( 107 ) 
 
 HORSE SENSE. 
 
 ' 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL W. ALLERTON. 
 
 The two great parties have now nom¬ 
 inated their cadidates and have declared 
 their principles. 
 
 The issue is now before us, as Ameri¬ 
 can citizens,.who were given, by our fore¬ 
 fathers, the elective franchise, the great¬ 
 est gift to man, that we might have a 
 voice in the policies and principles that 
 should govern our country. 
 
 Is it not our duty to sustain a party 
 that will be in the interest of the great¬ 
 est good to the greatest number ? 
 
 The Democratic issue in 1892 was that 
 the Tariff robbed the people. “ Elect us 
 and we will reduce the Tariff, repeal reci¬ 
 procity and the Sherman Act.” The 
 Democrats now see from their experi¬ 
 ence the past four years, that they were 
 wrong, and that they cannot go before 
 the people and win. 
 
 We have now lived three and one-half 
 years under Democratic rule. They con¬ 
 trolled both Houses of Congress and the 
 Executive branch of the Government 
 from 1893 to 1895. 
 
 We have had three and one-half years 
 of hard times and idle labor; our prop 
 erty has depreciated, not millions, but 
 billions. Who have lost it ? The farm¬ 
 ers, middle classes and labor. The 
 farmer and the cotton grower are now 
 receiving the lowest price for their prod¬ 
 ucts on record. Labor is idle, wages are 
 greatly reduced, and hard times is the 
 cry all over the land. 
 
 In the richest country in material 
 wealth in the world, with good crops, 
 no pestilence, no calamities (except it 
 may be that the Democratic party has 
 been in power) now why should a free 
 
 people be in such a condition ? There 
 must be a cause. The Democrats have 
 abandoned their position of 1892 and have 
 been swallowed by the Populists, know¬ 
 ing they would not stand a ghost of a 
 show, and that they must have a new 
 issue. So they have declared now for a 
 fifty-cent dollar. They call it bimetal¬ 
 lism; but they know with free coinage 
 of silver the Government could not main¬ 
 tain it on a parity with gold, for the gold 
 would leave the country, and free silver 
 means a fifty-cent dollar. 
 
 Under the principles of the Republican 
 party, Protection to American industry, 
 reciprocity and sound money, we had 
 thirty years of the greatest prosperity 
 known to man. 
 
 After being in full power, and destroy¬ 
 ing our prosperity, the Democrats now 
 propose to get in power again by holding 
 out to the farmer—this inducement 
 “ Elect us and we will reduce the value 
 of a dollar to fifty cents or in plain 
 English: “ We are in favor of rqjmdi- 
 ation .” 
 
 THE FARMER. 
 
 I have always felt that the success of 
 this great Republican Government de¬ 
 pended on the intelligence of the Ameri¬ 
 can farmer 
 
 I am a farmer. I spent ten years of my 
 life behind a plow. The largest interest 
 I have is farming. My interest is with 
 the farmer, and I have asked myself. 
 “ As no man knows better than you 
 the present hard condition of the farmer, 
 have we not a great interest in this cam¬ 
 paign ? ” > 
 
2 
 
 A 
 
 CAUSE OF THE DEPRESSION. 
 
 Now let us be honest with ourselves 
 and discuss this question on its merits, 
 with no prejudice nor ill will to any one. 
 
 First: What has brought about this 
 great depression ? The fundamental 
 principle of the Democratic party is 
 against Protection of American industry. 
 That the Government should not in any 
 sense assume a parental Protection to its 
 own people. 
 
 In 1844 they opposed free schools, acting 
 on the theory that the Government should 
 not be in any sense parental in the inter¬ 
 est of its people. But they now stand for 
 free schools and I have always been in 
 hopes they would be in favor of Protec¬ 
 tion to our own industries. 
 
 You ought not to reduce the wages of 
 the laborer, you do not reduce him so¬ 
 cially, morally and intellectually. With 
 reciprocity repealed, closing the markets 
 of the world against our farm products, 
 and cutting off the revenue of our Gov¬ 
 ernment, gold in our Treasury began 
 to go abroad to pay for foreign made 
 goods. The repeal of reciprocity reduced 
 our exports of bread stuffs from two hun¬ 
 dred and nineteen millions of dollars to 
 one hundred and fourteen millions, and 
 we are now selling our grain for nothing 
 because our people cannot buy it, as they 
 are idle. Under reciprocity we shipped 
 this grain abroad. 
 
 These are the causes that produced the 
 panic, and every one then commenced to 
 hedge, and confidence among our own 
 people was lost, and we have been idle 
 ever since. We only export 5 per cent, 
 of our products, except wheat. It is not 
 money that makes prices, because we 
 have a much larger percentage of money 
 per capita now than we had from 1861 to 
 1890. They may tell you that you got 
 good prices in war times, when gold was 
 at a premium, but it was not that; it 
 was the demand. The war made a great 
 demand for farmer’s products. 
 
 TARIFF REDUCTION. 
 
 All men who accomplish anything in 
 the world must do it by their individu¬ 
 ality. We are an individual nation and 
 must take care of ourselves. England, 
 France and Germany will not take care 
 
 of us. As soon as Grover Cleveland was 
 elected, the Democrats got in control of 
 both Houses of Congress. The Tariff 
 was reduced so that foreign goods could 
 be imported, closing up our own manu¬ 
 factories and filling our land with idle 
 labor, on the theory that the more for¬ 
 eign goods we imported, and the more 
 we reduced the wages of labor, and the 
 more we got in debt the richer we would 
 be. They find this theory has destroyed 
 our country’s prosperity, so they now 
 propose to reduce the value of the laborer 
 by paying him a fifty-cent dollar, in hopes 
 it will enable our manufacturers to com¬ 
 pete with those of the old world. 
 
 PROTECTION FOR THE FARMER. 
 
 Under the principles of the Republi¬ 
 can party from 1860 to 1892, labor was 
 well paid and well employed and con¬ 
 sumed the farmer’s product at a good 
 price. Now is it not clearly the interest 
 of the farmer to stand for Protection of 
 home industry—reciprocity and sound 
 money and bring back to the nation pros¬ 
 perity and confidence among ourselves 
 and confidence among the nations of the 
 world ? The Republican Government is 
 for integrity and manhood and our un¬ 
 alienable right to protect ourselves. Is 
 it not better for the farmer to stick to 
 the party of action—whose policy and 
 principles have given us prosperity—than 
 to join a party of repudiation, a party of 
 promises that are never kept or fulfilled 
 —which has abandoned the issue of 1892 
 and taken up a new theory to remain in 
 power ? 
 
 RECIPROCITY. 
 
 What is reciprocity, and how does it 
 affect the farmer ? Reciprocity is to say 
 to the nations of the world —any product 
 we cannot produce at home, or produce 
 to good advantage, we will accept with¬ 
 out duty, if in your country you will re¬ 
 ceive in return without duty our prod¬ 
 ucts, but articles we can produce and 
 manufacture at home —we will protect 
 with a duty to protect our own labor. 
 With the Tariff and reciprocity, we are 
 in position to trade with other nations— 
 to protect our own interest for the bene¬ 
 fit of our own people. 
 
8 
 
 How has the farmer been affected by 
 the repeal of reciprocity ? The markets 
 of the world have been cut off. When 
 we had reciprocity, we sold cattle and 
 hog products to Cuba, France, Germany, 
 Belgium, Switzerland, Norway and 
 Sweden. When reciprocity was re 
 pealed, these governments under the 
 sanitary law, under a false pretense, 
 claimed our cattle were sick, when the 
 facts are, that the insurance companies 
 have reduced the rates of insurance in 
 the last eight years, from six dollars a 
 head down to fifty cents, and no live 
 stock shipper has lost a steer by disease 
 in the last eight years. 
 
 Now the President has it in his power, 
 given to him by Congress, to retaliate 
 on any nation that legislates unjustly 
 against our products. 
 
 The Secretary of Agriculture allows 
 these nations to declare that his inspec¬ 
 tion is worthless, when the national in¬ 
 spection on live cattle is and always has 
 been very rigid. Each and every steer is 
 inspected separately, and a tag put in his 
 ear, and every piece of meat has a Gov¬ 
 ernment stamp. We allow them to ship 
 $21 worth of wine and they pay $2 duty, 
 but they charge us on $20 worth of wheat, 
 $12. Duty on lard is 3% cents per pound, 
 21 cents on rye, 6 cents on oats, 14 cents 
 on corn, 86 cents on wheat. Any man 
 who has horse sense enough to come in 
 when it rains can see why we do not get 
 anything for our products we ship to 
 foreign countries. Is it any wonder our 
 nation is poor ? How long could you 
 and I trade on this basis. One of us 
 would be sure to go broke. 
 
 And does not this explain to you the 
 reason why the farmers west of the Mis¬ 
 souri River cannot accumulate enough to 
 pay off their mortgages and own their 
 own homes, be self supporting and lay 
 away something for a rainy day ? Had 
 we maintained the principles of the Re¬ 
 publican party, we would to day be get¬ 
 ting good prices for our farm products, 
 and the mortgages would not trouble 
 any one. Any one who had been so un¬ 
 fortunate as not to have paid off his 
 mortgage, could, with a sound financial 
 policy, have renewed his mortgage at a 
 much lower rate of interest. Money 
 would be plentiful, for we see that in ail 
 countries that have a sound financial 
 
 gold basis, they loan money for 1 and 2 
 per cent., while in all free silver coun¬ 
 tries, from 10 to 12 per cent. 
 
 UNDER-CONSUMPTION. 
 
 The unthinking tell us that the cause 
 of low prices is over product, but we 
 know better. We have received 600,000 
 less cattle; and less hogs in 1895 than in 
 1892. We see we have imported $26,000,- 
 000 worth of woolen goods from England 
 in the last six months of 1895, more than 
 we did under the McKinley law. We 
 have the goods and England has the gold. 
 Had we made them at home we would 
 have had the goods and the gold both. 
 Seventy-five per cent, of the woolen mills 
 of New England have been idle and other 
 manufacturers have been on half time, 
 and the New England States consumed 
 800,000 less cattle in 1895 than 1892. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF UNDER¬ 
 CONSUMPTION. 
 
 We now have 180,000 barrels of pork 
 selling at $6. We had at the same time, 
 in 1891, 800,000 barrels of pork, selling at 
 $12.75 per barrel. 
 
 We now have 56,000,000 of short ribs, 
 selling at $8.10 per hundred. We had at 
 the same time, in 1891, 96,000,000 of ribs, 
 selling at from $6 to $7 per hundred. 
 
 From 1861 to 1892, lard sold from $6 to 
 $8 per hundred pounds; now it sells at 
 $ 3 . 10 . 
 
 Why are ribs $3.10 per hundred, pork 
 $6.00, lard $3.10 ? It is because our peo¬ 
 ple are idle and do not consume and our 
 foreign demand cut off by the repeal of 
 reciprocity. Take 25,000,000 pounds of 
 ribs out of the market and ribs would go 
 up $1 per hundred and hogs with them. 
 
 A milk dealer in Chicago told me he 
 bought the milk of a number of farmers. 
 In good times 6,000 families would use it 
 all, but since the Democrats have been 
 in power, and we have had these hard 
 times, he supplies with the same amount 
 of milk, 12,000 families. They only buy 
 half the milk they did three years ago. 
 Now, if the people will economize on 
 milk, will they not economize on beef, 
 mutton, pork, and all farm products ? Is 
 it not clear that when our people are idle 
 I they will not consume ? 
 
4 
 
 To every cattle man, it is strange that 
 a 1200-pound steer will sell for more than 
 a fine well matured 1500-pound steer. 
 The reason is people economize on beef 
 as well as milk and want a small piece of 
 beef. It is under-consumption, not over¬ 
 production that makes such low prices 
 for our products. Now, who would re¬ 
 ceive the benefits of free coinage of silver ? 
 It would be the silver mine owner here, 
 and the silver mine owner abroad who 
 would send it here to be coined and 
 pocket the profit. 
 
 PROMISES. 
 
 Bryan says: “The sympathies of the 
 Democrats, as declared by the platform, 
 are on the side of the struggling masses.'” 
 
 Is not this the same boy orator, who in 
 1892 said in Congress and out of Con¬ 
 gress: “ Give us Free-Trade and we will 
 give you prosperity ? ” Do we want the 
 kind of prosperity we have had for the 
 last three years e t Idle labor and hard 
 times the cry all over the land, in a coun¬ 
 try blessed with everything for human 
 comfort. 
 
 He is now trying to get in office by ap¬ 
 pealing to the prejudices of the people, 
 because they have suffered by a bad policy 
 he helped to inaugurate. He now pro¬ 
 poses to give us a fifty-cent dollar by say¬ 
 ing to the people: “Will not your silver 
 dollar buy as much as a gold dollar ? ” 
 He knows the reason is, the Government 
 has sold bonds to get gold to redeem 
 silver. If they had not, your present 
 silver dollar to-day would be worth 50 
 cents. Yet, the “ Popocrat ” party de¬ 
 clares the Government shall not sell any 
 more bonds to get gold. 
 
 ANARCHISTIC TALK. 
 
 The Democrat-Populist nominee for 
 President says: “ This is a campaign be¬ 
 tween the rich and the poor. ’ ’ Did any 
 anarchist express sentiments wrought 
 with greater peril to a Republican Gov¬ 
 ernment ? To try to get in office by ar¬ 
 raying the poor against those who have 
 acquired homes and a competency for 
 old age by economy and hard work, and 
 by appealing to the prejudices and pas¬ 
 sions of men, is a cause false in its very 
 conception. 
 
 DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM IG¬ 
 NORES THE FARMER. 
 
 There is not a word in the Democratic 
 platform in the interest of the farmer; 
 that reciprocity should be restored, that 
 our home industry should be protected, 
 that our labor may be employed, that the 
 markets of the world should open for the 
 farmer’s product. The Democratic party 
 has been the conservative party. Not a 
 party of ideas or progress, but a party of 
 opposition. They have been useful in 
 the past as a check, but they are now 
 like poor Old Dog Tray, who fell in bad 
 company. 
 
 In 1892 they combined all the “ isms,” 
 all the cranks, all the parties who wanted 
 to make something out of nothing, and 
 when they met in Congress, it was bed¬ 
 lam. They now call themselves Populist- 
 Democrats. 
 
 DEMOCRATS AND SILVER. 
 
 From 1832 until 1860 the Democrats 
 had full control of the Government, the 
 executive branch and both houses of Con¬ 
 gress. They coined no silver dollar. 
 The silver was coined while the Republi¬ 
 can party was in power. The people 
 would not use silver, therefore the vaults 
 of the Government became filled with 
 silver dollars and the Sherman Act was 
 adopted and silver certificates were is¬ 
 sued for silver bullion held by the Treas¬ 
 ury. The members of the present Popo- 
 cratic Party repealed the Sherman Act. 
 
 SILVER. 
 
 What is the practical reason that we 
 do not want silver ? In the early ages 
 we had iron and copper. It was bulky 
 and lost its commercial value. Silver 
 and gold were adopted. Copper was and 
 is still used for cents. The great pro¬ 
 duction of silver has reduced its com¬ 
 mercial value, and it is so bulky, trade 
 and commerce have rejected it. The 
 vaults of our Government are filled with 
 silver dollars. The bank vault is filled 
 with silver, and the bankers are obliged 
 to store it away in boxes. They do not 
 know what to do with it. The Govern¬ 
 ment, to encourage the use of silver 
 among our people, will express it free to 
 I any part of our country. To get gold 
 
5 
 
 you are obliged to pay express charges. 
 When you have free coinage of the 
 world’s silver, you will force our people 
 to take what the most prosperous and en¬ 
 lightened nations have rejected, what 
 trade and commerce and our own people 
 will not use. The spirit of the American 
 people is for something good, and they 
 will not be forced to use what they do 
 not want. 
 
 Shall this great nation of free people 
 sink its pride and manhood and adopt 
 the policies of a weak nation ? Shall not 
 this great Republic have the best finan¬ 
 cial policy, sound and uniform, and good 
 the world over ? 
 
 These “ Popocrats ” are a very incon¬ 
 sistent lot. They will tell you your 
 silver dollar is as good as a gold dollar, 
 knowing it is so, because the Govern¬ 
 ment redeems the silver in gold, and yet 
 they want to make the people believe 
 with free coinage of silver, the silver 
 products of the world, and this silver 
 will pass on a parity with gold Is not 
 their platform inconsistent with com¬ 
 mon sense ? 
 
 THE TRUE ISSUE. 
 
 The fact is, free silver is a false issue; 
 it is simply a scheme of repudiation. No 
 intelligent man should be led away with 
 it. 
 
 The real issue of this campaign is Pro¬ 
 tection to American industry, reciprocity 
 to open the markets of the world for our 
 farm products and an honest dollar, good 
 all over our country and the world. 
 
 LEAVINGS. 
 
 The Democrat-Populists remind me of 
 two neighbors who got in a quarrel—tell¬ 
 ing each other what mean men they 
 were. Finally one neighbor said to the 
 other: “When God got through creat¬ 
 ing man, he took the leavings and made 
 you.” The Popocratic Party is made up 
 of all the noisy anarchists, all the “ isms ” 
 and cranks of all parties, who want to 
 make something out of nothing, who 
 want to live without work, jealous and 
 mad at industrious men, hoping in this 
 way to defeat the principles that are 
 given to all men—a chance to better 
 their condition. 
 
 FALSE REASONING OF THE 
 POPOCRATS. 
 
 The free silver Popocrats will also tell 
 you, that if gold should go to premium, 
 the farmer would get more for his prod¬ 
 ucts. I say not. Let me give you an il¬ 
 lustration : 
 
 Take the foreign cattle shipper; Eng¬ 
 land will use 12,000 cattle per week and 
 pay fair prices, but if you ship theip 16,- 
 000 the surplus must be sold to the labor¬ 
 ing man, who cannot pay more than his 
 wages, which is equal to 2 pence per 
 pound for dressed beef. If gold went to 
 a premium of 50 cents, and we shipped 
 15,000 worth of cattle and sold our ex¬ 
 change at a premium of £7,500, we would 
 have $22,500. This would induce every 
 one to ship live cattle, and instead of 
 shipping 12,000 we would ship 20,000 per 
 week, and even with the premium on 
 gold we would not get as much for the 
 20,000 as for the 12,000. Other farm 
 products would be the same. We would 
 give them such a large surplus they 
 would dictate the price, which would be 
 lower than the premium on gold. 
 
 The Popocratic party says. “With 
 free silver, we would have more money.” 
 You all know that our silver and cur¬ 
 rency is backed with gold which makes 
 it good the world over. If you were to 
 have free coinage of silver, do you think 
 the people who have the money would 
 exchange it for something that is only 
 worth 50 cents on the dollar in any coun¬ 
 try on the globe ? No, they would not— 
 they would demand gold. 
 
 Go to Mexico, and our silver dollar will 
 buy two Mexican dollars, which have 
 more silver in them than ours. The 
 reason is, Mexico does not redeem her 
 silver with gold. The Popocratic party 
 protests against our Government selling 
 bonds to maintain silver on a parity with 
 gold. Necessarily, if in power, they 
 could not redeem silver with gold, 'and 
 our silver dollar would depreciate to the 
 value of a Mexican dollar, and all our 
 paper and silver currency would lose one- 
 lialf of its purchsing power, which would 
 contract our present currency one-half, 
 and our $600,000,000 of gold would go to 
 foreign countries to pay the interest on 
 Government gold bonds, railroad bonds, 
 township bonds and building bonds, and 
 
this would reduce our medium of ex¬ 
 change $600,000,000. It would be three 
 to four years before the Popocratic party 
 could get control of both Houses of Con¬ 
 gress and could begin to coin silver. Of 
 course, they would not issue silver cer¬ 
 tificates because the nominee of the Pop¬ 
 ocratic party voted to repeal the Sher¬ 
 man Act, to issue silver certificates for 
 silver bullion. 
 
 RESULTS OF FREE SILVER. 
 
 It would take no doubt three years to 
 get the matter settled in Congress, if 
 they wished to restore the Sherman Act 
 that the Democrats repealed in 1893, to 
 issue certificates for silver bullion. With 
 free silver we would remain in this de¬ 
 plorable condition of uncertainty, loss of 
 confidence among ourselves, resulting in 
 a panic, bankrupting a large per cent, of 
 the business men of our nation, paralyz¬ 
 ing every industry in the land, throwing 
 thousands of people out of employment, 
 filling our land with idle labor, destroy¬ 
 ing the demand for the fanner’s prod¬ 
 ucts, and killing his home market. 
 
 George D. Boulton’s letter to Charles 
 Morgan, Postmaster of Barrie, N. D., is 
 unanswerable on this question of silver: 
 
 “ One of the best urgent motives of the 
 silver party is that they want cheap money. 
 By that I suppose they mean money they can 
 borrow cheaply or earn cheaply. Now, the 
 cheapest money in the world is in the strong¬ 
 est gold country, viz.: England. The dearest 
 money in the world is in the silver countries, 
 for example : Money in London to-day is 2 
 per cent, per annum, and is a drug in the 
 market, loaning between banks at less than 
 1 per cent, per annum, while money in 
 Mexico, China, Chili, Spain, India and, in 
 fact, in all silver countries of the world, com¬ 
 mand a loaning value of from 12 per cenjj. 
 upward. 
 
 “ In the other gold countries of Europe, 
 while money is not so low as in England, 
 nevertheless the rate varies from 3 to 5 per 
 cent, to the borrower. 
 
 SOUTH AMERICAN 
 EXAMPLES. 
 
 “ 1 may cite as a good example of the two 
 currencies, two States adjoining one another 
 in South America—one, British Guiana, a 
 gold counti y, with money at 4 to 6 per cent, 
 per annum ; the other Venezuela, with like 
 soil and climatic conditions, a silver country, 
 
 6 
 
 where interest rules at 10 to 12 per cent, per 
 annum. 
 
 “ No silver country is prosperous. 
 
 ‘‘No silver country has a stable and firm 
 government. 
 
 “ In no silver country is general labor well 
 paid. 
 
 “No silver country has its government 
 securities at par. 
 
 “No silver country has good public school 
 facilities.” 
 
 DEBTOR CLASS. 
 
 The people who own their property can 
 hold it and cannot be forced to sell it for 
 silver. The poor have no silver bullion 
 to coin, and would be obliged to work for 
 a fifty-cent dollar. But they say it is the 
 debtor class who are to be benefited. 
 Who are the debtor class ? It is the act¬ 
 ive business man of the nation, who loans 
 money on 90 days. With^free silver you 
 would retire six hundred 4 million of gold, 
 and thus reduce the medium of exchange 
 50 per cent. The active business man 
 could not get his loans extended. The 
 wheels of commerce and activity would 
 stop, and labor remain idle. As we con¬ 
 sume at home 95 per cent, of our prod¬ 
 ucts. with the business of your country 
 X^aralyzed and idle, to whom would your 
 farmer sell his products ? 
 
 Would not his condition be worse than 
 now ? Is it not better to maintain our 
 National credit and restore confidence 
 among our own people and the world, 
 and get our people back to work again ? 
 Ninety-four per cent, of all manufactur¬ 
 ers’ goods is labor. When we build a 
 house it is labor, and if labor is not well 
 employed it loses its purchasing power. 
 Men cannot build homes nor buy the 
 necessities of life, but must wear their 
 old clothes as they have for the last three 
 years. Labor is the wealth of the nation. 
 If idle, we grow poor—if well employed 
 and well paid, we grow rich. 
 
 Booker Washington says: “Educate 
 the colored Southern men and you in¬ 
 crease their wants, and they will con¬ 
 sume your manufactured goods.” We 
 have free schools and educate our people. 
 We increase their wants. They want to 
 be men and 
 of manhood 
 lieve in free schools we must stand for 
 Protection to maintain a higher standard 
 of wages. 
 
 women in the broadest sense 
 and womanhood/ If we be- 
 
7 
 
 VALUE OF LABOR. 
 
 We have seventy million of people— 
 full twenty-two million are laborers, as 
 clerks, farmers, masons, carpenters and 
 manufacturers at $1.25 per day including 
 board. The value of labor in the United 
 States when well employed in one year 
 is equal to eight billions of dollars, more 
 than all the gold and silver in the world. 
 It must be clear to any intelligent man 
 that prosperity in our country is well 
 employed and well paid labor. It is not 
 the coining of a fifty-cent dollar to de¬ 
 base the value of labor that will help us, 
 but restore the Tariff and get our people 
 back to work again. 
 
 CONTRACTION. 
 
 There seemed to be some fear among 
 the Western farmers that when the Re¬ 
 publican party declared for sound money 
 they meant to adopt President Cleve¬ 
 land’s policy to retire the greenbacks 
 and treasury notes, and this idea was ex¬ 
 pressed to me by many of the delegates 
 to the Republican convention at St. 
 Louis, particularly by the Western dele¬ 
 gates. 
 
 The Republican platform declares that 
 we will maintain our present silver and 
 paper money on a parity with gold so 
 that there shall be no contraction of our 
 currency. We need not fear that any 
 foreign country will dictate to us the 
 price of gold, because with proper Pro¬ 
 tection and reciprocity the flow of gold 
 will be into this country. It is bond 
 sales that take our gold out of this coun¬ 
 try, and it is the employment of our 
 workingmen at good wages that brings 
 the gold into our country. 
 
 BIMETALLISM. 
 
 Which party is the true friend of bi¬ 
 metallism ? What is bimetallism as the 
 people generally understand it ? It is to 
 have both gold and silver in circulation, 
 to be equal in paying for labor and the 
 exchange of our labor for products, one as 
 good as the other. 
 
 The combination of Democrats and 
 Populists declare they are for bimetal¬ 
 lism, they declare for free unlimited coin¬ 
 age of the world’s silver. If our Govern¬ 
 ment should continue to redeem silver 
 
 with gold, every nation on the globe 
 would send their silver here and get our 
 gold. Because in the commercial mar¬ 
 kets of the world three hundred and 
 seventy-one and a quarter grains of silver 
 is only worth 52 cents in gold, the world's 
 silver would be sent here, as they would 
 make a net profit of 48 cents on every 
 three hundred and seventy-one and a 
 quater grains of silver. Mexico would 
 send its silver here by the train load. 
 Necessarily we could not redeem silver in 
 gold. We would be on a silver basis— 
 gold would go out of circulation. It 
 must be clear to every intelligent man 
 that when the Popocrat party declare 
 they are for bimetallism, they are trying 
 to deceive the people. 
 
 How does our Government now main¬ 
 tain the equality of all forms of money— 
 paper, gold and silver ? They limit the 
 amount to be issued as a solvent man 
 gives his notes, will only give what he is 
 able to pay. The free silver proposition 
 is that our Government shall by free un¬ 
 limited coinage issue all that every one 
 brings to them to coin. How long will 
 the man remain solvent if he gives his 
 notes to any one asking for them ? Our 
 Government would be in the same con¬ 
 dition—have to suspend all gold pay¬ 
 ment; all they would have would be 
 silver and all our money would be silver, 
 and paper money would be redeemed in 
 silver. So, you see, the Popocrat party 
 does not stand for bimetallism, but for 
 silver and silver alone. 
 
 The Republican party by its resolu¬ 
 tions to maintain its present silver and 
 paper money on a parity with gold, limit¬ 
 ing the amount of what shall be issued, 
 in a practical way stands for bimetal¬ 
 lism. The claim of the Popocrats that 
 they are for bimetallism is clearly a fraud 
 on its face. 
 
 YOUNG MEN. 
 
 Let me say to the young man who casts 
 his first vote and the young man under 
 age, who lias nothing but his hands and 
 brains to start in life with, who has got 
 to work for wages or a salary to acquire 
 a small capital by self denial and econ¬ 
 omy ; it will take a few years to acquire 
 capital and a character to gain confidence 
 among older men. 
 
8 
 
 Remember that nearly every man in 
 Chicago—or any of our large cities or 
 country towns, started in this way. You 
 have a great personal interest in the cam¬ 
 paign. for what does free silver mean ? 
 Demoralization among our people and 
 loss of national credit. If they should 
 succeed and enlarge our mints, and coin 
 all the surplus silver in the world and 
 the products of our mines, the end would 
 be inflation and your hard earnings would 
 be so depreciated and all kinds of prop¬ 
 erty you wished to acquire would be so 
 advanced that your opportunities to make 
 a start in life would be gone. The fu¬ 
 ture of this great Republic will depend 
 upon your integrity and patriotism. 
 
 REVOLUTION. 
 
 When a Republican Government inter¬ 
 feres with your individual rights to ac- 
 quire property and maintain order and 
 protect property rights, it will fall and 
 this great free government will perish, 
 and in the future you would live in a 
 land held in submission by great stand¬ 
 ing armies. The farmer, the middle 
 classes and labor, : the producers of nat¬ 
 ural wealth, have a vital interest in a 
 stable, uniform medium of exchange. 
 
 OPPORTUNITY. 
 
 Never in the history of this world had 
 so many young men, who started with 
 nothing but hands and brains, such an 
 opportunity for success as in the thirty 
 years this Government was controlled by 
 the Republican party. 
 
 BUNCO. 
 
 Can it be that the intelligent farmer 
 and laboring man will be fooled again 
 as in 1892, and our country kept four 
 years longer in this condition of uncer¬ 
 tainty-confidence among our own peo¬ 
 ple destroyed ? 
 
 I feel as if I had been to a funeral for 
 the last three years. Men are daily beg¬ 
 ging for employment, in a land rich in 
 material wealth, blessed by Providence. 
 Answer me and tell me why this should 
 be so ? Is it not because we have ne¬ 
 
 glected our political duty, and allowed 
 our country to be controlled by principles 
 and policies that have been in the inter¬ 
 est of foreign countries, and have aban¬ 
 doned the principles that gave us thirty 
 years of the greatest prosperity known to 
 man ? 
 
 My friends, you are to decide this ques¬ 
 tion. This is our country—are we not 
 entitled to its blessings ? Shall we now 
 sink our manhood because a party has 
 been in power whose theories have para¬ 
 lyzed our industries and destroyed the de¬ 
 mand for farmers’ products, or shall we 
 march forward under the banner of the 
 great leader who stands for Protection of 
 American Industry, Reciprocity and 
 Honest Dollars, 
 
 william mckinley. 
 
 - -♦- 
 
 Why the American People Should Reject 
 Free Coinage of Silver. 
 
 1st.—It would destroy our national credit 
 and we would be classed with the 
 weak nations of the world. 
 
 2d.—It would keep our people in an un¬ 
 certain state with no confidence 
 among ourselves, business would be 
 paralyzed and we would have four 
 years more of hard times. 
 
 3d.—It would drive all our gold out of 
 circulation, and when we did not re¬ 
 deem in gold it would reduce the 
 intrinsic value of our silver and pa¬ 
 per money to 50 cents on the dollar, 
 contracting our currency over one- 
 half. 
 
 4th.—It would destroy the farmer’s home 
 market and he would be obliged to 
 sell his product at extremely low 
 prices. 
 
 The successful farmer makes it possible 
 for the merchant and manufacturer and 
 all our industries to be prosperous, giving 
 employment to labor. 
 
 Published by 
 
 Republican National Committee, 
 New York.