The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 27, 1896, Page 1

This Paper no to be taken from the Library.++** VOLUME LXXX SAN FRANCISCO, THURSDAY MORNING, AUGUST 27, 1896. PRICE FIVE CENTS. “NOT OPEN MINTS, BUT OPEN MILLS." McKinley Sounds the Note That Heralds the Return of Prosperity. STABLE MONEY AND PROTECTION TO INDUSTRY. Republicanism Opposes Free Silver, Except by International Agreement. WHEN FACTORY WHEELS TURN, GOOD TIMES WILL COME. The United States Does Not Need a Greater Volume of Money, but More Oppor= tunity for the Masses to Earn It. CANTON, O=m1o, Aug. 26.—Major McKinley gave his letter of accept- ance to the press associations this afternoon, having finished his last read- ng and revision of it at 12:30 o’clock. The letter touches upon all of the tant planks in the Republican National platform, but the first half devoted to an incislve discussion of the money question. The let- T s follows: Hon. John M. Thurston and others, members of the Notification Commattee F the Republican National Convention—GENTLEMEN: In pursuance of the ise made to your committee when notified of my nomination as the Republican candidate for President, I beg to submit this formal accept- ance of that high honor and to consider in detail questions at issue in the pending campaign. Perhaps this might be considered unnecessary in view of my remarks on that occasion and those I have made to delegations that have visited me since the St. Louis convention; but in view ot the momentous importance of the proper settlement of the issues presented to our future prosperity and standing as a nation and considering only the welfare and happiness of our people, [ could not be content to omit again calling attention to the questions which, in my opinion, vitally affect our strength and' position among the governments of the world, and our morality, integrity and patriotism as citizens of that repablic which for a century past has been the best hope of the world and the inspiration of meankind, We must not now prove false to our own standards in govern- ment, nor unmindful of the noble example and wise precepis of the iathers, or of the confidence and trust wkich our conduct in the past has always inspired. THE FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. For the first time since 1868, if ever before, there is presented to the American people this year a clear and direct issue as to our monetary system, of vast importance in its effects and upon the right settlement of hick rests largely the financial honor and prosperity of the country. It is proposed by one wing of the Democratic party and its allies, tne People’s and Silver parties, to inaugurate the free and unlimited coinage of silver by independent action on the part of the United States at a ratio of six- teen ounces of silver to oue of gold. The mere deciaration of this purpese is a menace to our financial and industrial interests, and has aiready created universal alarm. It involves great peril to the credit and business of the country, a peril so grave that conservative men everywhere are breaking away from their old party associations and uniting with other patriotic citizens in emphatic protest against the platform of the Demo- cratic National Convention as an assault upon the faith and honor of the Government and the welfare of the people. We have had few questions in the lifetime of the Republic more serious than the one which is thus presented. g The character of the money which shall measure our values and ex- changes, and settle our balances with one another and with the nations of the world, is of such primary importance and so far reaching in its conse- quences as to call for the most painstaking investigation, and, in the end, & sober, unprejudiced judgment at the polls. We must not be misled by phrases nor deluded by false theories. Free silver would not mean that ilver aollars were to be freely had without cost or labor. It would mean silver bullion, but would make silver coin no freer to the many who e engaged in other enterprises. It would not make labor easier, the ours of labor shorter, or the pay better. It would not make farming less laborious, or more profitable. It would not start a factory, or make a demand for an additjonal day’s labor. It would create no new occupa- tions. It would add nothing to the comfort of the masses, the capital of the people, or the wealth of the Nation. It seeks to introduce a new measure of value, but would add no value to the thing measured. It would not conserve values; on the contrary, it would derange all existing values. It would not restore business confidence, but its direct effect would be to destroy the little which yet remains. The meaning of the coinage plank adopted at Chicago is that any one may take a quantity of silver bullion, now valued at 53 cents, to the mints of the United States, have it coined at the expense of the Government, and receive for it a silver dollar, which shall be legal tender for the pay- ment of all debts, public and private. The owner of tke silver bullion would get the silver dollar; it would belong to him and to nobody else. Other people would get it only by their labor, the products of theirland or something of value. Thebullion owner, on the basis of present values, would receive the silver dollar for 53 cents’ worth of silver, ant other people would be required to receive it as a full dollar in the payment of debts. The Government would get nothing from the transaction. It would bear the expense of coining the gilver and the community would suffer loss by 1ts use. We have coined since 1878 more than four hundred millions of silver dollars, which are maintained by the Government at varity with gold, and are full legal tender for the payment of all debts, public and private. How are the silver dollars now in use different from those which would be in use under free coinage? They are to be of the same weight and fine- ness; they are to bear the same stamp of the Government. Why would they not be of the same value? I answer: The silver doliars now in use were coined on account of the Government, and hot for private account or gain, and the Government has solemnly agreed to keep them as good as the best dollars we have. The Government bought thesilver bullion at its market value and coined it into silver dollars. Having exclusive control of the mintage, it only coins what it can hold at a parity with gold. The profit, representing the difference between the commercial value of silver bullion and the face value of the silver dollar, goes to the Government for the benefit of the people. The Government bought the silver bullion con- tained in the silver dollar at very much less than its coinage value, It paid it out to its creditors and put it in circulation among the people at its face value of one hundred cents, or a full dollar. Itrequired the people to accept it as a legal tender and is thus morally bound to maintain it at a parity with gold, which was then, as now, the recognized standard with us, and the most enlightened nations of the world. The Government having issued and circulated the silver dollar, it must in honor protect the holder from loss. This obligation it has so far sacredly kept. Not only is there a moral obligation but there is a legal obligation expressed in public statute to maintain, the parity. THEY COULD NOT BE KEPT AT PAR. These dollars, in the particulars I bave named, are not the same as the dollars which would be issued under free coinage. They would be the same in form, but different in value. The Government would bave no part in the transaction, eXcept to coin the silver bullion into dollars. It would share 1.0 part of the profit. It would take upon itself no obligation. 1t wouid not put the dollars into circulation. It could only get them, as any citizen would get them, by giving something for them. It would deliver, them to those who deposited the silver and its connection with the trans- WILLIAM MCcKINLEY. Stalwart Champion of Protection and Sound Money; the Next President of the United States. action there end. Such are the silver dollars which would be issued under free coinage of silver at a ratio of 16to 1. Who would then maintain the parity? What would keep them at par with gold? There would be no obligation resting upon the Government to do it, and if there were, it would be powerless to do it. The simple truth is, we would be driven to a silver basis, to silver monometaliism. These dollars, therefore, would stand upon their real value. 1f the free and unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio of sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold would, as some of its advocates assert, make 53 cents in silver worth 100 cents, and the silver dollar equal to the gold dollar, then we would have no cheaper money than notw, and it would be no easier to get, but that such would be the result is against reason and is contradicted by experience in all lands. It means the debasement of our currency to the amcunt of the difference between the commercial and coin value of the silver dollar, which is ever changing, and the effect ‘would be to reduce property vaiues, entail untold financial loss, destroy confidence, impair the obligations of existing contracts, further impover- ish the laborers and producers of the country, create a panic of unparal- leled severity and -inflict upon trade and commerce a deadly blow. Agsinst any such policy I am unalterably opposed. Bimetallism cannot be secured by independent action on our part. Itl cannot be sustained by opening our mints to the unlimited coinage of the silver of the world at a ratio of sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold, when the commercial ratio is more than thirty ounces of silver to one ounce of gold. Mexico and China have tried the experiment. Mexico has free coinage of silver and gold at a ratio slightly in excess of sixteen and a half ounces of silver to one ounce of gold, and while her mints are freely open to both metals at that ratio not a single dollar in gold bullion is coined and circulated as money. Gold has been driven out of circula- tion in these countries and they are on a silver basis alone. Until international agreement is had it is the plain duty of the United States to maintain the gold standard. It is the recognized and sole stand- ard of the great commercial nations of tue world with which we trade more largely than any other. Eighty-four per cent of our foreign trade for the fiscal year 1895 was with goild standard countries, and our trade with other countries was settled on a goid basis. WE NOW HAVE MORE SILVER THAN GOLD. Chaefly by means of legisiation during and since 1878 there has been put in circulation more than $624,000,000 of silver or its representative. This has been done in an honest effort to give silver, if possible, the same bullion and coinage value and encourage the concurrent use of both gold and silver as money. Priorto that time there had been less than nine millions of silver dollars coined in the financial history of the United States, 8 period of eighty-nine years. This legislation secured the largest use of silver consistent with financial safety and the pledge to maintain its parity with gold. We have to-day more silver than gold. This has been accomplished at times with grave peril to the public credit. The so-called Sherman law sought to use all the silver product of the United States for money at United States market value. From 1890 to 1893 the Government purchased 4,500,000 ounces of silver a-month, or 54,000,000 ounces a year. This was one-third of the product of the world and practically all of this country’s product. It was believed by those who then and now favor tree coinage that such use of silver would advance its bullion value to its coinage value, but this expectation was not realized. In afew months, notwithstanding the unprecedented mar- ket for the siiver produced in the United States, the price of silver went down very rapidly, reaching a lower point than ever before. Then, upon the recommendation of President Oleveland, both political parties united in the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman law. We cannot with safety engage in further experiment in this direction. On the 22d of August, 1891, in a public address, I said: If we could have an international ratio, which all the leading nations of the world ‘would adopt, and the true relation be fixed betweén the two metals, and all agree upon the quantity of silver which should constitute dollar, then silver would be as free and unlimited in its privileges of coinage as ezold . is to-day. But that we have not been able to secure, and with the free and unlimited coinage of silver adopted in the United States at the present ratio, we would be still further removed from any international agreement, ‘We may never be able to secure it if we enter upon the isolated coinage of silver. The double standard implies equality at a ratio, and that equality can only be established by the concutrent law of nations. It was the con- current law of nations that made the gold standard; it will require the concurrent law of nations to reinstate ana sustain it. IT. FAVORS. THE USE. OF. SILVER MONEY. The Republican party has not been, and is not now opposad to the use of silver money, as its record sbundantly shows. It has done all that could be done for its increased use, with safety and honor, by the United States acting apart from other Governments. There are those who think that it has already gone beyond the limit of financial prudemce. Surely wecan go no further, and we must not permit false lights to lure us across the danger line. 5 We have more silver in use than any country in the worid except India or China—$500,000,000 more than Great Britain, $150,000,000 more than France, $400,000,000 more than Germany, $325,000,000 less than India, and $125,000,000 less. than China. Tne Republican party has declared in favor of any infernational agreement, and if elected President it will be my duty to employ all proper means to promote it. The free coin- age of silver in this country would defer, if not defeat, international bimet- allism, and until an internationa! agreement can be had every interest re- quires us to maintain our present standard. Independent free coinage of silver at a ratio of sixteen ounces of silyer to one ounce of gold would in- sure the speedy contraction of the volume of ourcurrency. It would drive at least five hundred mllions of gold dollars, which we now have permanently, from the trade of the country and greatly decrease our per capita circulation, It is not proposed by the Republican party to take from the circulating medium of the country any of the silver we now have. On the contrary, it is proposed to keep all of, the silver money now in cir- culation on a parity with gold by maintaining the pledge of the Govern- _ ment that ali of it shall be equal to gold. This has been the unbroken policy of the Republican party since 1875. It has inaugurated no new policy. It will keep in circulation and as good as goid all of the silver and paper money which are now included in the currcney of the country. It will maintain their parity. It will preserve their equality in the future as it has always dohe in the past. It will not consent to put this couniry on s silver basis, which would inevitably follow independent free coinage at a ratio of 16 to 1. It will oppose the s expulsion of gold from our circulstion. “If there is any one thing which shoula be free from speculation and - fluctuation is is the money of a country. It ought never to be the subject of mere partisan contention. When we part with our labor, our products, or our property, we should receive in return money which is as stable and unchauging in value as the ingenuity of honest men can make it. De- basement of the currency means destruction of values. No one suffers so much irom cheap money as the farmers and laborers. They are the first to feel its bad effects and the last to recover from them. This has been the uniform experience of all countries and here, as elsewhere, the poor, and not the rich, are always the greatest sufferers from every attempt to debase our money. It would fall with alarming severity upon investments already made, upon insurance companies and their policy-holders, upon savings banks and their depositors, upon building and loan associations and their members, upon the savings of thrift, upon pensioners and their families and upon wage-earners and the purchasing power of their wages. UNLIMITED, IRREDEEMABLE PAPER MONEY. The silver question is not the only issue affecting our money in the pending contest. Not content with urging the free coinage of silyer, its stror.gest champions demand that our paper money shall be issued di- rectly by the Government of the United States. Thisis the Chicago Demo- cratic declaration. The St. Louis People’s party declaration is that “Our National money shall be issued by the General Government only, without the free coinage of the world’s silver, we are asked to enter upon an era of unlimited, irredeemable paper currency. The question which was fought out from 1865 to 1879 is thus to be reopened, with all,its uncertainties, and cheap-money experiments of every conceivabie form foisted upon us. This indicates a most startling reactionary policy, strangely at variance with every requirement of sound finance, but the declaration shows the spirit and purpose of those who by combined action are contending forthe control of the Government. Not satisfied with the debasement of our coinage, which would inevitably follow the free coinage of silver at 16 1o 1, they would still further degrade our currency and threaten the public honor by the unlimited issne of an irredeemable paper currency. A graver menace to our financial standing and credit could hardly be con- ceived, and every patriotic citizen should be aroused to promptly meetand effectually defeat it. It is a cause for painful regret and solicitude that an effert is being made by those high in the counsels of the allied parties to divide the peo- ple of this country into classes and create distinctions among us, which, in fact, do not exist and are repugnant to our form of government. These appeals to passion and prejudice sre beneath the spirit and intelligence of a free people, and should be met with stern rebuke by those they are sought to inftuence; and I believe they will be. Every attempt to array class against class, “‘the classes against the masses, section against sec- tion, labor against capital, the poor against the rich,” or interest against interest in the United States is in the highest degree reprehensible. Itis opposed to the National instinct and interest, and should be resisted by every citizen. We are not a Nation of classes, but of sturdy, free, inde- pendent, honorable people, despising the demagogue and never capitu- lating to dishonor. This ever-recurring effort endangers popular govern- ment, and is a menace % our liberties. It is not a new campaign device or party appeal. Itisasold as zovernment among men, but was never more untimely and unfortunate than now. Washington warned us against it, ana Webster said in the Senate in words which I feel are singularly appropriate at this time: “I admonish the people against the object of ountcries like these. I admonish every industrious laborer of this country to be on his guard against such delusion. I tell him the attempt is to play off his passion against his interest, and to prevail on him, in the name of liberty, to de- stroy all the fruits of liberty.” PROTECTION OF SUPREME IMPORTANCE. Another issue of supreme importance is that of protection. The spirit of free silver is a menace to be feared. We are already experiencing the effect of partial free trade. The one must be averted, the other corrected. The Republican party is wedded to the doctrine of protection, and was neyer more earnest in its support and advocacy than now. If argu- ment were needed to stiengthen its devotion to the American system or increase the hold of that system on the party and the people, it is found in the lesson and experience of the past three years. Men realize in their own aaily lives what before was to many of them only report, history or tradition. They have had a trial of both sysiems and know what each has done for them. ‘Washington, in hisfarewell address September17, 1796, s hundr-d years 8go, said: ‘*‘As a very important source of strengtf and security cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as pos- sible, avoiding the accumulation of debt, not.only by shunaing eccasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves onght to bear.” To facilitate the enforcement, the maxims of which he announced, he declared: ‘‘Itis essential that you should practically bear in mind that toward the payments of /debts there must ‘be revenue; that to have revenne there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient or unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties) ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construc- tion of the conauct of the Governmentin making it, and for a spiri% of acquiescence in that measure for obtaining revenues which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.” Animated by like sentiments the people of the country must now face the conditions which beset them. The ‘‘public exigencies” demand prompt proteetivg legislation, which will avoid the accumulation of further debt by providing adequate revenues for the expenses of the Government. This is manifestly the requirement of duty. If elected President oi the United States it will be my sim to vigorously promote this object and give that ample encouragement of the occupationsiof the American people, which, above all else, is so imperatively demanded at this juncture of our National affairs. OUR CONDITION IN DECEMBER, 1892. In December, 1892, President Harrison sent his last message to Con- gress. - It was an able and exbaustive review of the condition and resources of the country. It stated our situation so accurately that I am sure it will not be amiss to recite his official and valuable testimony. “There has never been a time 1n our history,"” said he, “when work was so abundant, or when wages were so high, whether measured by the currency in which they are paid or by their power to supply the neces- saries and comforts of life.. The general average of prices has been such as to give agriculture a fair participation in the general prosperity. The new industrial plants estabhshed since October 6, 1890, and up to October 22, 1892, number 345, and the extension of existing plants 108. The new capital invested amounts to $40,446,060, and the number of additional em- ployes 37,285. During the first six monthsof the present calendar year 135 new factories were built, of which forty were cotton muilis, forty-eight knitting mills, twenty-six woolen mills, fifteen silk mills, four plush mills and two linen mills. Of the forty cotton mills, twenty-one have been built in the Southern States.” This fairly describes the happy condition of !the country in December, 1892. What has it been since and what is it now? The messages of President Cleveland from the peginning of his second administration to the present -time abound with descriptions of the de- plorable industrial and financial situation of the country. While no re- sort to history or official statement is required to advise us of the present condition and that which has prevailed during the past three years, I ven- ture to quote from President Cleveland’s first message, August 8, 1893, ad- dressed to the Fifty-third Congress, which he had called together in extra- ordinary session: “The existence of an alarming and extraordinary business situation,” said he, “involving the welfare and prosperity of all our people bas con- strained me to call together in extra session the people’s representatives in Congress to the end that through the wise and patriotic exercise of the legislative auties with which they solely are charged the present evils may be mitigated and dangers threatening the future may be averted. “Qur unfortunate financial plight is not theresult of untoward events, nor of the conditions related to our natural resources. Nor is it traceable to any of the afflictions which frequently check National growth and prosperity. With plenteous crops, with abundant promise of remunera- tive production and manufacture, with unusual invitation to safe invest~ ment, and with satisfactory assurances to business enterprises, suddenly financial distrust and fear have sprung up on every side. Numerons moneyed institutions have suspended because abundant assets were not immediately available to meet the demands of frightened depositors. Corporations and individuals are content to keep in hand the money they are usually anxious to loan, and those engaged in legitimate business are surprised to find that the securities they offer for loans, thoug . heretofore satisfactory, are no longer accepted. Values supposed to be fixed are fast becoming conjectural, and loss and failure have invadea every branch of business.” - THE CAUSE OF THE CHANGE. ‘What a startling and sudden change within the short period of eight months—from December, 1892, to August, 18931 What had occurred? A change of administration—all branches of the Government had been intrusted to the Democratic party, which was committed against the rotective policy that had prevailed uninterruptedly for more than thirty- {wo years and brought unexampled prosperity to the country, and firmly pledged to its complete overthrow and the substitution of a tariff for revenue only. The change having been decreed by the elections in Iovember, its effects were at once anticipated and felt. We cannot close our eyes to these altered conditions, nor would it be wise to exclude from contemplation and investigation the cause which produced them. These are the facts, which we cannot, as people, disregard, and we can only hope to improve our present condition by a study of their cause. In December, 1892, we had the same currency and practically the same volume of currency that we have now. 1t aggregated in 1892 $2,372,599,501, in 1893 $2,323,000,000, in 1894 $2,323,434,362 and in December, 1895, $2,194,000,230. The per capita for the Nation, t00, has been practically the same during the whole period. The quality of money has been identical— all kept equal to gold. There is nothing conmected with our money therefore to account for this sudden and aggravated industrial change. ‘Whatever is to be deprecated in our financial system, it must everywhere be admitted that our money has been absolutely good, and has brought neither loss nor inconvenience to its holders. A devreciated currency has not existed %o further vex the troubled business situation. 1t is a mere pretense to attribute the hard times to the fact that all our currency is on a gold basis. Good money never made times hard. Those who assert that our present industrial and financial depression is ine result of the gold standard have not read American history aright or been careful students of the events of recent years. We never had greater prosperity in this country in every field of employment and in- dustry than in the busy years from 1880 to 1892, during all of which time this country was on a gold basis and employed more gold moaey in its financial and business operations than ever before. We had, 100, a protec- tive tariff, under which ample revenues were collected for the Government and an accumulating surplus which was constantly applied to the pay- ment of the public debt. Let us hold fast to that which we know is good. It is not more money we want; what we want is to put the money we the.intervention of banks of issue, be full legal tender for the payment of - already have at work. When money is employed men are employed. all debts, pablic and private,’ and.be distributed *directly tothe people and through lawful disbursements of the Government.” Thus, in addition to B Both have always been'steadily and remuneratively engaged during the years of protective tariff legislation,. When those who have money lack