Volume 17 , Issue 25

Silver Monetization Will Cure (1896)

It was in The Progressive Farmer, dated 7 July 1896, in Winston, North Carolina, that mentioned this page 8 headline: "Silver Remonetization Will Cure" (correspondence of the Progressive Farmer, Part II).

In a recent meeting between Senator Quay, of Pennsylvania, and McKinley, the goldbugs choice as a candidate for the Republican nomination for President, they discussed at some length the peculiar position of Democracy and gloated over the victory they anticipated. The trend of the entire conversation was in the direction of the unification of the Republican party. Simply the glory of the party, nothing more. The party must prosper if the nation goes to ruin; if our people, the great mass who are known as the common people, are reduced to the most abject poverty. They discussed the grand old party, which had long ceased to be worthy of such a name, and which was in the hands of the corrupt and unprincipled politicians of the country, who were bleeding the nation of its very life blood and robbing our people of the very sustenance of life.

These men (McKinley and Quay) agreed that protection was the one dominant issue. Does our people want any further proof as to what would be the outcome of another four years of goldbug rule?

It was these few words, "Protection is the one dominant issue" that tell the tale. There would be four years of tariff tinkering. Did it not remind one of the small boy who drives his father's nails into the chapping block or the wood shed door? Where was there any good in wasting time in an issue that was dead?

One party would tinker with the tariff and then the other party would tinker, and send word over the nation that we would now prosper as we never had. This tinkering business had been going on for years and we had the result, the practical result.

The questioned asked back in 1896 was, "Would it take much longer to convince the people that the tariff question was a humbug of the very rankest kind and was being brought before us simply to blinds to the real and dominant issue?"

It was positively the issue at hand back then and the one that was reported as the issue at hand in 1896, and the one that should be looked after at once, if we would be prosperous, was the monetary question. What man could say, who had our country's welfare at heart and who had not more party prejudice than brains!

It was reported back in 1896 that ever since the demonetization of silver our products had been falling in price and gold appreciating in value. labor went begging and manufacturing was at a standstill. Products had fallen in price, not because there was not as much consumed, for there was more consumed than ever before; not because there was an overproduction, for our fast increasing population requires more of our products than ever before and hundreds of thousands were going hungry and in rags back then.

Why? From the simple fact that the means wherewith to buy were derived them. Employment they cannot get, hence the lack of means.

The man with the know it all air, that slaps you on the shoulder and says in a confidential voice that the cause of the impoverishment of the country was "Lack of confidence," thinks he had hit the nail surely on the head, and that his argument was unanswerable. Poor deluded mortal. He was born at the wrong time in the history of the world, in fact his argument was just about 32 or 33 years behind the times. Such an argument might have been tolerated in the South before the close of the war, when the paper currency of the Confederate States was depreciating in value. But as the country was at peace in 1896, such argument was without one grain of common sense. Some of the trade journals back then tried to explain the cause of the stagnation by such remarks as these: "Excessive heat," "Cool weather," "Prolonged spell of wet weather," "Prospects of future crops," etc, etc.

In 1896 the government was in just the position of a laboring man who had to work hard all day and get half enough to eat. It could readily be seen how this man would become reduced in strength, his energy fail; in fact the final out come was death.

So the nation was trying to transact the great volume of business on half the money necessary to give people prosperity, and the nation was losing strength and energy. Another questioned asked in 1896 was, "If something was not done what would the final outcome be?"

Wall street and England were studying every scheme to keep the country's finances on a gold basis. It was absurd for anyone to declare that the people want what these two money centers were striving to keep on us. England had tried twice to subjugate us by force of arms, but the outcome was disastrous to her. She was then taking a different course and making more head way than she did by force of arms. Our patriotism had surely not died. Many people did not see how the country stood, but there was a growing sentiment that would soon play havoc with these schemes devils.

There were a number of papers in this country which had a large circulation that were controlled by English capitalists, and was it to be wondered at that the teachings of these papers was decidedly for a gold standard? Their arguments, though, lacked substance, and to sum it all up they made no argument, unless vile epithets, such as perfidy, liars, demagogues, fools, blatherskites, etc, and such sayings as 50 cent dollars, cheap money, etc, could be called an argument.

As the 1896 article ended, Charles B. Masten said, "The subject I am writing on is in exhaustive. The sum and substance of all articles written in behalf of the people on the money question, is the remonetization of silver and the free coinage at a ratio of 16 to 1. A parity maintained between gold and silver by laws which shall recognize one as being equal to the other in every way."
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