The Question Plainly Stated

The free coinage of silver as denned by the fricnds of that policy in the bill pending in the United States senate menns that any persou owning silver bullion to the value of $52 may deliver it to any United States mint and receive for it 100 legal tender dollars. It means that the government shall coin, freo of charge, in standard or legal tender silver dollars, all the silver bullion that may be presented to it, and thus pay a premium of 48 per cent to every holder of silver bullion. When it is remembered that the silver producing interest embraces but an infinitesimal portion of the people of the country as compared with those who produce iron, coal, cotton, cottons, woolens, wheat and othcr products of the farm, the rnonstrous injustice of the government paying to one petty class of producers nearly doublé the value of their products should make every honest minded citizen recoil against it. In short, free silver coinage means that the government shall buy all the silver bullion offered at nearly doublé its market value. But the paternalism of the government toward the silver producers in paying nearly doublé the market value for all their product wordd be but a small partion of the appalling wrong that must be done to the country by the establishment of such a financial tem. The day that the tree and nniimited coinage of silver on a basis of 16 to 1 shall be adcptcd by this government would witness the entire change of our linuncial system from a gold to a silver basis, and this governnient would take rank with the pagan and sernicivilized nations of the world, and forfeit the credit and confidence of the great civilized nations that have so largely aided our 'advancement, and without ■which we could not niaintain commercial and industrial prosperity for a day. When the governnient wanted to borrow ruoney, it would be required to pay $3 for $1, as Mexico, China and Japan now do, and labor would have little if any increase in wages, while the dollar earncd would produce only 50 cents'