What "Coin" Harvey and the advocates of free silver demand is not
bimetallism, but the unlimited coinage of the silver dollar, not at
the just ratio of 32 to 1, but at the unjust ratio of 16 to 1, not on
government account, but on private account. To-day the government--the
people--are receiving the benefit of the 48 cents on each silver dollar
coined, that being the difference between the cost of the bullion and
the face value of the dollar. The government--the people-will lose these
48 cents if silver is coined on private account. The question is, my
countrymen, who will get these 48 cents on each dollar, who will be
benefitted by this change? We know the government will lose 48 cents on
each dollar, the question is, who will receive it, or will this profit,
now accruing to the government--the people--be lost as completely as the
value of this building would be to the owner if it burned to ashes and
there was no insurance? (Applause.) I am pretty well acquainted with
the mining business, have spent many years of my life in the mining
districts of the west, and am the owner to-day of mining properties in
Oregon and in Colorado, and also largely interested in one of the most
noted silver mining properties in Old Mexico, and I know whereof I
speak, when I say to you that English capitalists and American silver
kings own a majority of the stock of nearly every incorporated silver
mining company in this country of any prominence.
It is beginning to look to me like "there was a pretty good-sized
African in the wood pile somewhere." (Laughter and applause.)