The old-fashioned methods of reaping the yellow fields of wheat has
also been ousted by the conspiracy of the late improved harvester and
binder. The old fashioned cradle has been decradleized. Why not form
an alliance all over this country to recradleize the cradle, and make
common warfare against the up-to-date binder? Even the old McCormick
reaper has been dereaperized and the succeeding invention, the header,
has been deheaderized, and who shall not say in this onward march of
progress, in this wonderful advancement of our civilization, in this age
of discovery and invention, that sooner or later the up-to-date binder
of to day will not be debinderized by the inventive genius of some
American citizen? (Applause.) Now, let us see, fellow citizens, what the
so-called crime of 1873 has done for prices of various commodities. One
of the stock declarations of Mr. Bryan and Mr. Harvey and their cohorts
is that prices should be restored and wages should be increased. One of
two things is very apparent, either the framers of the Chicago platform
did not consult the statistics of the United States, or else they
imagined the voters would not. "Coin" Harvey and the silver advocates
generally seek to establish their position by quoting statistics of
average prices of certain great commodities like wheat and cotton
claiming that prices commenced falling in 1873, and their decline has
continued ever since. These arguments are those of the delusionists and
must crumble before the evidence and the facts. Let me say to you that
prices did not commence falling in 1873, but in 1864-5.