-metallic policy.
Which the Bending bill, if passed, will in-
augurate. The $2,000,000,000 due from cor-
porations in the United States to Europe,
nearly all of it in England, and the annual
interest accruing thereon. Will be paid,
in gold if England can compel it so paid;
and in order to do this England must de-
feat bi-metalhsm in this country.
Mr. Gladstone, in a speech dlivered in
the British parliament in February last,
and reported March 1 in the London
‘should abandon silver and rely solely upon <
gold as a money metal, in opposition to 1
the experience of the world that during i
all the ages it has been the great factor t
in the preservation of the equities be- <
tween debtor and creditor, in holding
down gold to a fair and just standard of <
valuuation, in securing to labor fair and ;
reasonable wages, and to the products of !
labor and all commodities just estimates <
of value.
In other wordfe, silver and gold being
mutual ehecks upon each other when both 1
possess the full money function, prevent-
ing an undue fluctuation of either metal,
they make conjointly a standard of value
steady, conservative and reliable in their !
relations to commodities, wages, and prop- :
erty exchanges. The very best evidence
of the truth of this proposition is to be
found in the universal fall of prices since
1873 when silver was demonetized, and '
gold unchecked began to rise in value
and continues to rise, commodities falling
in the same proportion, until $1 possesses
now the purchasing power over cotton
and wheat which required $2 to command
in 1873, and all other commodities being
affected, not to the same extent possibly,
but heavily in the same direction.
Not only is this true in the United States
but it is equally true throughout Europe,
in consequence of the destruction of silver
as money, as is shown by the following
extract from the Economic Crisis, an able
work by Mr. Morton Frewen, of London,
on economic questions. He says:
It may, indeed, be affirmed without fear
of Conitradiiotaom, the legislation arranged
in >t)he interest of a certain class, first by
Lord Liverpool in 'this country, and again
•by Sir Robert. Peel at itlhe instigation of
Mr. Tones Loyd and other wealthy bank-
ers, which was supplement'd recently by
simultianeous anti-silver legislation in Ber-
lin and Washington at the instance of
the great financial houses. This legisla-
tion has about doubled the burden of all
national debts by an artificial enhance-
ment of the value of money.
The fall of all prices induced by this
cause has been on such a scale that while
in twenty years the national debt of the
United States quoted in dollars has been
reduced by nearly two-'thirds, yet the
vaiue of the remaintag tone-third, meas-
ured in wheat, bar iron, or bales of cot-
ton, is considerably. greater, is a greater
demand on the labor and industry of the
nation than was the whole debt at the
time it was contracted.
The aggravation of the burdens of tax-
ation induced jpy this so-called “apprecia-
tion of gold,” which is no natural ap-
preciation, but has been brought about
by class legislation to increase the value
of gold which 'is in few hands, requires
but to be explained to an enfranchised
democracy, which will know tow to pro-
tect itself against further attempts to
contract the currency and force down
prices to the confusion of every existing
contract.
Of all classes of middlemen, bankers
have been by fan.- the most successful in
intercepting and appropriating an undqe
share of produced wealth. While the mod-
ern system Of banking and credit may
be said to be even yet in its infancy, that
portion of the assets of the community
which is today lin the strong boxes of the
bankers, would, if declared, be an as-
tounding revelation of ‘tihe recent profits
of this particular business; and not only
has the business itself become a most
profitable monopoly, but its interests in a
very few hands are 'diametrically opposed
to the inltere&ts of the majority. By leg-
islation intended to contract the currency
and force down all prices, including wages,
the price; paid for labor, the money owner
has been able to increase the purchase
power of his sovereign or dollar by the
direct diminution of the price of every
kind of .property measured in money.
This 'writer graphically describes the
origin of the policy sought to ba engrafted
on the i'liStituitiions of this countr;’
mnnnmeWSsits. “'s
suits. It is not difficult to Wnilei-si
why England, Germany, and Russia (said
now to be going to tllie gold 'standard),
and -the. lesser powers should be wedded
to the gold standard; all of them mon-
archies, buttressed by hereditary and
moneyed aristocracies, non-producers, all
of them, living in luxury and splendor
through pensions and annuities, offices
and other forms of fixed incomes, on the
products of the labor of the common peo-
ple.
The gold 'Standard doubles the value and
purchasing power of their incomes', while
it reduces by half ithe price of the pro-
ducts of labor. The ruling classes, clothed
in purple and fine linen, exhaust every
form of luxurious living, while the great
mass of the common people are bowed
down with the merciless exactions of un-
requited labor, to which they submit with
the best grace they may, under the per-
suasive influence of fixed bayonets and
double-shotted Gatling guns. This is a
fair s'tatement of the results of the Eu-
ropean monometallic financial policy now
sought to be forced on the American peo-
ple.
Every polirtti'eal party in the country,
without exception, has repeatedly,, over
and over again, declared for and pledged
to the American people the bi-metallic
policy, the free coiliage of both gold and
silver, with full money power to each,
without discrlmir^ting against either. Our
response to these pledges solemnly made
is in a bill now pending before the senate
for the unconditional repeal of the only
law on our statute books authorizing 'the
coinage of another silver dollar, placing
the country avowedly on 'the single gold
standard.
If this bill ghall pass as introduced, and
the vast power of the admmi'sitratilon is
behind it urging its passage, the free
men of America will have bowed their
necks to the yoke of European domina-
tion In their foreign and domestic finan-
cial affairs. Rothschild and the Bank of
England, wDh their retainers, dictate the
financial policies of Europe; and if the
single gold standard is established in
America, then Rothschild and the Bank
Of England, with 'their New York associ-
ates, will become the arbiters bf Amer-
ican finance and the diottatiors of our finan-
cial policies, because they control the gold
we will be compelled to have.
The director of the mint in his latest
report, of date February 16? 1893, referring
to tihe world’s product of gold for the
years 1890, 1891, and 1892, says that ac-
cording to. the revised totals the amount
was as follows: 1890, $113,149,600; 1891,
$120,518,800; 1892, $130,816,600.
The gold product of the* United States
for the year 1892 is estimated by. the di-
rector of the mint to be $33,000,000. For
the year 1891 he estimates that $16,616,-
408 was used in the industrial arts, and
for 1892, $16,m4,953 was used in the arts
in the United States—about half of the
product, leaving the other half for coin-
ing. The director of the mint a few years
ago estimated that $46,000,000 of the world’s
annual gold product was consumed in the
arts in the manufacture of jewelry, gold
plate, in dentistry, etc.
The gold product of the world has been
for many years dwindling, being about
$100,000,000, until in the last two
there has
ducting the director’s
world’s consumption of gold in the arts
from the gold product of 1892, the largest
in many years, and we have left for
coinage $84,816,600 to recruit the losses
of the original stock by abrasion, hand-
ling, and accident, and meet the necessi-
ties of the world arising from the growth
of population, business, and commerce.
Over this the nations of the earth must
struggle and scramble for accession to
their present stock. It is the European
policy that this shall be so, because Eu-
rope already holds possession of it and
can fix the price upon it. There all de-
velopment is completed and finished,
population is stationary or declining, and
production, if not receding, is at least
not advancing. Stagnation is the order
of the day. Our country is young, full
a slight increase,
estimate of
"But it is saidffhat this country under
free coinage woild become the “dumping-
: world for all cast-off
(tiatement of facts which
yerted will refute this
Teed by all the. writers
this subjeetjand notably toy the late
in his report to the
Fifty-first confess, that there is no
known accumuBition of silver bullion in
the world, and! that all the silver coin
in Europe is doing duty as money in cir-
culation. Our Atio of 16 of silver to 1 of
gold is the highest silver ratio of any
country in the world except Mexico,
whose ratio to 1, and Japan, with
a ratio of 16.1»to 1.
In the goldflsing countries, whether
mono-metallic, like England, Germany and
Russia, or bi-metallic, like France, Italy,
Spain and others, their silver circulates
side by side at par and is exchaneable with
gold. Any man desiring in any of these
countries to exchange his silver for. gold
can make an ’exchange in the ordinary
course of business at home, without ex-
pense or discount. No reason can be per-
ceived why he should prefer to bring it to
the United States, where the standard
ratio of silver to gold is greater in our
silver coin, and where, consequently, his
silver must be sold at a discount.
All such silver coins, of course, would
any recognition of it as
The success of monometallism
WATCH THE BRIDGES.
Within a comparatively short time past
there have been in different sections of
the country a number of terrible ■‘rail-
way accidents, resulting in great loss of
life and due to rotten or unprotected
railway bridges.
The latest notable ’case of the kind, at-
tended by the greatest mortality, was at
Chester, in Massachusetts, while even in
our own immediate section near Beeville
two or three deaths resulted from a
freight crashing through a burned or par-
tially burned bridge.
This is certainly a class of accidents
that could be avoided by ordinary care
and inspection, and this much is due to
the public. The train may go flying along
at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour
and escape derailment, but when it strikes
the old rotten, unsafe or half burned
bridge it rushes into the jaws of death
with its load of human lives. Such mat-
ters as these deeply concern the public
and the more frequent the recurrence of
the accidents the greater the necessity for
calling the roads to an explanation of
the want of the necessary inquiry qnd in-
spection which would prevent such catas-
trophes.
The Chester accident has rendered the
Massachusetts public so indignant that
the leading paper of Boston says it is
worth while considering whether the State
board of railroad commissioners should
not be given authority, if necessary, not
only to urge the repairing or rebuilding
of bridges, but to see to it, through duly
authorized representatives, that work
which public safety demands is promptly
carried through.
of vigor, growing rapidly in population,
both from natural causes and from im-
migration. New States, new communities
are being founded, great tracts of new
country being populated and opened to
production, tow enterprises and new in-
dustries are being incepted and . pushed,
and general progressive development the
leading characteristic of the people, the
country, and the times.
A people and country like this will
starve, will languish under suppressed
development when held down to a volume
of money circulation allowed by the aris-
tocratic rulers of Europe to their over-
crowded, underpaid, and overworked peo-
ple. Yet this is what is proposed for our
people in the pending bill. It will be said
in reply to this that we have silver cer-
tificates. treasury notes, National bank
notes, greenback notes, and other forms
of money in addition to gold. There is
one conclusive answer to all such asser-
tions. and it is that all our paper monosr
of every sort, kind, and description
held to be ultimately redeemable in gold,
and, therefore, the volume of our money
must be estimated on the breadth of tne
metallic redemption fund on which it
rests.
Before silver was demonetized the
volume of money rested on the broad
basis of both gold and silver, which was
not more than ample for its redemption,
but was deemed sufficiently safe for a
reasonably abundant circulation; but
since silver demonetization, the metallic
basis for paper money having been re-
duced one-half, the volume of paper, in
order to be safe, had to be reduced ana
adjusted to the smaller metallic basis
on which it rested for redemption. It is
this reduction which has forced down the
prices of commodities and all the pi o-
ducts of labor, which have fallen because
the volume of money in which all values
are measured has been contracted one-
half.
Our
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,s relationship with gold
il resulted. The world’s
i now exceeds that of
16 per cent, when, as I
e production of silver
len in excess to 50, 100,
I as 500 per cent, to be
, by like increase in the
„„ fall since 1873 in the fall of prices
consequent upon the destruction of
money establishes this proposition. Jhe
insufficiency of the gold basis sought to
be forced upon our people by their Eu-
ropean and American financial masters
is made thus plainly apparent. Thgt our
volume of paper and credit money, is
a large overissue and is outstanding
greatly in excess of a safe proportion to
the gold redemption fund is made mani-
fest by existing financial disturbances.
The temptation to overissue has always
been regarded as one of the principal dan-
gers of the gold standard. England has,
since her adoption of the gold standard,
been called the “land of panics.”
With a bi-metallic currency firmly es-
tablished, both metals, under the friendly
and fostering care of the government and
banks alike, instead of having silver boy-
cotted and discriminated against as it
has been by the banks and the govern-
ment. in defiance of the people’s demand
that it should be otherwise, with our paper
and credit bottomed on the two metals
instead of being confined to one, we
would now be enjoying peace and pros-
perity instead of being threatened with
universal bankruptcy by the greatest
financial disturbance that has ever oc-
curred during this generation.
The gold basis on which our credit paper
has been resting has proved too nar-
row; and it has been an easy matter for
the conspirators who have produced the
existing crisis to topple over the paper
superstructure, producing chaos and con-
fusion. We vividly remember the wide-
spread destruction resulting from silver
demonetization and the resulting contrac-
tion of money circulation in 1873. We now
have the same c .
plation of the sweeping away of the par-
tial remonetization of silver by the act of.
1878, known as the Bland act, which the
; As b^^arkeci; not
/ • ( .■ 1
duction of that metal haM>een *Ae/limng
throughout the world for WVears. Is
The product of the mines of the' United
States, which has been between one-third
and one-fourth of the world’s entire pro-
duction, has been derived almost entirely
from the silver mines as an incident of
silver mining; and the closing down large-
ly of these mines by reason of the great
depreciation in silver, will greatly diminish
the supply of gold’ in the United States,
still further reducing the already con-
fessedly inadequate supply of that metal.
Gold and silver are precious metals the
world over, and have been so through all
the ages and will continue to be, silver as
fully as gold. These metals have in all
ages been yielded by Mother Earth in
'quantities and proportions adapted to the
wants and necessities of mankind. Not-
withstanding the estimate of the aggre-
gate of both metals in the TYorld shows
nearly equal proportions of gold and sil-
ver, it is a fact of their history that their
relation to each other has constantly been
changing by reasoh of the changing pro-'
portion of their production..
At one time gold has been produced
largely in excess, and at another silver;
but it has been the unvarying history of
these metals that an excess of either has
always been corrected by a corresponding
increase in the production of the other in
its turn, and that the supply of both has
kept pace with the growth of business
and commerce of the world. The flood of
gold which was poured from the mines of
California, Australia, and Russia between
1850 and 1856, estimated at* $900,000,000,
which caused a decline of more than 5
per cent in that metal and moved alarm-
ists to advocate its demonetization, as
they do now of silver, as we all know has
been corrected by the more recent discov-
eries of silver; and so it has been for all
time.
A law of nature seems to have joined
these metals together and to have denied
perfect efficacy to their functions as mon-
ey except as to co-operative forces. Un-
der the double standard, they support each
other. If gold is scarce and high, silver
becomes more abundant; if silver disap-
pears, gold flows into its place.’ The peo-
ple who have bcjth to rely on can depend
with absolute certainty on the presence
at all times of one of them—a corner on
both is impossible. It is through this co-
operative action of the two metals under
the double standard that a sufficient cir-
culation is assured for the demands of
trade and commerce, for living wages to
labor, for fair valuations in the transfers
of property, and a safeguard is furnished
as far as human wisdom can devise one,
against crises and panics and the loss and
ruin they entail.
The centralization of capital in the hands
of a few men is impossible with the double
standard of gold and silver, while with
gold alone a few bankers and capitalists
become the lords and masters of the peo-
ple, as history shows in the condition
throughout Europe, w’here the single gold
standard prevails. Gold being concentra-
ted in value, less in weight and bulk, and
almost exactly one-half of the money of
the world, is 80 much more easily han-
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The Houston Daily Post (Houston, Tex.), Ed. 1 Monday, September 11, 1893, newspaper, September 11, 1893; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1283132/m1/2/?q=%22~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Johnson County Historical Commission.