CHAPTER IX.

MCKINLEY AND MONEY.

Nominated for Governor-The sound money battle-A full dollarNot willing to chance it-Two yard-sticks-Struggle against inflation-A high compliment-Opposed to unlimited coinage -Treasury Report.

I

N 1889 James E. Campbell, in the Ohio Guber

natorial race, defeated Joseph B. Foraker, who,

against his judgment, yielded to solicitations to run for a third term, and when Campbell's term was waning, he was nominated for re-election on a silver platform. There were some timid people of the Republican persuasion who thought it would be disastrous to nominate McKinley for Governor-he was so "extreme" and "high" a protectionist, and could not win in putting that before the people. McKinley was nominated, however, and then came the crisis of his career as a public man. He had become famous in Congress, and he had to be Governor or step aside.

What did he do-evade the money question? The Democrats had presented themselves as for free and unlimited coinage of silver. Did McKinley fail to meet that issue? On the contrary, he met it fairly

and squarely. His opening speech in this campaign of 1891 was at Niles, Ohio (his birthplace), August 22d, and he put the money question to the front, saying:

"The Democratic platform declares for the free and unlimited coinage of the silver of the world, to be coined, as freely as gold is now, upon the same terms and under the existing ratio. The platform of the Republican party stands in opposition to anything short of a full and complete dollar. The legislation of the last Congress is the strongest evidence which can be furnished of the purpose of the Republican party to maintain silver as money, and of its resolution to keep it in use as part of our circulating medium equal with gold. The law which the Republican party put upon the statute books declares the settled policy of the government to be 'to maintain the two metals upon a parity with each other upon the present legal ratio, or such ratio as may be provided by law.'

"The free and unlimited coinage of silver, demanded by the Democratic Convention recently held in Cleveland, amounts to this: That all the silver of the world, and from every quarter of the world, can be brought to the mints of the United States and coined at the expense of the government; that is, that the mints of the United States must receive 412 grains of silver, which is now worth but 80 cents the world over, and coin therefor a silver dollar, which, by the fiat of the government, is to be received by the people

of the United States, and to circulate among them as worth a full dollar of 100 cents.

"The silver producer, whose 412 grains of silver are worth only 80 cents or less in the markets of this country and the world, is thus enabled to demand that the government shall take it at 100 cents. Will the government be as kind to the producer of wheat, and pay him 20 cents more per bushel than the market price? The silver dollar now issued under a limited coinage has 80 cents of intrinsic value in it, so accredited the world over; and the other 20 cents is legislative will-the mere breath of Congress. That is, what the dollar lacks of value to make it a perfect dollar Congress supplies by public declaration, and holds the extra 20 cents in the Treasury for its protection. The government, buying the silver at its market value, takes to itself the profit between the market value of 412 grains of silver and the face value of the silver dollar. Now it is proposed to remove the limit and to make the government coin, not for account of the Treasury, but for the benefit of the silver mine-owner.

"It does not take a wise man to see that, if a dollar worth only 80 cents intrinsically, coined without limit, is made a legal tender to the amount of its face value for the payment of all debts, public and private, a legal tender in all business transactions among the people, it will become in time the exclusive circulating medium of the country. Gold, which is 20 per cent. more valuable on every dollar, will

not be paid out in any transactions in this country when an 80-cent silver dollar will answer the purpose. Nor will the greenback be long in returning to the Treasury for redemption in gold. We shall do our business, therefore, with short dollars, rather than with full dollars, as we are now doing. The gold dollar will be taken from the circulating medium of the country and hoarded, and the effect will be that the circulating medium will not be increased, but reduced to the extent of the gold circulating, and we will be compelled to do the business of the country with a silver dollar exclusively-which, under present conditions, is confessedly the poorest— instead of doing our business with gold and silver and paper money, all equal and all alike good."

Governor McKinley quoted President Cleveland and the Hon. M. D. Harter, a Democratic Representative in Congress, and proceeded:

"My competitor (Governor Campbell) has said in his reported interviews that in sentiment, upon this subject, The Democrats of Ohio are very much divided; that the vote in the convention was a very close one.' This close vote only emphasizes the danger of the free coinage declaration in the minds of a large number of the Democrats in the State, but enjoins the importance and necessity of the friends of honest money standing together, as in all the contests of the past they have been forced to stand together for an honest currency. Governor Campbell declared in one of his interviews that, while he had

doubts about it, he was willing to chance free and unlimited coinage of silver.' I am not willing to 'chance' it. Under present conditions the country cannot afford to chance it. We cannot gamble with anything so sacred as money, which is the standard and measure of all values. I can imagine nothing which would be more disturbing to our credit and more deranging in our commercial and financial affairs than to make this the dumping ground of the world's silver. The silver producer might be benefited, but the silver user never. If there is to be any profit in the coinage of silver, it should go to the government. It has gone to the government ever since the Bland-Allison law went into effect. The new declaration would take it from the government and give it to the silver producer.

Now, the people know that, if we had two yardsticks, one three feet in length and the other two and a half feet in length, the buyer would always have his goods measured to him by the shorter stick, and that the longer stick would go into permanent disuse. It is exactly so with money."

Major McKinley proceeded to argue that the bondholders had been largely paid in 100-cent dollars, and that the pensioners should not be paid in depreciated dollars. He said of the struggle in 1867:

"When the attempt was made at that time by the leaders of the party that now stands in opposition to the Republican party to repudiate the debt to the