The Texas Miner, Volume 1, Number 36, September 22, 1894 Page: 6
20 p. : ill. ; 32 cm.View a full description of this newspaper.
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THE TEXAS MINER.
ABOUT SILVER.
THA r very able newspaper, the Dallas News, is staggering
under a heavy load just now in trying to make the people
of Texas believe that the goldbug views of London and Wall
Street, New York, accord with our financial interest. They are
laboring hard, and using the best arguments their shrewdness can
think of. Their natural inclinations are on the side of the masses,
but the manipulation of the Democratic platform bv Hon. George
Clark, as directed by Hon. Roger Q. Mills, who seems to be
Grover Cleveland's southern right bower in promulgating the
president's peculiar and special theories, prevents them. One of
President Cleveland's theories is that making the rich richer and
the poor poorer by demonetizing silver is the proper course, and
so we grant it is for the creditor classes, and it is not for the
farmer, the progressive business men and the wage earners.
The trouble now is with the News, it is finding out that the masses
have "got on to it,' and therefore day after day there appears in
its editorial columns articles similar to the one headed '-Money
and the Miracle Theory of Values." In its issue of the 17th
instant it says:
" Then why not call upon the Government to double, treble,
quadruple or quintuple the volume of money for the people by
decreeing that every gold dollar piece should legally count for
two, three, four or five dollars and every five dollar piece for ten,
fifteen, twenty or twenty-five dollars ?"
This is the old hackneyed story of the gold bug, similar to the
question, why not coin copper, iron, etc., and make it money by
fiat of law. 1 he Cleveland wing of the Democratic party in
Texas is trying to ignore and evade and obscure the plain facts.
What are those facts? Silver and gold have been since the
foundation of our Government the legal tender money with which
we could pay our debts, the medium by which we valued our
property. We have about an equal amount of silver and gold
that is used as money. Now, the single standard class (of which
in this country Grover Cleveland is the most prominent exponent)
want to make gold the only factor as a legal tender in the pay-
ment of debts, using silver only as a subsidiary coin, or if used it
must be interchangable for gold at the ratio of 16 to 1. The
product of gold in this country has decreased nearly one-half
since i860; the product of silver has largely increased. Now,
the creditor classes (who are the single standard advocates) want
it. Why? Because it will reduce the price of property, reduce
the price of labor. If their debts shall only be paid in gold coin,
that makes a greater demand for gold, consequently a greater
enhancement of values, thus reducing the value of the property
that it represents. There are about five billion dollars of bonds
and mortgages given for debts contracted, on a double standard
basis, viz: Bimetalism. It is unfair, it is unjust and wicked to
by the action of law, increase the wealth of the creditor classes,
by reducing the value of the farm or home to benefit the few at
the expense of the many. But the plausible single standard
advocate says: '-Why, if the gold you get for your farm or home
will buy you another farm or home of equal value, what does it
matter to you ?" That is right plausible, ain't it? But if that
farm or home that cost and was worth $1000 on a bimetal basis
and there was a mortgage on it for $500, and it was sold by
the creditor and only brought $500 to pay the creditor, where
would the poor man be? Gold had advanced so much the poor
man's property was wiped out of existence; the creditor gets the
farm or home for his debt and the debtor can begin over a^ain
and try and earn the best he can food and clothing for his wife
and little ones. Now, this is exactly the operation that we are
going through.
We will still follow in a greater degree if the platform as adopt-
ed by the Democratic party in Texas is carried out. It is the
legitimate and sure result that Grover Cleveland's theories on the
subject of currency lead to. What we bimetalists ask and want
is simply to return to the free coinage of American silver, that we
were deprived of in 1873, that we had enjoyed from the forma-
tion of our Government until that time. The foolish talk that we
expect anything except the legitimate results that will flow from
that course is not worthy of notice. Free coinage of silver at a
ratio of 16 to 1 will place us where we were. We do not want,
and will not have, our property confiscated by legislation that will
place all of our hard earnings in the hands of the creditor classes.
Now. the fact that so many old-time Democrats know that the
Democratic party in Texas has placed itself squarely on a gold
standard platform is what troubles the Dallas News, and it is try-
ing to the best of its ability to befog this question so as to keep
Democrats in line. Whether they will be able to do it, time will
tell.
MORE ABOUT SILVER.
ONE curious statistical fact regarding silver proves that even
with nearly all of the mints of the world closed to its free
coinage, the demand does not materially abate. Our exports of
silver in the fiscal years ending in July were as follows: 1891,
$4,564,000 worth; 1892, $12,855,000; 1893. $17,544 000. and
in 1894, $37,164 000. If mintc of the world were open to silver
as they are to gold there would be no more talk about the depre-
ciation of the white metal. Its use in the arts is growing, as the
public taste grows more aethetic and extravagant, and if to that
demand, how infinitely greater than twenty years ago, could be
added its normal and historic utility as a full money metal, the
terrors which silver possesses for so many timid souls would vanish
into thin air. One of the most inspiriting things that could happen
to the markets in the great Stock Exchanges of London and the
Continent, would be a substantial and permanent rise in silver
and its establishment at some fixed parity with gold Silver secu-
rities listed on these Exchanges are so numerous and vast in
quantity, and they are so widely held, that anything tending to
lift up silver would lead to an immense rise in the values and
prices of the entire mass of such securities. This alone would
create a tremendous speculation and bullish sentiment that would
communicate itself to everything else in sight.
The silver question is not open to discussion or thought by the
public at large every day. It does not continually occur to the
daily watcher of the tape or to the banker looking after discounts
and deposits, but nevertheless it is an unsolved problem and it is
not out of the way. If it is invisible to some, it is none the less
present to all who have any thought for the morrow..
The Government coru crop report gave a higher average of
condition, 63, than was expected, but this figure covered the
South where there was an improvement, and it did not take into
account the large area of abandoned corn fields of over fifteen
million acres, or one-fifth of the entire corn acreage of the country.
The estimated crop in South Dakota is only 16 per cent of an
average, and in Nebraska only 15. This is a pretty serious
business, not merely serious as to railway traffic in those States,
but as to the solvency of merchants and farmes there. We must
continue to advise our friends to let the Granger stocks severely
alone.—[Watson & Gibson's Daily Market Letter.
A KICK IN LOUISIANA.
ADOLPH MEYER, Congressman from the First Louisiana
District, recently talked to an Associated Press reporter in
Washington of the movement toward the Republican party as
shown by developments at the recent meeting of sugar planters.
He said:
" It may mean that a Republican delelegation may be sent to
the next congress from Louisiana, and that Republican presi-
dential electors may be chosen two years from now.
1 his movement is no more than might have been expected.
The Democratic congress has dealt shamefully with the great
interest of Louisiana, after repeatedly promising to sustain it.
I he party has received strong and consistent support from the
state for many years, and the first time it secures complete con-
trol of the government it proceeds to inflict upon Louisiana the
hardest blow she has ever been given by legislation. We have
not only been dealt unfairly with, but have been deceived, and in
a word, bucoed.
"We were promised back in the presidential campaign that
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McAdams, Walter B. The Texas Miner, Volume 1, Number 36, September 22, 1894, newspaper, September 22, 1894; Thurber, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth200483/m1/6/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Tarleton State University.