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THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT.
the Uebraska Independent
Lincoln, Rtbraska,
LIBERTY BUILDING, i J323 0 STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress of March
j, 1879, at the Postoffice at Lincoln, Nebraska, as
second-clan mail matter! r " '
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY.
FOURTEENTH YEAR.
$1.00 PER YEAR
When making remittances do not leave
money with news agencies, postmasters, etc,
to be forwarded by them. They frequently
forget or remit a different amount than was
left with them, and the subscriber fails to get
proper credit. : ;
Address all communications, and make all
drafts, money orders, etc., payable to
the Rebraska Independent,
. Lincoln Neb.
Anonymous communications will not be
noticed. Rejected manuscripts will not be
returned.
Whatever else the United States
leads the world in, there can be no
question that it leads in the vulgar
display of wealth.
TLe republican party is completely
dominated by the high protectionists.
They have repudiated the reciprocity
clause of the Dingley act with the
same complacency that they have re
pudiated hundreds of other solemn
promises made before election. .
v The Chicago Record-Herald still
sticks to the term "intrinsic value.".
It catft very well call a dollar- that
is of the same value the world over
as 25 8-10 grains of gold a ,36-cent dol
lar without employing the. long dis
carded and silly term; ;
The president has written a letter
that knocks the "lily white", republi
cans of the south clear out of the box.
He tells them that the color, line shall
not be drawn In making appointments
in the south and -expresses, surprise
that any republican' should make color
an objection to officeholding.
" - The Independent is very proud of
""the -fact. that when a modern plutocrat
. like Abram .Hewtt wants ,r to cast
'the very deepest reproach upon a man
, or principle hVdails him or it "pop
.ulist." Populfftri3 the only thing
' left th stasways 'arra:yed against
plutocracy andHn'eyer makes any com
promise with-ItY''
The shrinkage, in the value of am
algamated copper shares since the fall
began is about $300,000,000. The share
holders of this , stock, many of them
comparatively poor men, are suffering
the fate that sooner or later the share
holders in the watered stock of other
trusts will have to endure. It is sim
ply a foretaste of what is coming.
Tae republican Mad Mullahs who a
year ago were declaring that we could
. forever sell goods ; to foreigners and
buy nothing in return are beginning
to sober down of late. There has
been a decline of $105,650,000 in the
exports of this country within ten
months, and an Increase of $01,700,000
in the imports, and we begin to see
yaore signs of a European conquest of
our insrkets than of an American con
quest of theirs.
Abram S. Hewitt, the New York
millionaire and plutocrat, has made
formal announcement that he has left
the democratic party. He acknowl
edges that he voted twice for the re
publican candidate for the presidency
while he still posed as a democrat. He
says that "the party that nominated
Bryan was not the democratic party.
It was the populists." Now let the
rest of that crew go and do likewise.
Once rid of the Hewitts, Hills, Gor
ruans and Clevelands, the party can
move on to power and influence by
the aid of its allies.
TUB FALL IK SILVER
The continued fall in the gold prico
of silver Is the occasion of much writ
ing In the great dallies. . The follow
ing from the Springfield Republican is
a specimen one of the best specimens
of the stuff of that' sort that fills
the columns of the papers. The Inde
pendent submits it to Its readers as
an example of a paragraph contain
ing whole truths,' half truths, , sound
economics and the most glaring so
phistries all jumbled together, result
ing from the denial of the foundation
truth that "money" is, as the supreme
court of the United States once said,
"a printed legal decree." The para
graph is as follows:
"The continued fall in the gold
price of silver, which successively
day by day establishes ' new low
records for all the centuries of
'the use of the metal as money,
concerns the United States in more
ways than one. It reduces by so
much the value of the vast quan
tity of silver circulating as money
or held in the United States treas
ury. Within a few months the
market value of all this silver has
been cut down by the amount of
nearly $100,000,000, v making the
country poorer by just so much in
accumulated wealth; and thus
more and more' the silver dollar
becomes a mere token coin whose
bullion value is of no consequence
in fixing its place in the monetary
circulation. It is practically a pa
per currency redeemable in gold,
and to be considered as such in the
fiscal administration of the govern
ment Ultimately, as matters are
now shaped, the silver dollar and
its certificate will give way to a
government note of the greenback
variety, which they now are es
sentially, and the silver bullion
will be sold. It might as well be
sold now, for it is an idle, use
less mass; but where the price of
silver would go, with this vast ac
cumulated amount thrown on the
market, may be guessed."
The truths in the paragraphs are a3
follows: . r
The value of silver in relation to
gold is the lowest on record.
The market value of the silver as
bullion held in the United States treas
ury has declined about $100,000.000. .
The silver dollar is merely a "tok
en" coin.
The falsehoods are that silver dol
lars are practically redeemable in
gold.
That the value of silver , "money"
has fallen
As to the prophecy that silver will
be replaced by government money in
stead of ba k money, The Independent
has no faith that it will ever be done,
at least not until there has been a
political revolution in this country
and another set of menget control of
the government. That proposition is
pure populism.
As to the fall in the price of silver,
it is just what every economist knew
would happen when the free coinage
of that metal was abolished. The
same thing would happen to gold if
it3 free coinage were prohibited.
While all the silver in the world Is
still coined that is not used in the
arts, yet the governments, except the
South American republics, Mexico and
China, buy the metal and then coin
it and it circulates as money by the
fiat of the different sovereign powers.
The editor of The Independent, in
writing on the probable fall in the
price of silver in 1893, predicted that
it would go down to 30 cents an
ounce and probably lower. At the
time of this writing It is quoted at
471-8 cents.
The facts as they exist at the pres
ent time are an overwhelming de
monstration of the falsity of the argu
ments made by the gold standard peo
ple, when John Sherman and Grover
Cleveland combined forces to stop the
coinage of silver. Their argument
was that the fall in the price of silver
up to that time was caused by the in
creased output of silver over gold,
while all sound economists said that
the fall was the result of the restric
tions placed upon the coinage of sil
ver. Since that time the production
of silver has greatly fallen off and
that of gold immensely increased, yet
the fall In the price of silver has gone
on at an excelerated speed. The In
creased production of gold has not
cheapened It in relation to silver, and
the decrease In the production of sil
ver has not raised its price, but in
stead It has continued to fall from
that time to this. '
This great fall in the price of silver
which will no doubt continue for some
Ume should convince every thinking
man of the truth of the populist po
sition on money. Silver goes down
from day to day, but silver money in
relation to gold does not vary one mill.
An American t liver dollar or silver
certificate is of the same value as
25 8-10 grains of gold the whole world
over, while the silver bullion in the
said dollar is only worth 40-100 as
much.
It seems to The Independent that
tLis is a demonstration as much so
as that of any problem in Euclid
that jtne value of money does not de
pend upon the material of which it is
composed, but upon the quantity. The
6u0,000,000 of silver dollars in circu
lation reduces the value of the gold
dollars by one-half. If they were
blotted out of existence every gold
dollar would buy twice as much as it
would now, or, in other words, prices
would fall one-half. ,
No man longer contends that the
value of an American silver dollar de
pends upon the market value of the
silver that it contains. Why then is
it at a parity with gold? Simply on
account of the fiat of the government
that it shall be a legal tender for the
same amount as the gold dollar that
contains 25 8-10 grains of gold.
This fall in the price of silver forces
the republican party to meet a dilem
ma as serious as any that ever con
fronted it If it holds to the theory
that it has heretofore advocated that
the value of money depends upon the
market value of the material of which
it is composed and that to force a
creditor to take any money in the
payment of a debt the material of
which was not worth just as much as
a commodity as it was as money, is
repudiation and robbery, then it must
sell the silver dollars for what they
will bring as bullion and eliminate
them from the volume of money. But
if it does that it must supply their
place with paper money of some sort,
the market varae of the material in
which is worth nothing, or bring on
a fall in prices that would produce
such distress and suffering that it
would be hurled from power, if it did
not bring on war and bloodshed.
All this proves that the populist
financial theories are correct. All
money is flai money, gold as much as
paper or silver. The value of money
results not from the material of which
it is composed, but from the quantity.
That all money should be issued by the
government and the quantity so reg
ulated that stable prices whould result
Sooner or later, to that this nation
will have to come. That is just as
certain as that this earth shall endure.
The senators began to arrive in
Washington last week and every one
of them took pains to announce that
tiiey were positively opposed to any
changes in the Dingley tariff. The
Iowa senators, the tariff shelter plank
in whose state platform cut such a fig
ure in the campaign, are as firmly op
posed to any changes as are Aldrich
or Lodge. The readers of this paper
will remember what it said about tar
iff reform in the republican party
vhen the republican spell-binders
were rounding up the mullet heads to
vote 'er straight
Colonel Mosbey, the government
special agent appointed to watch the
thieving federal land agents, says:
"What I did say was that I had been
told that both the Nebraska senators
were presidents of national banks
which hold chattel mortgages on
large numbers of cattle in the west
ern part of the state and that it is to
the interests of the banks to have the
fences remain as they are."
SUPREME ARBITRATOR
Roosevelt poured out his scorn In a
hot and burning stream on Senator
Hoar, Edmunds, ex-Speaker Reed and
President Harrison in his speech ia
Philadelphia. He placed them In a
category along with Vallandingham
and those who declared the civil war
a failure, and this is the way he did
it: 7";
"They played their brief part of
obstruction and clamor; they said
their say; and the current of our
life went over them, and they sank
under it as did their predecessors
who, 36 years before, had declared
that another and greater
war was a failure; that
another and greater struggle for
true liberty was only a contest for
subjugation in which the United
States could never succeed."
That settles it Roosevelt has pro
nounced the final verdict of all history
upon those men who stood by the Dec
laration of Independence. He is the
great supreme arbiter, of all time. He
never makes a mistake in judgment.
A'; least the dogmatic statement would
lead one to believe that he thinks
he never does. It would be better to
wait a while. This thing is not set
tled yet. The Dutch have had a war
on their hands in their Oriental pos
sessions for more than fifty years. For
300 years the English have been try
ing the same thing in Ireland that we
have inaugurated in the Philippines,
and Ireland is not "pacified" yet. From
the days of Cromwell until now the
contest has gone on". No doubt that
the English were just as dogmatic in
their statements about Ireland at the
end of oromwell's campaign as Roose
velt is now.
Little by little the horrible truth,
long suppressed by the censor, is com
ing out General Bell's reconcentra
t:on order in Ttangas produced the
following results as the official figures
on file at the war department show.
They cover the period from January
1 to June 30:
"January, 13 births, no mar
riages, 179 deaths; February, 328
births, one marriage, 222 deaths;
March, 331 births, no marriages,
429 deaths; April, 248 births, 50
marriages, 752 deaths; May, 229
births, 90 marriages, 763 deaths;
June, 148 births, 36 marriages,
1,435 deaths. Total births, 1,297;
total marriages, 177; total deaths,
3,780! Cold horror strikes the
heart at such figures and the hair
stands on end."
According to Roosevelt, the mea
who protested against deeds like that
are to be ranked by the historians
along with Vallandingham. But is
he the final and supreme arbiter?
THE GOLD STANDARD
United States Treasurer Roberts as
serts that the gold standard is invinc
ibly established. To prove it he shows
that the government now has $263,
544,000 of net gold. Then he states
that the gold liabilities of the govern
ment are greenbacks, $342,960, and
treasury notes $26,741,800. That is the
sort of logic that the gold standard
advocates have been indulging in for
the last nine years. If we have the
gold standard then there are gold lia
bilities besides those he enumerates,
silver dollars, $75,043,700, and silver
certificates, $459,571,500. The account
stands this way:
Net gold holdings.. $263,544,000
Gold liabilities outstanding
Greenbacks $342,930,000
Treasury notes 26 741 800
Silver dollars 75,043700
Silver certificates 459,571,500
Total liabilities $904,357,000
Total gold holdings 263,544,000
Excess of liabilities $640,913,000
The Independent wishes to ask if
when a concern owes $640,000,000 more
than it can show up, is it invincible?
The truth is, and every honest man
except some mullet heads will ac
knowledge it, that the country is
farther from the gold standard than
it ever was before. If the administra
tion thinks it has an invincible "gold
standard, let it pass a bill to redeem
silver dollars 3a gold.
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