The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-10-29

platform of the party is usually labeled some-
what speciously 1t is called payment of
the bonds in money of the United States"
the compelling the plough-holder and bond
holder to take the same currency" "green-
backs for the rich as well as the poor" and
otherwise this project of dishonesty is dis
euised by specious phrases and respectable
names.
All the old war cries of the "unterrifed
Democracy have passed away. estate
RIGHTS. ''Hard Money" Free Trade, and
Anii.Federalism, sympathy with struggling
nationalities, and the like, are all forgotten,
The Republican party are now the Hard
Money party, and quite as much in favor of
low tariff as their opponents, and more in
favor of liberty, both at home and abroad.
The only Democratic principles seem to be,
now. cheating the bondholders and expanding
the currency.
In the recent elections in Ohio and Penn
sylvania. the great appeals of the Democrats
to the people were on the single issue of pay
ment of the bonds in greenbacks. We have
no fear that the working people of this State
will ever be deluded by these specious ap-
peals to their ignorance and prejudices.
Still, as this is now their great weapon, it
becomes every worSingman who thinks for
himself to examine the argument
There can Vbe no greater delusion to the
laboring class than the supposition that they
get any advantage from an inconvertible cur
renew 1t is an old war cry of the Democratic
party, and still older axiom of political
economy, that ''an irredeemable paper cur
rency is the robbery of labor" One of the
devices of kings and princes in the middle
ages for filling their treasures and plunder-
ing the working class was to adulterate 5or
clip their coin. piece of money then,
which was nominally louis dor or q forin,
contained raolly q half q third 1acS of tho
precious metals, and the potentate was sup
posed to gain the difference, while the people
paid the loss. The irredeemable paper dollar
is precisely similar robbery of the consumers.
If the United States bonds, by an act of in
credible national baseness should ever be
paid in paper, it need not be said that the
value of the greenback dollar would sink to
an immense degree. A dollar, instead of
being worth, as it is now, say seventy-three
cents, would be worth, perhaps, thirty three
cents. The capitalists who saw the storm
impending, and who are better able to per-
ceive beforehand than the laboring classes,
would, of course, sell out their bonds as early
as possible, and put their money in objects
of permanent value, such as houses and lands.
The poor would attempt to redeem last,
and would find their hard earned
savings reduced to half their
lrUsl companies, Hre 5iuSurduce ana I1e IN
surance associations would discover that their
investments in Government securities were
suddenly stripped of more than half their
worth, and the laborers and mechanics who
have their savings in these companies would
be proportionately impoverished. But this
would not be the greatest disaster to the poor,
from the payment of the bonds in paper
The present reduced value of the dollar tells
more severely on the laborers and consumers
than it does on the dealers and the comfort
able classes. Commissioner Wells has proved,
from careful statistics, that the family expenses
of laborers, mechanics and all people of small
MEANS have risen in the last few years S7b
per cent. Wages and salaries have not in
creased at all equally in proportion. The ex-
planation is simple: where the standard of
value is uncertain, or, in other words, where
gold has ceased to be the basis of the cur
rency, every. petty dealer, shopkeeper, mer-
chant, and importer must charge to his GUS
toners double or treble profit to compen-
safe him for his extra risks. After each
dealer in any commodity purchases his article,
the currency may change its value, and he
may lose all his usual profit. To meet the
chance Of this, he must add somewhat to the
price in dealing with the one next to him in
the line of sale. When the article finally
reaches the mechanic or the laborer, it is
charged with all these extra prices.
Ihe uncertainty, too, OF the currency gives
the dealer pretext which he is only too
ready to avail himself of to overcharge. If
the value of our dollar is steadily falling, as
would inevitably be the case under an ex-
pected payment of the bonds in paper, this
uncertainty would be Immediately increased,
and the laboring- class suffer proportionably.
Moreover, the wages of a working class never
can rise as fast as prices rise. There is toe
close competition between laborers for that
In the first ''rise of gold" during the war; il
will be remembered it was a long time
before wages rose any way proportionably
with the increase of prices, and salaries never
reached fair equality. Capital, too under
grand effort at national reputation, would
become exceedingly timid, and would not
employ labor to the same extent, so that from
every source vast disasters would come upon
the laboring classes, as the currency increased
and gold rose, with the payment of the bonds
in paper. Prices would be at Starvation
point, wages still low, capital sluggish and
employment dull. The savings on which the
laborers had expected to live would possess
but fraction of their value. Panic would
increase and gold rise, until the paper dollar
had become like the Confederate, and q crast
ensue which would overwhelm laborer and
employer together, but where ''the weakest
would go TO the wall"
These are the probable and reasonable re
suits of the great Democratic programme -th
payment of the national notes in othe
promises to pay"
PARAGUAY - VIEWS OF GENERAL
MCMAHON AND WORTHINGTON.
From the NJ Y. Herald.
The conflicting news which has bee