Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/347

Rh have succeeded more—a lesson utterly un-American, unpatriotic and abominable!

They tell the farmer—most cruel deception!—that he must and will be made independent of the world abroad, while year after year from $500,000,000 to $700,000,000 worth of our agricultural products must seek the foreign market to find purchasers, and while nothing will hurt the farmer more than a serious impairment of the great home market by a business crisis.

They proclaim themselves the special champions of the toiling masses, while their policy would rob the laboring man of half of his savings, and grievously curtail the value of his wages. Am I asked, if the silver standard will relatively reduce wages, why so many employers of labor are opposed to it? The reason is obvious, because, aside from all considerations of sentiment, the prudent employers of labor know that they would lose vastly more through the disastrous disturbance of business sure to be caused by a free-coinage victory than they could possibly gain by the cheapening of labor. And would not the toiling masses suffer most from that disturbance of business? He is a traitor to the laboring man who tells him that he can profit by the ruin of his employer.

They pretend to be enemies of plutocracy, and advocate a policy which, if I were a selfish, unscrupulous money shark, I should welcome as my finest opportunity. Am I asked, if a free coinage victory would play into the hands of the money power, why the bankers and capitalists are generally against it? The answer is simple. No doubt there are those among the rich of the country who will not scruple at any means to increase their wealth, who will crush their competitors with a rude and lawless hand, and take any advantage of the embarrassment of the unfortunate. They are the men who will thrive most in general ruin. But the vast majority of our bankers and business