The eagle., June 12, 1895, Image 1

About The eagle. (Silver City, N.M.) 1894-1???

Image provided by: University of New Mexico

                
VOL. 1, NO. 43.
SILVER CITY, N. M., WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1895.
PRICE 5 CENTS
SHERMAN AND HILL.
They Hold Opposite Views on the
Silver Question.
Tim Two Senators KttprrKcnt tlio View of
Tlmlr ItKNiiprtlvti l'nrtlc on Thin
Oiicntlon.
Senator Sherman, in his Fjicccli at
Zancsvillc spoke as follows on the silver
question:
"We are in favor of a pound national
currency always redeemable in coin.
All forma of money should 1 of equal
purchasing power. For 14 years after
the resumption of specie payments.while
the rcpu hi ican party was in power, we
had such a currency. We had gold, sil
ver ami piqier money, all liearing the
stamp and sanction of the United States,
of u nqiiestioned credit and of equal value,
passing current not only in the United
Slates.hut in all parts of the commercial
world. Both gold and silver are indispen
sable for use in the varied wants of man
kind. Gold is now.and has been for ages,
thechief measure of value in internal ional
commerce and the larger transactions of
domestic exchanges. Silver, from its
bulk and weight, is not available for
large paymcnts.either at home or abroad,
but it is ii:disieiisable in the minor wants
of mankind. Gold, from its greatly su
perior value, cannot lie utilized for such
puroscs. Therefore it is that kith met
áis have I wen coined into money at a
lixed ratio. The enormous increase in
the production of silver ín the United
Wales, Mexico and Australia has dis
turlied ibis ratio and has lowered the
marketable value of silver precisely as a
like increase of production has lowered
the price of oilier commodities. It. is a
universal law that price or value is meas
ured by quantity. Under lliese condi
tions the ralional and proper coursi
would be change oí ratios, but this can
only be ellective to these two metals bv
a concert of action among commercial
nations. Until Ibis can be accomplish'
the only logical way is for each nation to
coin IkiI) meláis and maintain the coin
age of the cheaper metal at par by linii
taliou of amount, and redemption whet
in excess of the demand for it. Such i
now ihe policy of the United States and
of every great commercial nation, in
eluding every country of Enroñe. Olhe
uaiions adopt Ihe silver standard alone
not from choice, but from lioyerlv. I
believe that the policy of the United
States, adopted in 1853, in coining frac
tional silver coins in limited quantities
from silver bullion purchased at market
price and making them legal tender for
small Bums, is the only way to preserve
the parity of gold and silver coins at a
lixed ratio. This is properly called hi
metallic money. I hope and Iwlieve the
common interest of commercial nations
will lead them, through an international
commission, to either adopt a new ratio
based on market value of the metals or
to coin them and maintain them, as we
do, at their present ratio.
"The policy now urged by the producers
of silver and by men who wish to pay
their debts in cheaper money than they
promised tó pay, is the free coinage of
silver. It is the degradation of our dol
lar to 50 cents. If applied to our na
tional lionds it is a repudiation of one-
half of the public debt. It is the repu
diation of one-half of all debts. It con
fers no favors on productions of any kind
whether of the farm, the work-shop or
the mine, for if they get nominally more
lollars for their productions, their addi
tional dollars would have only one-half
the purchasing power of the gold dollars.
"The great hardships of this policy
would fall upon the workiugincu, skilled
and unskilled, whose daily wage, meas
ured by the present standard, is higher
I ban that of any country in the world.
Their wages will purchase more of the
necessaries of life than the wages paid
for similar labor anywhere outside of the
United States.
"The republican party in its national
platform of 1892 demanded goal money
of equal purchasing power, whether
coined of gold or silver, or composed of
United States notes and national notes,
based upon (he credit, of Ihe United
Slates, maintained at par with coin.
This is the bimeiallic jwilicy. There we
stand today. I hope and trust we will
stand there forever. We will seek Ihe
co-operation of all nations to maintain
the parity of gold and silver coined. If
thev will not eo-opefále with us in this
policy, the republican party can, and, I
hope, will, do it alone. Good money and
plenty of it is as important to all our
people as equality of rights and privi
leges.
"Let us, then, with a (inn relience upon
ihe principles, policy and wisdom of the
great party to which we belong, nomi
nate our candidates and declare our
platform, and then make our appeal to
the intelligence of the people of Ohio.
In all the great issues made in the last
40 years the republican party of Ohio
has had the courage to propose and do
what is right. Let us follow in the same
pathway, and we will not only elect a
republican Governor and state officers,
but also another republican senator, and,
as I hope, a president, of the United
States from the state of Ohio."
Senator Hill was asked whether lie
had read Senator. Sherman's speech on
the monetary question.
"Yes," said the senator. "I have
carefully perused Senator Sherman's
Zanesville speech on silver, which the
New York Evening Post commends as
'a sound deliverance.' If an Ohio dem
ocrat had made the speech, there would
have been coindemnation all along the
republican ranks. The implication
startled me that there are, in a prosper
ous state like Ohio, republican voters
who wish to degrade our dollar standard,
repudiate one-half our public debt, and
pay 'their debts in cheaper money than
they promised to pay.' I have not met
such voters in New York. It is dillicult
for me to believe that a majority in any
American state, or in any American
congress, will vote to create a new dol
lar merely in order that thereby debtors
may evade the payment of one-half, one
quarter, or any percentage of what they
owe and have promised. That would be
worse and more indefensible than the
creation in 18(32 by Senator Sherman's,
party, of the full legal tender greenback
dollar. Then the country was in the
agony of civil war, but now there is pro
found peace.
"Until I read the latest legal tender
decision in 188:1 by a republican supreme
court in Jailbird's case, I did not think
that our highest judicial tribunal could
tolerate such repudiation of private con
tracts by a degradation of our legal ten
der dollar. It had not been attempted
in our history till 1802. Whether our
standard dollar was silver or gold, or
both, it was from 1702 to 18f2 an Innest
standard, an undegraded standard.
During these seventy years nobody loan
ing dollars felt it necessary in note or
'bond, as now, to describe the dollars
of payment as 'gold dollars of present
weight and linenesss.' Not till 18(12 did
congress begin to force the circulation
of degraded dollars by imparting to them
J"
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