Excerpt from War of the Metals: Washingtoniana, Mexico, Hawaii and Japan
The free-silver oracle speaks through a double headed idol like the god Janus of Roman mythology. One head faces the mining camps of the Rocky Mountains; the other over looks the farms of the Middle West and South. Through its two sets of lips the oracle speaks with contradictory tongues. To the silver owner in the Rockies, directly and specifically, and indirectly to frightened creditors everywhere, it proclaims: "Independent free coinage at 16 to 1 will double the market price of silver over all the world and enrich the bullion owner without cheating anyone else!" To farmers and to debtors it declares: "Free coinage will not double the world price of silver, but by substituting for the gold dollar a depreciated and depreciating silver dollar, it will raise prices for the benefit of the farmer, and by cheapening money it will render easier the payment of debts!"
Through one head the oracle predicts an impossibility to deceive and conciliate the honest, and through the other it proclaims the truth in a shape to tempt the dishonest. The end is held to justify the means in making converts to the religion of free silver and in swelling the throng of worshipers before the double-headed idol.
If the declaration that free coinage here would raise the price of silver to $1.29 per ounce over all the world were taken seriously and generally believed, the silver shrine would be promptly abandoned by the great mass of its devotees. Such belief might prevent honest men from utterly destroying in righteous indignation the abhorrent image, but, on the other hand, it would rob the idol of attractiveness, except for the silver owner, and leave him almost a solitary worshiper at a deserted altar.
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