WASHINGTON, Sept. 5. — Secretary Gage
has made the following reply to the open
letter of Carl Schurz of New York, in
which Mr. Schurz denies that Mr. Bryan's
candidacy menaces sound money:
Washington, Sept. 4.
Dear Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge
the receipt of yours of the 3d inst., in
which you utter some words of criticism
upon the statements made by me in a
newspaper interview published Aug. 26, in
which I expressed the opinion that Mr. Bryan, if elected President, could by the exercise of considerable “perverse ingenuity,” put the Government on a silver basis, ruin its credit, and bring incalculable disaster upon the business interests of the country.
You deny that the dangers set forth by
me in that interview really exist, and that
any President will be able to do what I
declared might be done, “unless the Republican
Party in control of the Government
in both the legislative and Executive
branches, proves itself utterly dishonest in
its professed purpose to maintain the gold
standard.” You say your denial “is not
based on the reasoning of those of your
critics who seek to show by figures that a
President desiring ever so much to put the
country on a silver basis would lack the
means of doing so.” On the contrary, you
admit, “for argument's sake,” all I say on
that point. It would not seem, therefore, that there is any particular difference between us as to what Mr. Bryan as President could do under the law or in spite of the law as it now is.
It ought to have been apparent to you, as
it no doubt was, that I was speaking of the
possibilities of the case under circumstances
and conditions as they now exist, but you proceed to point out how, at the next session of Congress, which will meet in December, legislation could be had which would completely forestall unfriendly action toward the gold standard, even if Mr. Bryan were elected and should still cherish the firm-set purpose declared by him on Sept. 16, 1896, at Knoxville, Tenn., where he said: “If there is any one who believes that the gold standard is a good thing, or that it must be maintained, I warn him now to cast his vote for me, because I promise him it will not be maintained in this country longer than I am able to get rid of it.”
You rebuke me in polite terms for sounding
a false note of alarm, disquieting to
the business community, and especially
when uttered by one in authority.
I am not at all skilled in controversy, and
have had no practice in dialectics, but I
will indulge in a few words in the way of
rejoinder to your criticism.
In the first place, then, no more serious
disaster could overtake this country (in
this I think you will agree with me) than
the breaking down of the gold standard
and the adoption of that principle of money
for which Mr. Bryan contends. In 1896 you
yourself are quoted as having said:
“The mere apprehension of a possibility
of Mr. Bryan's election and of the consequent
placing of our country upon the
silver basis has already caused untold
millions of our securities to be thrown upon
the market. Scores of business orders are
already recalled, a large number of
manufacturing establishments have already
stopped or restricted their operations, enterprise is already discouraged, and nearly paralyzed. * * * And if these are the effects of a mere apprehension of a possibility, what would be the effect of the event itself? There is scarcely an imaginable limit to the destruction certain to be wrought by the business disturbance that Mr. Bryan's mere election would cause.”
I myself am unable to perceive why the
same consequences, in a minor degree
perhaps, would not ensue now, which you so
forcibly foreshadowed then.