9..
I . THEE VEN IN () svifi 3311,; i n ' "‘ ,
' V I i , U .. _ V ‘
d 0 f I " ~ _ lAppeannces are .
what attract the op- 23
posite sex. ome- \y“
i , 0 / ;
temperature by.. If one measure is correct, the it has shot some things up in price. The corn
other cannot differ from it and be correct. crop of the United States is more valuable
9 ~ . ‘ 1' .. I {Emlllfll
.~ .‘5
Wha’izflififlfifim
AND
BothIEaggeflrg§ent to one Address
_ for $l.OO a Year
_—4
r
I
EN ‘
Judge Aldredge, at Atlanta, “Be-
fore Convention of Amer-
ican Bankers.
Wit and Humor, With Sound Logic, Kept
the Convent-ion In an Uproar—Case Stated
’ So Plainly That All Can Understand It.
Five Principal Free Coinage'Arguments
Answered In Turn—Chino]: Bugs and
Bollworms Versus 16 to 1 Cranks—What
Makes Interest Low?-—Important Prices
That Have Risen Since 1873.
Perhaps the sound money speech in greatest
demand in all parts of the country, and the de-
mand for which is most constantlyigrowing, is
that ofoJudge George N. Aldredge of Dallas,
Tex., delivered Oct. 16, 1895, at the convention
of the American Bankers’ association at At-
lanta, Ga. We are certain that all of our read-
ers will relish the wit and humor which upset
the dignity of the bankers. They will also find
it very instructive reading. We reprint it in
full below:
The proposition that this government should
coin silver for the world, in unlimited amount,
at double its market value, is so repugnant to
the common sense of mankind that it ought'to
be unnecessary to discuss it, and would be but
for the fact that a portion of our people have
been misled by appeals to their prejudice and
by the specious reasoning of sophists. If Our
government were asked to declare that two
quarts equaled a gallon or to revise the multi-
plication table and enact that 10 times 10
equaled 200, all men would see the folly, but
when asked to believe that $10 Worth of silver,
by being touched by the government stamp,
instantly becomes worth $20, many people
honestly believe this miracle may be accom-
plished, and many others afiect to believe it
for practical purposes.
In all ages of the world there have been de-
lusions in reference to money, and in spite of
uniform disastrous results many are ever
ready to listen to the teachings of any charla-
tan who claims that he has discovered a short-
er route to wealth. They refuse to apply to
money that hard common sense which they
exercise in dealing with the everyday affairs
of life. The ignorant have always had super-
stition about silver. Among the negroes of the
south nothing would kill a witch but a silver
bullet.
That our ancestors 100 years ago fixed a unit
of value in gold or silver and fixed a ratio be-
tween them is immaterial to us. Their exam-
ple in so doing is not more binding on us than
their methods of business, their means of
transportation, or the implements with which
they sowed and reaped. It would be a sad
commentary upon our intelligence if we had
learned nothing in 1.)) years. We do know
that in fixing a ratio they attributed no magic
to the government stamp, but sought diligent-
ly to ascertain the market value of the two
metals in the leading nations of the world and
conformed, as they thought, strictly to this
market ratio. By pursuing the method adopt-
ed by them We would now fix the ratio at
about 32 to 1. The consistent man is not the
one who stands in one place always, regardless
of the changing conditions around him, but it
is he who, with intelligence and circumspec-
tion. adapts himself to the changed condition
of zu’t‘uirs.
Gas-.1 Versus Silver Standard Countries.
For nearly 20 years every enlightened nation
in t1: ~world has been on a gold standard basis.
They are all representative governments, and
their laws are made by their people and for
their people. The government which first es-
tablished the gold standard is more obedient
to the will of its people than ours is. When an
important administration measure is defeated
by the representatives of the English people.-
the government is immediately placed in the
hands of the opposition. The gold standard
nations are those that have reclaimed the
world from barbarism and have given it all its
learning and invention, where schools and
churches abound, where the dignity of man is
maintained and labor properly rewarded, and
they control the commerce of the world.
These nations, after testing gold and silver
for hundreds of years, voluntarily adopted the
gold standard. No'nation today has the silver
standard from choice. It is only because they
are weak and helpless to remedy the evil that
any of them remain on a silver basis. But to-
day the United States, the foremost nation in
all the earth in solvency and resources, in in-
telligence and energy, is seriously invited to
abandon the standard of civilization and com-
merce and to consort with half civilized, half
clad people, who are weak and ignorant, who
have little or no commerce, where bull fights
abound and schools do not, where human labor
is in sharp competition with the meek and
lowly jackass, where a breechclout is preferred
to a full suit and where the'bulk of the people
know no more about a standard of value than
a mule about the nebular hypothesis. Surely
we would do Well to take a look at the com-
pany before we sit down to the feast.
Free Coinage Arguments.
The invitation is that this country, after
having adjusted its enormous business for 20
years to a gold standard, shall suddenly read-
just all business and all values to what is
termed a. double standard of gold and silver.
The arguments advanced in behalf of such a
change are:
First.—A double standard resting upon gold
and silver would give a more correct measure
of value and one less liable to fluctuation than
a single gold standard.
Second—Gold has appreciated in value and
all property measured by it has declined in
value.
Third.—The supply of gold is inadequate to
make it a safe standard, and the scarcity of it
will tend to the depression of prices.
Fourth—The free, unlimited coinage of sil-
ver at the ratio of 16 to 1 will create unlimited
demand for silver and restore it to par
Fifth—Free and unlimited coinage of silver
at 16 to 1 will increase the prices of property.
Mythical “Double Standard.”
With reference to the first proposition: A
standard of value is some exact measure which
enters into and becomes a part of every con-
tract, and to which all obligations are refer-
able. If our government could, by legal enact-
ment, fix the value of gold and silver in the
markets of the world and could keep them ad-
'justed to a fixed ratio, a double standard
would be practicable. But it cannot fix or
maintain value. The buyers of the world, the
merchants, do that. When Abraham purchased
his lot in Ephron’s cemetery, he Weighed out
to Ephron silver “current money with the,
merchant.” And the “merchants of the world
have been saying what shall be “current
money” from that day to this.
Governments are as powerless to suspend the
law of value as they are to suspend the law of
gravitation. Such being the case. I can con-
ceive of two standards, one of gold, and the
other of silver, and contracts might-be made
referable to either standard. but the indeter-
minate double standard, resting on two met-
als not linked together by any binding obli-
gation, but both acting under go as you please
rules, is to me absolutely incomprehensible.
We cannot bind them together as we do two
metals in the pendulum of a clock or in the
mainspring of a. watch. No people ever did
business under the imaginary double standard.
and every attempt to enforce it has resulted in
alternating from one standard to the other.
England tried' it for 470 years. and it was an
utter failure. France changed her ratio 118
times in 12 years trying to walk the double
standard tight rope. We tried it and went first
to a silver basis, then to a gold basis. then to
a paper basis and then back to a gold basis.
The phrase “double standard” is a contradic-
tion of terms. Standard moans correct meas:
ure, and there cannot be two different correct
measures of value any more than there can be
two different correct Weights to sell by, two
different correct compasses to sail by or' two
different correctE thermometers to measure
Gresham’s Law.
It is an inexorable law of money that when
made legal tender, if either is undervalued in
the coinage law the undervalued metal goes
out of circulation. About the middle of the
fourteenth century Nicholas OresmeJ? the
father of finance in France, announced his
great law to Charles V; 130 years later Coper-
nicus, the founder of modern astronomy, an-
nounced it to the Prussians, and 32 years still
later Gresham announced it to Queen Eliza-
beth. Macaulay in‘ his “History of England”
shows how perfectly this law worked in Eng-
land and eloquently describes the direful
consequences. He was describing coins de-
based by clipping. but still legal tender. A coin
is just as bad when debased by overvaluation
in coinage as when clipped or counterfeited.
In the one case the creditor is deceived, and
in the other he is forced. It is simply the
difference between theft and robbery. The
law of money has never failed. We know what
will be its operation just as we know that the
deadliest poison will kill because it always has
killed. -.
We Now Have 16 to 1 Bimetallism.
The gold standard advocates believe in gold
as a standard with the largest possible safe
use of silver among the people. The 16- to 1
dreamers believe in the so called double stand-
ard, and we are driven by this law to the use
of silver alone. All gold standard coun-
tries use large amounts of silver and no
silver standard country uses any gold what-
ever. As the practical question is the use
of the metals, 1t follows that we are the
bimetallist and the 16 to l peOple are the
monometallist. Hence the battle that is to
be fought to a. finish next year is whether we
will remain under a gold standard, with actual
bimotullism in use among the people—gold
and silver circulating freely without discrim-
inaiizr. :‘vainst either—or shall we have a so
called (101. ie standard at the mints and n0v
.~'i:ere else. with silver monometallism in ac-
'.'.'.;'.1 new? The battle is l etween substance and
sundow, between those who want bimetallism
in fact and those who want it in name only.
We are the friends of silver money, who would
bring to its aid the power of the government
to keep it good, and they are its enemies,
who, by unlimited coinage, would take from
it the guarantee of parity by the government,
and thereby degrade it to its market value.
Our government has been and is now coin-
ing silver at the ratio of 16‘to 1. It is enabled
to do this, because under the law it can re-
strict the amount coined, and, being vested
with this control, it undertakes to make every
dollar good money. The moment the govern-
ment loses control of the coinage, confidence
in its ability to protect the money issued is
gone, and a silver dollar then rests on its mer-
it and is worth 50 cents. To illustrate: A
merchant could very well guarantee the ex-
penses of his clerk if he were allowed to con-
trol the expenses, but if the clerk demanded
free and unlimited expenses then the mer-
chant would have to “stand from under” and
let the expenses take care of themselves.
We hear a great deal of indignant declamn-
tion because the government does not pay its
“coin” obligations in silver. To maintain the
parity between gold and silver it is essential
. that the government in receiving its dues and
paying its debts must igngre the inferiority of
silver, just as a mother pretends not to see the
limp of her lame child. This gives the option
of metals to the person dealing with the gov-
ernment, whether as debtor or creditor. If the
government should discriminate against silver
by refusing to receive it for dues, or by insist-
ing on paying it instead of gold, that moment
the parity would be gone and the silver in
every man’s pocket would would be at a dis-
count. Its coinage being under the control of
the government, the government makes it
good at its counter, and this makes it good at
every counter in the world.
stability idea we ought to work for it for all
it is worth. If two metals will fix value better
than one, then three metals will beat two, and
four beat three, and by having eight or ten
metals in the standard we can anchor it so
that it will not crawl an inch in 1,000 years.
’ The second proposition is that gold has ap-
preciated and thereby depressed prices. The
same cause operating upon a number of,.ar‘
ticles will produce the same effect in all those
not affected by a contravening cause. When
we contemplate prices, we find that since the
gold standard was adoptedLFeb. 12, 1873, some
articles have declined in value, some have
remained stationary, while some risen in
price, and no contravening causes will ac-
count for the failure of gold to depress all
alike. We find that no two articles have de-
clined at the same time or in the same de-
gree, nor has any one article remained uni-
formly depressed. This demonstrates that, as
t6 those articles that have declined, no one
controlling cause can be assigned as having
produced these results.
The stock argument of the 16 to 1 people is
that wheat and cotton have declined, and they
seem to gloat over the fact. I knew an old
negro who. when asked how he was getting
along, always replied, “Poorly, thank God!”
and they are thankful when the country is
poorly on wheat and cotton. Since 1873 the
vast fertile prairies of the northwest have
been turned into wheai‘fields, so that the pr0<
duction of wheat in the United States has been
doubled since then. The same thing has been
"going on in Russia and South Ameri’da. The
wonderful improvements in machinery for
harvesting wheat and the extension of rail-
roads for trans,“ ri-ing it to market gave an
immense impem...~ to the production of it. A
farmer can make more money raising it at 50
cents per bushel today than he could at $1 per
bushel 20 years ago. The result has been that
the overproduction of wheat has reduced its
price, and the gold standard had nothing to do
with the reduction. Its price is regulated by
supply and demand.
Chinch Bugs, Caterpillars and Bollworms.
, Last May a little bug settled down on the
wheatfields of the northwest, and in one or
two Weeks eat up one-half of the 16 to 1 argu-
ment on prices and sent the prices back into
the neighborhood of those of 1873. The old hay-
seeds, who knew the habits of the chinch bug
and the kind of a multiplication table he used
in regulating the increase in his family, took
the trains for Chicago, commenced buying
wheat and broke all the “smart Alecks” in
the city. They may have talked gold standard
depression at home, but they put their money
on the chinch bug in the city and won. The cat-
erpillar and bollworm can do the same thing for
cotton. I only know the chinch bug by reputa-
tion, but I am personally acquainted with
and skin. They do not care a tinker's blessing
for anybody’s standard, and when they invade
the cotton fields of the south they send the
price of cotton up in every mart of the world,
gold standard or no gold standard. They have
been doing business with us this summer and
have moved the price of cotton up 60 per cent.
This bug and these worms haven’t many
friends, but as sluggers in an argument with
a 16 to l crank they are entitled to the belt.
Cotton brought $1 a pound in New York dur-
ing the war, and 30 to 40 cents a pound the
first year after the war on account of the four
years’ cotton famine from 1861 to 1865, and it.
was several years getting down to its normal
price. The price declined when we made too
much of it. The largest cotton crop made with
slave labor was 4,669.7 70 bales, and I remember
it was confidently predicted that no such crop
would ever be made with free labor. The crop
of 1872 Was less than 3,000,000 bales, and we
gradually increased it to a little less than 10.-
000.000 bales in 1894. India. Egypt and Brazil
are also raising larger crops of cotton. The
immense crop of 1894 was thrown upon a
market illy .prepared to receive it, For three
years there had been less cotton goods con-
sumed than usual, owing to the worldwide
panic and depression of business following the
Baring failure, and these two conditions meet-
ing—overproduction and underconsumption—
brought cotton down to a very low price.
Some of the Populist-s tell us there cannot be
overproduction until every man, woman and
child in the world has a. rotund stomach and a
-full suit of clothes. This is based upon the
communistic idea that it is the duty of gov-
ernment to take‘ care of every loafer who is
too lazy to work for a living. and is too con-
temptible to waste an answer on. ‘
Prices of Corn, Hogs. Butter, Potatoes, Etc.,
, Have Risen Since 1873.
If the gold standard depressed wheat and
cotton, it was surely loaded at both ends, for
two metals are coined at afixed ratio and both 3
‘ ' gold figures, and the crop of 1894 was worth 45
If there is anything in the double standard.
these worms. They are composed of appetite '
than both the wheat and cotton crops com-
bined. The crop of corn made just preceding
the gold standard. in 1802, sold for 34 cents at
cents in gold, and it has generally been above
the 1872 price. The cat crop isabout equal to
the wheat crop. Oats were worth 29 cents in
1372 and 82 cents in 1894. Fat beef steers were
worth $40 in gold in 1872 and $60 in gold in 1895.
Hogs are worth more now than they were in
1872 and have generally been higher than they
were then. The farmers' wives get as much in
gold now for butter, chickens and eggs as they
did in greenbacks in 1872, and this crop is
more valuable' than the wheat and cotton
crops combined. Tobacco, potatoes. bacon,
hay, coffee, leather. whisky and a hundred_
other things have not declined in price.
Labor, Land, Wool and Horses.
The labor crop is equal in Value to all other
crops combined, and it has steadily advanced
in price. Land is much more valuable in gold
now than in 1872, notwithstanding it was de-
pressed by the panic of 1892 and 1893. The price ‘
of wool has declined, but the world's produc-
tion of it, since 182. has doubled and the use
of it has been partly supplanted by the use of
cotton goods. Horses have declined, but the
railroads, electric cars and bicycles are doing
the work they did. The cost of the produc-
tion of an' article fixes its value. This is neces-*
sarily so, because if the profit is large, others
will be attracted to the business until the price
is brought to its proper level. All articles man-
ufactured by machinery have declined in price,
for the reason that with each invention the
cost of producing the article is lessened. Hu-
man genius has produced more results for
cheapening production in the last 50 years
than in all the ages of the world before that
time. These grand triumphs of man over mat-
ter, instead of showing depression from a
standard of value, show forth the glory and
dignity of the human intellect, and are an un-
mixed blessing to the whole human family.
Could any one outside of a lunatic asylum at-
tribute all these diverse and inconsistent
movements of prices to one cause, and that
cause acting evenly and uniformly upon all
things alike?
\Vhat lilakes Interest Low?
Interest has declined since 1872 in my part
of the country from 3 per cent per month to
6 and 8 per cent per annum. There is no deny-
ing the fact that the goldbugs did‘ that. The
south and west have saved more on the decline
of interest than they have lost in the decline
in wheat and cotton. Interest is always low
under an honest standard, among an honest
people, where money is plentiful. It is lower
in London than in any other spot on the globe
because her standard is stable and her com-
mercial integrity has been the care of her
statesmen and her people for ages past. Eng-
land’s punctuality in meeting her obligations
has made London the clearing house of the
world. Tyre was the London of ancient times.
Seated on the eastern end of the Mediterra-
nean, she reigned queen of commerce for con-
turies. The scepter of commercial greatness
passed from her when her own children reared
Carthage at the other end of that sea. Some
300 years ago England planted colonies in
America, and today the United States is Eng-
land’s only formidable rival for the com-
merce of the world. The object lesson of an-
clent history is being repeated. If the insati-
able mine owners by use of their millions, and
the place hunting demagogues by unctuous ap-
peals to prejudice, succeed in driving this
country from the standard of civilization and
commerce, the standard that announces in-
tegrity at home and inspires confidence
abroad, to a flat standard and silver basis.
then England will have no rival to grapple
with her in the marts of the world.
More Gold and More Credits.
The third proposition is that the supply of
gold is ipsufiicient to make it a. correct stand-
ard and its scarcity will tend to depress
prices. The average annual output of gold of
the world for the first half of this century, in
round numbers, was $15,000,000. From 1851 to
1865, covering the gold boom in California and
Australia, the yearly average was $130,000,000.
The output for 1893 was $155,000,000 and for 1894
$181,000,000. The birth rate among gold using
countries is not increasing, while the produc-
tion of gold is on the increase, as just stated.
This answer ought to satisfy even the ex treme
16 to 1 people—the “per capita” Popu ist—es—
pecially in view of the fact'that improx ments
in poiver and machinery are being applied to
the production of gold, while the genius of in-
vention finds no inducement offered nor field
for operation, in the population business.
My next answor is that the more highly ens
lightened the world becomes, and the greater
the improvements in business methods, the
less necessity there is for the use of actual
money of any kind. Steam and electricity
have so knitted civilized people together that
they are practically one community. Business
men speak to each other around the world as
if they were assembled in the same building.
Their business is done on a system of credits,
without the use of money, except for ultimate
settlement. Nor is this method confined to
business men. It is broadening with the evolu-
tion of man from a lower to a higher plane of
intelligence. A farmer may now live for a
whole year on the fat of the land and never
handle a dollar in money during that time.
He may receive checks for his crop, deposit
them to his credit with a bank and draw on
the bank for what he owes and spends. N ei-
ther he nor the men who bought his crop had a
dollar in the bank. They only bad credit
there. ' -
The bank owns the money in its vault, and
its customers simply have the bank’s obliga-
tion. Bank credits perform precisely the same
work that gold and silver do, and they per-
form it much quicker and more conveniently.
The Scots are the most conservative people in
the world, and they have had the best banking
system of any people for 200 years. On a gold
reserve of $23,652,000 they support bank credits
to the amount of 8448, 288,000. The best author-
ities estimate that only one bill of exchange
in 500,000 is ever paid in money in England.
Gold, silver and other money perform 1 per
cent of the eXChanges in this country, and
credits in the shape of bills, notes, checks,
etc., do the other 99 per cent. The business
of the wogld could no more be done today with
gold and silver than its inland transportation
could be done with ox wagons. '
The 16 to 1 orators, in denouncing the act of
1873, assert that half the money of the country
was destroyed and hold out the idea that our
money has been contracted to“ that extent. In
1872 our population was 40,596,000 and our per
capita of money was $18.79. In 1894, after the
country had been suffering with gold standard
for 21 years, our population is 68,275,000, and
our per capita of money is $35.44, and we have
much better money now than' he had then.
The adoption of the gold standard as a meas-
ure of value did not increase the demand for
gold for use to any great extent. Alcohol is
the standard for measuring the strength of all
spirituous liquors, yet that fact has never been
found to be Very straining on alcohol.
A Surfeit of Silver.
Fourth proposition, that the free and unlim-
ited coinage of silver at .16 to 1 would create
, unlimited demand for silver and restore it ‘to
a par. How the mere coinage of silver can in
any way increase its use among the people I
am unable to understand. If there was. not
enough of it for use as money and the govern-
ment was limiting the coinage of it and there-
by denying the people of the use of it as
money, then there would be force in the prop-
osition to increase the coinage of silver. But
our condition is exactly the reverse of that.
The amount of coined and uncoined silver in
the treasury is $512,000,000, while the amount,
in circulation is about $107,000,000.
To encourage the use of silver by the people
the government exchanges coined silver at its
mints for gold or legal tender currency and
pays the express charges on the silver to any
part of the country. This coined silver is all
good money. The dollars are legal tender for
all debts in any amount, and the halves, quar-
ters and dimes are exchangeable in sums of
$20 for gold or other legal tenders. Notwith-
standing the inducement offered by the gov-'
ernment to promote the use of silver, it has '
hitherto been unable to force into circulation
more than about one-fifth of its stock on hand.
Then‘, why all this clamor for more coinage? If
a man had five times as much blood in his body
as his arteries and veins would circulate and
four-fifths of it was lying idle around his
heart, would any one say that such a man
needed a free and unlimited infusion of blood?
A government can no more induce pgople to
times this seems a
pity. ~It.seems asif
it would be juster if
a fine mind was the
attraction instead of
a fine face and figure.
But you can’t change
human nature.
When you come to
understand it_ there
is a sort of Justice
about it too ; because
. although we can’t
all be handsome,
almost every one of
us can add at least
so per cent. to his or
her attractiveness by
a'little attention to
the laws of beauty.
When the eyes are
dull,.the lips pallid,
the skin sallow,
blotchy 0r pimply
the figure thin and
wasted or overstout
and un aceful, the;
trouble 15 something
more than mere out-
ward appearances; the inuer condition is
wrong; the blood is poor; it lacks the pure
nourishing qualities which are needed to
vitalize and invi crate the body. In this
use physical activity is largely a question
of pure, rich, red blood. ' '
You can’t have sparkling eyes, red ripe
lips, a clear rosy complexion and a graceful.
symmetrical figure while the blood remains
impure and impoverished. What is needed
is Dr. Pierce’s Golden Medical Discovery to
cleanse foul humors out of the blood, and
help the assimilative organism to enrich the
circulation with an abundance of healthy
red corpuscles, creating fresh color and firm,
wholesome flesh. All this is attractiveness,
and something more—health.
Every woman will be healthier and happier for
followi n g the friendly, practical counsel contained
in Dr. Pierce‘s great universal doctor book: “ The
People‘s Common Sense Medical AdVlSQT.’: It 15
the most comprehensive medical work 111 one
volume in the English language. It contains
1008 pa es, fully illustrated. 680,000 copies have -
been 50 d at $1.50 each bound in cloth. :l‘he prof-
its are now used in printin half -a - million free
copies bound in strong manilla paper covers. To
at one you have only to send 21 one-cent stamps
.to pay cost of mailing only), to World's Dispen-
sagaMedical Assocntlon. No. 663 Mam Street,
B lo, N. Y.
W
BROTHER
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