Congressman Joseph C. Sibley, of Pennsylvania, one of the prominent Eastern men who supported the doctrine of free coinage of silver, said in one of his speeches: “Silver is the only stable standard of values maintaining at all times its parity with every article of production except gold. The ounce of silver, degraded by infamous legislation from its normal mintage value of 1.2929 an ounce to about 60 cents, has kept its parity with the ton of pig iron, the pound of nails, and all the products of our iron mills. The ounce of silver has maintained its parity with the barrel of petroleum, with granite blocks, with kiln-burnt bricks. With lumber growing scarcer year by year it still keeps its parity. It is at parity with the ton of coal; with the mower, reaper, thresher, the grain drill, the hoe, and the spade. Silver at 1.2929 and beef at 7 cents per pound in the farmer’s field has kept its parity, and the ounce of silver at 60 cents buys to-day beef at 2 cents per pound on foot. The pound of cotton and the ounce of silver have never lost their level. No surer has the sun indicated on the dial the hour of the day than has the ounce of silver shown the value of the pound of cotton. As surely as the moon has given high tide or low tide, just so surely has the ounce of silver given the high and low tide prices of wheat. The ounce of silver has maintained its parity with your railway dividends, with the earnings in your shops and factories, in all departments of effort. “If parity with gold is demanded, and the Secretary of the Treasury construes the law to mean whenever demanded to pay gold, then let us maintain the parity by reducing the number of grains in the gold dollar from 23.22 grains pure gold to 15 grains, or to such number of grains as will keep it at parity. While we may wrong by so doing the creditor class, through the increased value of the products of human industry, we much remember that for every one creditor there are a thousand debtors; and we should remember that the aim of the Government is the greatest good to the greatest number, and also the minimum amount of evil. But no such drastic measure is necessary. Parity may be maintained and every declaration of governmental policy fully met by accepting for all dues, public and private, including duties upon imports, silver and paper issues of the Nation of every description whatsoever. “In all the gold-standard nations destitution and misery prevail. With great standing armies in Europe outbreaks are not of frequent occurrence, and yet one rarely peruses his paper without reading of these outbreaks. In Nebraska and Kansas, the land of wheat and corn, we read of starving households; even in Ohio appeals are sent out for the relief of thousands of starving miners, and yet men have the temerity to tell us that the evils arise from overproduction.