Newspapers / Watauga Democrat (Boone, N.C.) / Aug. 1, 1895, edition 1 / Page 1
Part of Watauga Democrat (Boone, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
K VOL 7 UOONE, ATAUGA COUNTY, N. C tltUllSDAY. AUGU8T 1, 1805, Watamga. Democrat t hi . . ('AJ , I I ft V ... 1 1 i .. . m j 1 1 .' . .ii AH ABLE 8ILTEE ARGUMENT. . (DY ALEXANDER IHLL.) Editor Dtmoci at: 1 have observed in nevpral opies of the Democrat coin. inonicati'inH from a corret) pondent nt Blowing ' Kock HiKnedx,Civi'. who seems to be the only chnnipion of the bond holders and UinkerH Kold Btiiiidard in all thiscom inunity. I do not.kndw who he i8 or from whence heca me, but be he democrat, republi can, Turk, Jew or Gen til, or, nShake8peurepnt it "Behe as chnwte hh ice or pine as nnow," he shall no longer es cape criticism. He whull no longer tnireprwent the fact of the histcn-y f thecountry yand especially the. history of tliH deinocrntic party, with no on to slinjf; evtn a feeble pen in its helm If. That party which in all the past history of the Republic, that in all or trials hu ever been' the - champion of the rights of the com jinn people. I will commence with "Civ is" article of JnneliJtli, which undoubtedly contains more erroneous stater-ienrs and misrepresentatidus ri the (jnare inch than .inythiinr I havenver seen published in your valnrtble paper. If he Were talking to some school boy j'ist arrived from the moon, iir the planet Jupiter, tltirre would probably b e some chance to inakehim be lieve lhat General Jackson demonetized silver in 1834. Ant is, all his readers bei: burn and raised on t his niuii danesphere, then; is of course not one single person in all Nart h Carolina, who pretends to know anything, who does not know that silver dollais were always a legal tender for any amount ai.d for any de mand from the time of tUe enactment of the first coin age law of 1702 until 1873 when, by a tact and a fraud, and by a way much after the fasf.ion of the business meth ods of our Fusion Legisla ture, "an act vaa passed dt monetizing, silver; stopping its'coinnge at the mints and shipping it of its legal ten der qualities. The fathers who layed the foundation of this govern ment were so affached to sil ver as a money metal, th-tt they made 371 grains there of the 'unit' of valueand from this basis the valueof all oth cr coins were to be reconed. They made 25 8-10 grains ol gold equal to the unit, (not the unit itself) and the gold coins of la rger denomina t ions equal to so many units, and in all subsequent changes in the relative value of the two prWous metals, it was nl- ways he gold coin that was changed. The silver dollar, the unit of value, was never chhnged in all the history of the coun try uutil it was stricken down by the republican party in 183: Moreover,. 3ur fathers wen ho much attached to sil ver or the standard of value, -' thntthey made the sivercoihs of Spain, Mexico? Bolivia and the five tranc pieces of France a legal tender also in the Uni ted States. This looks very much like silver was deinone. tized under the administra tion of "Old Hickory.' Ah! tha.t old hero was . not the man to be dictated to by the money power, and when Th officers of the U. S. banks be gan to dicMte lo him as to the financial policy he remov ed the government deposits from the b ink and smashed it into smithereens. , Silver was always peculiar ly the money of the common people, whose hard earnings were hoarded by them in a small way against thf ti ne when they could no longer work. So the assertion vtf "'Civis' that we hav beon on a gold basis "for sixty-one years, the lile timeof two gen era t ions' is neither true in fact or theory. There is not a bond of the United States to-day in existence that is le gally payable in gold. Therw is not an obligation;' not a contract of any kind against this govern meat that is legal ly payable in gold, except the gold certificates that are in circulation as money, and" which bears no wittiest. He farther says that all this time we have grown and pros pered as no other people have ever grown and prospered in all the histoiy ot the human race. This is probably tru. if we consider the wealth of the entire country in the ag gregate. Hut it has neen tne most unfortunate prosperity that' has bceti shared by a very smull proportion of our fallen citizens. A prosperity like that of the Romans, whose victorious armies cop q ii Hied the (hen known world, bur. whose rulers afterward in the mad rush for wealth, gathered as it was from their working people and peasan try to such an extent that the laboring classes had on ly a bare sufficiency u p o n which to sustain life, while the favored few was rolling in the lap of luxury and vo luptuousness. Soon they over stepped the boundary line of reason and justice: incurred the vengeance of heaven and their mighty Km pi re fell to pieces with Its own weight, of corruption, and became an easy prey to the northern barbarians. Their civilization was destroyed, ,thir lang uage died out, and they have only left us as a memorial t lit valor of their armies, the el oquence of their oiators. the wisdom of their philosophers and the transcendant beauty of the works of their" great artists. And this was the be ginning of the dark ages. We should indeed fear such pros perity. If you ask the bond-holder vhc bought the bonds of the government for sixty cents on the dollar in green-backs, and then pro ceeded to procure legislation by which they were doubled in value in gold, he will no doubt tell you that the coun try has prospered. l you ask the banker, whose business it is to loan money to bard pressed debtors at usurious interesthe will no doubt say that the country has pros pered. If you ask the munn fa:turer, who, by the opera tion of an unjust and burden some tariff law, Lis amass ed millions of dollars dra wn from the sweat nnd toil of fhf laboring people, he would no doubt tell 'Ciyis' that the country has prospered. . If you ask the Loan Companies of England and America who have plastered the farmland homes of the common people from ocean to ocean with gold mortgages that a strng gling community has been compt-lled to borrow in hopes of the return of better times; but who have" waited n.n d watched while they toiled for the good times ihat never ciune, they will tell you that they haveyraspf?raalso. But if you ask the farmer who goes forth to labor with the rising Run nnd censes not until the going down thereof, he will tell you that work as he will, nnd sqve as bst.he can, he is hcrdly uble to meet his expenses. If you ns! his rare worn nnd broken down wirp. who with the peep of day is up with dilligem e attending t.) her honse-hold duties, she will tell you that it is all she can do to keep re spectable clothing upon her hard-workd children. Yes, these be the prosperous times spoken of by 'Civis.' Go, if you pleosp, and ask some intelligent farmer who under republican laws has watched the decden?e of the rural communities, and he will Ml you. Mr. 'Civis that, it is that kind of prosperity that the wolf enjoys ''wlien he has made the ewe bleat U r her lamb.'' He will tell you that it is that kind ot pros perity that makes million aires a n d bpggn rs, t h a t b u i 1 . 1 s fine cities and fills the land with tramps. That maKes th rich richer, and fills the heart of the cotton planter, the toba"co and the wheat grower, and the stoik raiser with gloom. No one can truthfully deny that we are confronted with such a condition. A majori ty of the American people be lieve that the falling of pri ces of the products of the farming people nnd the great shrinkage of values since '73 wascaused by the demoniii zation of silver. That 1 a w which struck down one half the metallic money of the country was denounced by every democrat aimostin the en r ire country. Since that time dernociatic orators and stump speakers have never failed to denounce it as a crime. The free coinage of silver at the ratio of 1G to 1. is as much a democratic prin ciple as is a tariff for revenue only. It was so decided in our last National Conven tion, and no amount of cir cumlocution can possibly do away' with the plain, simple fact. The Sherman law was declared to be a cowardly make shilt, and so the demo crats took up the war cry from ecean tT ocean. All de nounced the demonitization of silver as a crime, and if it was a crime then it still re mains a crime. Mr. Carlisle denounced it in a speech in the House of Representatives in 1878 in the following elo quent, beautiful language: '1 know that theworld's stock of the precious uietul i none too, large, and I see no reason to ap prehend that it will ever become so. Mankind will be fortunate indeed if the annual production of gold aod silver coinage shall keep'pace with the annual in crease of population, commerce and industry. According to tny view of the subject, the conspira cy that seems to have been torm. ed here and in Europe to destroy by legislation from three-sevenths to one-half of the metallic mon ey of the world, is the most gi gantic traud of this or any other age. The consummation of such a scheme would ultimately entail more misery upon the numan race than all the wars, pestilen ces and famines that ever oc curred in the history of the world. The absolute and instantaneous destruction ot half the entire nn.vable property ot the world, including houses, ships, -rail-roads, and all other appliances tor carrying on commerce, while it would tie felt more seriously at the moment, would not produce anything like the prolonged dis tress and disorganization of socie ty that must inevitaSy result from the permanent 'annihilation of one-holl the metallic money of the world. With an ample cur rency and an industrious and frual people will speedily rebuild their w.aks of international im provement nnd repairlosses ot property ' but no u mount of iu dustry or economy on the part of the people can create money. When the government creates iT or authorizes it, the citizen may acquire it, but he can do nothing more." This is the language of Mr Carlisle in 1878, and this is the language of a patriot iu deed words of truth a u d prophecy, that have already been fulfilled. Bat oh! what a mighty change ! What h.is come over the spirit of his dreams ? I appeal from Phil lip drunk to Phillip sober; I appeal from Secretary Cur lisle cloistered within the tap estried portals ot the Roth child's syndi-ate,toCongres8 man Carlisle fresh from the precincts of his own Ken tucky constituents. But. 'Civis' tells us that sil ver is under value because of its abundance. Hereagain he makes the common blunder and flies in the face of the facts. The record of the Uni ted States mint and all the statistics compiled on the subject, makes the coinage value of the two metals a bou equal, towit: about five billions each; that is count ing it at the ratio of 16 to 1, showing that there is not not more silver in proportion to gold iu the world. And even now the mining of gold keeps pace with that of sil ver, and gold osts less of its value to mine than does silver. But why was silver demonetized after serving the people of the world sis the most stable money metal for five thousand years. Was it because it was less tharf in proportion to gold ? No sir. 'Civis' tells us truly that one dollar in silver then w a s worth more then than a dol lar in gold. Now, will 'Civis' tell a waiting people from the fnllness of his wisdom, why it wasdone? Itwasgood tnorey then, more precious than gold, then why was one half of the money of ultimate redemption stricken down ? You won' txtnswer that ques tion, 'Civis', because yqti cor) not without sweeping from under your feet the last ves tige of your frail foundation. Now, let me tell why it was done, nnd 1 believe it to be as true as the eternal oracles of the Lord. The New Eng land states under and by vir tueof the republican tariff laws, had drawn within their spacious coffers more wealth than existed in all the bal ance of the United States. They owned the government bonds, the State bonds; they owned almost the entire rail road debt of the country, a mountingin the aggregate to over ten billionsof dollars, for the railroads alone. Nor is that all. Through the Loan Companies of England and America they had biflions of dollars loaned on farm mort gages. All this vast indebt edness was and is ov:ned in the metropoplitan cities of the New England States, ex cept what is owned by the En glislvbanks, and upon this almost fabulous amount of money the American people are paying interest at t h e rate of from three to eight percent. These 1ebts were mostly 'onti acted w h e n times were good before the deinonitizatioii of silver and the consequent contraction of the currency, w hen the pro ducts of human industry were about double what they are at present. Now, it is very easy to see that if you strike down one 'ialf of the money of ultimate redemption, you double in value the remaininghalf, that is, you double the purchasing power. This is a law as un failing as the laws of gravita tion or motion. Thus the bond holders and bankers having amassed enormous wealth, went to work to don-' ble the same by legislation. This they accomplished hy 'he act of 1873. This is the law so iustly assailed by Mr, Carlisle in 1878, rthen he re ferred to the destruction of one half the property in the world as being more to be de sired than the passage of this law. The republican par ty was in full power, and are responsible for the enact ment. Tfcey did it secretly and covertly by misleading the Congress by changing the bill after it hud been prin ted and laid on the desks of the members of Congress. Every democrat in Congress denied knowing any thingabou it. Pres. Grant did not know that he w a s signing a bill demonetizing silver, for he was a firm friend of the white metal. Now again I say Adiat a mighty change. V now hen of some democrats in high places ma king almost the same speech made by .John Sherman, the great gold standard advo cate, and openly advocating what they have denounced in unmeasured terms for twen ty yeurs. (Continued on 2nd page.) Buckleu'i Arnica Sa've. The best salve in the wor!d lor cuts, bruises, sores, salt rheum, fever sores, tetter, chapped iiiimls chilblains, corns, and iill skin eruptions, und pesitively cures piles, or no pay ivquired. It. is guaranteed to give jerfect satis faction or money refunded. Price 25 cents. per box. For s;U by all druggists. rv MtT. . a. cordovan; 3.WP0UCE.Mfct LADIES' . - UIU4 UTt Ortr 0m MUUm Paoota waar th W. L. Douglas $3 & $4 Sees All our shoes at equally eattsfaebxy thf fv h hmt valm tar the iHaeey. I nr aquai cation a aeas in atyM aau lit. half Wearing qualltlta ara unaarpaaaaS. M Mica ara anllom. -atantped ra gnia U your deaier cannot supply yotwa ca. Sold by ' Dealers ever; where, Wantel, agrut. to take exclusive sale for this vicluitju Write at onoo. llllll .mmJ - .- - MMMMMMBiMMMM Docs This Hit You? The management of the Equitable Life Assurance Society in tha Department of the Carolinaa, wishes to se cure a few Special Resident Agents. Those who are fitted for this work will find this A Rare Opportunity It is work, however, and those who succeed best in it possess character, mature judgment, tact, perseverance, and the x respect of their community. Think this matter over care fully. There's an unusual opening for somebody. If it fits you, it will pay you. Fur ther Information on request. W. J. Roddey, Manager, Rock Hill, S.C PROFESSIONAL. W.B.C0UNC1LL,Jk. Attorney at Lat. Boone, N. C. W. B. COUNCILL, M. D. Boone, N. C. Resident Physician. Office on King St reet north of Post Office. 1 J. V nORPBUft All OIINEY A 7 LA W, MARION, -N.C Will practice in the courts o Vatnuga, Ashe. Mitchell, McDowl and all ither counties In the western district I"Sn rial ut ten tion given to the collection & laime W. B. t'onnclll H. D. T. C. Blackburn. Boone, N. C. ZIonvu, X. C. Counill & Bb.ckton, Physicias & Sjrgtsiis. ' m-Ciills attend J i't nil June 1, '93. E. F. LOVlLL. J. C. FLETiJii.U LOVIIL & FETCHER. .4 Tl OllSh YS A T LA W, BOONE, N. mSS Special attention giver, to the colh tion ofclaiwb.'aJ Obamberlaln'a Eye and SI in 01n.tm ivt Jn a. certain cure for Chronic Sore Eyas Granulated 76 Lids, Bore Nipples, rUee, Eoirjna,Teii -r, Gait Rheum sod Scald Head, 25 cento per dux. For sale by druggists. 4 to homjTowjtebs. For patting a, hone in a fine healthy con dition try Dr. Cady's Condition Powders, They tone up the rrstcm, aid direstion, cure loss of appetifa, relieve constipation, correct kidney disorders and destrcy worm, girirg new life to an old or oyer wrkad bor. !!6 cenia per package. For sale by druittis. Int'?mH n.id S'oaa-:!; flfrnrdcru, tali lUloVTVfl lROJT BITTEHS. All dealeit kep 1. Fl pw brAtit. Genuine )) tl4s-!Uft!k ciotsed red Udmoq wrapt 1 . . .. . . r if. m.
Watauga Democrat (Boone, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Aug. 1, 1895, edition 1
1
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75