and to take cognizance of all international disputes that cannot be settled by ordinary diplomatic negotiation, is no doubt the ideal to be aimed at. If this cannot be reached at once the conclusion of an arbitration treaty between the United States and Great Britain may be regarded as a great step in that direction.
HONEST MONEY AND HONESTY[1]
Fellow-Citizens:—I have come from the East to the West to speak to you for honest money. I do not imagine myself to be in an “enemy's country.” There is to me no enemy's country within the boundaries of this Republic. Wherever I am among Americans I am among fellow-citizens and friends, bound together by common interests and a common patriotism. In this spirit I shall discuss the question of the day. I shall not deal in financial philosophy, but in hard and dry facts.
There are sporadic discontents in the country, partly genuine, partly produced by artificial agitation. They may be specified thus: There are farmers who complain of the low prices of agricultural products; laboring men complaining of a lack of remunerative employment; men in all sorts of pursuits complaining of a general business stagnation and of a scarcity of money. In some parts of the country, especially the South and West, there are many people complaining of a want of capital and a too high rate of interest. The cry for more money is the favorite cry. These are the principal and the most definite complaints. Beyond them, however, an impression has been spread by agitators that an organized conspiracy of moneyed men, mainly great bankers, in
- ↑ Speech delivered at Central Music Hall, Chicago, Sept. 5, 1896, under the auspices of the American Honest Money League.
