162 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



a silver standard ruled : "The farmer in Mexico sells 

 his bushel of wheat for one dollar. The farmer 

 in the United States sells his bushel of wheat for 

 fifty cents. The former is proven by the history of 

 the world to be an equitable price. The latter is 

 writing its history, in letters of blood, on the ap- 

 palling cloud of debt that is sweeping with ruin and 

 desolation over the farmers of this country. " 



When many men of sound reputation believed 

 the maintenance of a gold standard impossible 

 what wonder that millions of farmers shouted with 

 "Coin": "Give the people back their favored 

 primary money! Give us two arms with which to 

 transact business! Silver the right arm and gold 

 the left arm ! Silver the money of the people, and 

 gold the money of the rich. Stop this legalized 

 robbery that is transferring the property of the 

 debtors to the possession of the creditors. . . . 

 Drive these money-changers from our temples. 

 Let them discover your aspect, their masters the 

 people." 



The relations of the Populist party to silver were 

 at once the result of conviction and expediency; 

 cheap money had been one, frequently the most 

 prominent, of the demands of the farming class, 

 not only from the inception of the Greenback 



