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Besides, our national bank circulation has been gradually contracting and is bound to be withdrawn altogether when the balance of trade is restored in our favor by good prices for our products and the surplus of revenue is applied to the national debt. It will take $40,000,000 a year for five years to take the place of the national bank notes, so that we have here an increased demand for silver of nearly $200,000,000 in this country, without any inflation or expansion beyond a per capita of $30. This demand is equal to the entire current product of the mines, which is already exhausted in current use. Can any man say that a new demand of such magnitude shall not restore the old parity? And if the old parity is restored, will not this talk about 50-cent dollars and a debased currency entirely cease? The gold monometallists propose to maintain this parity by the redemption of silver in gold. We propose the rightful method of restoring parity by increasing the use and consequently increasing the value of silver, and by restoring the time-honored use as money of redemption equally with gold.

But suppose the fears of our alarmist friends are realized, and that nature instead of exposing her silver treasury as she has done in the past, gradually and progressively to meet the wants of the world for money, should expose it in large abundance, is not this a matter of easy control? Recollect that silver mines already existing will soon be exhausted. The Comstock lode in my own State, which alarmed all Europe, is now reduced in its production to $500,000 per annum. The mines of the future are in the ungranted mineral lands of this country and Mexico, for remember that Mexico and the United States produce two-thirds of the silver of the world. Will it not be easy to limit those grants, either by exacting royalty or by total withdrawal, so that the silver stores of the future may not be unduly drawn upon for the present, and that the calm and equal production of silver commensurate with its use may be established and secured?

For three years you have been on the gold standard. Do you like it? For twenty-three years you have waited for international action. Can you wait longer, and who are to take the lead in this reform-the beneficiaries of the gold monopoly or its victims? And who are the victims? Look on the map of your country and mark the area of distress as indicated by the railroads that have been placed in the hands of receivers since 1893, comprising nearly onethird of the entire mileage of the country. You will find it in the mining belt, comprising six States and three Territories, whose basis of industry, with which all their industries, agricultural, commercial, railroad and banking were corelated, is suffering from the decline of silver. Mark the wheat belt of the Northwest and the cotton belt of the South and you will find that in those areas devoted to mining, to wheat-raising and cotton-growing more than one-half of the local railroad mileage has gone into the hands of receivers since 1893.

Low price products will not stand high rates. Producers who produce at a loss cannot buy goods that require transportation, and so the railroads have suffered in the transportation of the products of the region through which they pass and of the goods which they return to the producers in exchange. The gradual fall in the price of silver has for twenty years seriously affected the Western and Southern States, as their products have been compelled to compete with the product of silver-standard countries, the prices of which, stable

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in silver, have gradually gone down in gold until their price is now one-half of what it used to be.

It is true that the New England and Middle States suffered but little until 1893, and then largely because of diminished markets in the South and West and loss from their railroad securities and other interests in the South and West. They suffered the least because they were creditor States whose margin of security did not disappear until 1893, and also because they were manufacturing States whose industries were protected against cheap European labor, thus enabling them to monopolize the home market. They have not yet suffered from Oriental competition, for the manufactured production of those countries, stimulated by the margin of security, did not disappear until 1893. They have not yet suffered from Oriental competition, for the manufactured production of those countries, stimulated by the appreciation of gold, has thus far met only the requirements of the local markets, although it has seriously affected English and German manufacturers who used to supply such markets; but the Eastern States will soon suffer from Oriental competition. Japanese production is looking out for American markets, for their products will naturally seek a country whose labor cost is the highest. No tariff short of absolute exclusion will protect the Eastern States against this invasion, and exclusion is impossible, for the Western and Southern States will not consent to a policy which surrenders their products to the competition of silver-standard countries. It is evident that, with a view to protect the products of this country, whether from the farm or the factory, against the products of silver-standard countries, our policy should be, by increasing the use of silver, to pull up its value and thus, by the use of a competitive metal, to pull down the value of gold. By doing this we will take away at least half of the efficiency of the competing labor of silver-standard countries.

We therefore claim that the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 by this country is practicable; that it will restore the old relative value of silver and gold, release this country from dependence upon foreign gold, impair the competitive efficiency of the cheap labor of silver-standard countries, restore the value of our agricultural products with which we pay our debts abroad and save this country from a manufacturing competition that will prove destructive. This question has not been fought out in the manufacturing States of the country as it has been in the mining camps, but the manufacturers of this country before the end of this campaign will learn that their interests are in common with those of the general producers of the country, and the Oriental competition which has been so destructive to the farmers will, in the end, be destructive to the manufacturers.

We hope to see the wheat interests and the mining interests, the cotton interests and the manufacturing interests united against the opponents of bimetallism. For recollect that it is the dealers in money, the dealers in products and the carriers of the products that have made a union against the productive energies of the country, whether those productive energies are displayed in cotton and wool manufactures in the New England and Middle States, the iron and coal industries in Pennsylvania and the cotton industries of the South, or in the mining of silver in the great West; and we may rest assured that this country will in time pursue a policy of enlightened self-interest. It will realize it is to

its interest as a producer of over one-third of the entire silver of the world, as the greatest debtor nation of the world, as the greatest producing nation in the world, to stop the appreciation of gold, to stop the increase in value of every unit of this four thousand millions in gold, whose present home is in three foreign countries. And with the change will come beneficent results not only to producers, but to the banking, mercantile and railroad interests, which are now so steadily opposing us. They will realize that their prosperity is based upon the general prosperity of the entire country, and that the prosperity of this country cannot continue so long as debtor and producing nations recognize gold as the only money metal, and by their action build up its value and increase its control over the products of labor.

This campaign is to open up an era of education, and into this work the silver party enters animated by no sectional spirit, controlled by no feeling of envy against the more prosperous, but inspired by the desire to maintain a broad American policy which shall protect the interests of American production whether in the mining camps of the mountains, the wheat fields of the West, the cotton fields of the South, or the factories of New England. But let us remember always in this contest that union is strength, and that the motto of our opponents is now as it has always been, "Divide and conquer."

For permanent chairman the convention selected William P. St. John, Esq., of New York. Mr. St. John, until recently connected with one of the large banks of New York City, has been a most earnest advocate of free coinage and, in spite of the local opposition which he has encountered, has defended bimetallism with great courage and ability. He at last, in a business way, suffered martyrdom for his convictions, relinquishing a large salary as president of the bank rather than keep silent upon a matter which he believed to be of vital importance to the country. I give below the speech which he delivered upon taking the chair:

Mr. St. John's Speech.

Gentlemen of the Convention: The skill and efficiency of your labors in the past have been rewarded by the adoption of your demand for legislation by two great organizations of the people, namely: The Democracy and the People's party. If now you are able to induce a coalition of these two organizations for the one purpose, the desired achievement on behalf of the people will

ensue.

Assuming then that you will prevail upon those patriots calling themselves the People's party to endorse the nomination of Bryan and Sewall, it is advisable to warrant the desirability of the end in view.

It is among the first principles in finance that the value of each dollar, expressed in prices, depends upon the total number of dollars in circulation. The plane of prices is high when the number of dollars in circulation is great in proportion to the number of things to be exchanged by means of dollars. and low when the dollars are proportionately few. The plane of prices at present and for some time past is and has been ruinously low. The increase

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