The railroads of the country and the States and municipalities who owe gold debts would be compelled to advance their rates and increase their taxes or submit to bankruptcy or repudiation. I do not believe in case of the adoption by Congress of the measure of the free and unlimited coinage of silver on the proposed ratio that the people will be able or willing to pay increased railroad rates or higher taxes. and such legislation would make the payment of debts by railroads and municipalities impossible. Another compensation proposed by some of the advocates of free coinage is that. as one standard of values would be identical with that of the Asiatic countries and the South American States. we would be better able to compete with them in the cheapness of production. In other words. it is said that in the silverusing countries. like Mexico. Japan. China. and India. the silver dollar. or a silver coinage of equivalent value. Will buy as much domestic productions of those countries. including labor. as the dollar of gold will in any of the socalled goldstandard countries. If this is so. it is an invitation to the American farmer and the American wage earner to adopt the habits and accept the prices for their products and their labor which are paid to the peons of Mexico and the illfed serfs of Asiatic countries. whose wages are a pittance. and who subsist upon insufficient food. Mr. President. impressed by these considerations. it seems to me that it is the duty of every representative citizen to insist that the question of maintaining and adhering to the existing standard of value. to which all property in the United States and our systems of revenue and taxation for national.
Identified stereotypes
The paragraph suggests that adopting the silver standard would force Americans to accept the low wages and living conditions of "peons of Mexico and the illfed serfs of Asiatic countries."