Some Things Ex-senator Ingalls Doesn't Know

Es-Senator John J. Ingalls of Kansas was recently asked by a correspondent of the New York Mail and Express for his opinión as to the causes of the hard times which this country experienced in 1893 and 1S94. His reply was: "The contraction of the circulatiug medium of all the great nations by the destruction of the money functions of silver is, to rny mind, the chief cause. " In reply to another question he said, ' 'President Cleveland coerced a reluctant congress into the stoppage of the ccinage of the silver aud left our industries paralyzed. " Mr. Ingails has achieved a national reputation as a brilliant politician, but his statements in regard to matters of fact show him to be either very ignorant or altogether unreliable. His assertion that the circulating medium of all the great nations has been contracted sirnply is not true. France, Germauy, England, Austria and Russia have increased their joint stock cf mouey by more than $1,000,000,000 during the past 20 years. Instead of contracting there has been a great expansión of the currency of the great nations. Nor is it true that the money function of silver bas been destroyed. On the ccntrary, there is now in the United States 549,700,000 in full legal tender silver, in France 434,300,000, in Germany $105. 000,000, in Spain $126,000,000 and ÍT Austria, Belgium and other Europeau countries 242, 000, 000, all of this l, 457, 000,000 being full legal tender money. Does that look like the destruction of silver? The charge that President Cleveland coerced congress into stopping the coinage of silver is another errcr. Since March 4, 1893, nearly 8,000,000 silver dollars have been coined, almost as many as during the entire history of the country previous to "the crime of 1873." It is true that the silver purchase law of 1890 was repealed under the present administration,butthe panic of 1 893 began early in that year and was at its worst several months before the purchases of silver bullion were stopped. So that it cóuld not have been the failure to store pig silver and issue certificates for it which caused the hard times. In reality it was the danger that the United States could not keep its increasing mass of silver currency at par with gold which brought about the panic from which trade and industriare now rapidly recovering. If men of the standing of Mr. Ingalls would cease giving aid and comfort to the business destroying free silver agitators, we should soon hear nothing of hard times as a political issue.'