r in all America who would not, with just a tiny wee bit of
persuading, be willing to take the shares of both Republicans and
Democrats? Now, if Mr. Foreigner should buy something with this great
flood of silver we can see the wisdom of Mr. Gladstone when he said,
"If America should adopt bimetallism they would within six weeks
control the markets of the world."

A favorite expression of our Republican friends is, that because Mexico
does not maintain a parity between gold and silver under bimetallism,
the United States cannot. When a man tells us that we should pity him.
If we examine that question by comparison we will see the party making
such a statement is either not sincere, or else he is not posted on the
relative strength of the United States and Mexico. Records show that
Mexico has 700,000 square miles of land, more than one-half of which is
nearly or quite barren desert or waste land, leaving only about 350,000
miles of arable land, 4,981 miles of railway, 27,861 miles of telegraph
line and a population of 10,000,000 Indians and Spaniards. The United
States has 3,460,000 square miles, over two-thirds of which is arable
land, and very productive of the staple articles consumed by the most
enlightened nations of the world. We have 170,000 miles of railway,
780,000 miles of telegraph line, and a population of 72,000,000
Anglo-Americans; thus we see we have over ten times as much arable land
exclusive of Alaska, thirty-four times as much railway, twenty-nine
times as much telegraph line, and over seven times the population of
Mexico. In size, wealth, commerce and science, Mexico is not to be
compared with the United States.

When we compare Mexico with the United States, we are comparing it with
the most gigantic country of the nineteenth century. You can form the
United States into eighteen states each as large as Spain, or
thirty-one states as large as Italy, or sixty-two states as large as
England and Wales. What a mighty confederation of land, water,
commerce, wealth and people is the United States when we come to think
of it. Why, friends, we can take five of the six first-class countries
of Europe--France, Great Britain and Ireland, Germany, Austria and
Italy, then add Mexico--let some mighty smith forge them all together
into one vast empire, and you can lay them all down in the United
States, west of the Hudson river, twice.

Wittingly has it been said that the United States has the natural basis
for th