The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1878-10-12
SOLON CHASE.

cULUN
One Scion Chase, hcralded as the great
grcrnback champion of Maine addressed
rather thin audiences at the court house IN ot
tawa ON Thursday afternoon and again in the
evening.
The gentlrman,i it appears, was candidate ioi
congress at the late election in Maine, but I'M
happily some other fellow secured the most
votes. and the $1,000 congressional salary hay
ing thus slipped through his fingers, he is con
tent to take ten dollars a day from the general
National Grccnbackcr campaign fund, 10
which it is said John Sherman and Wall stree,
are the main con,rlbutors,) and perambulate
the country making fiat money speeches. This
| is the same Scion Chase, it is to be remember
ed, who was accused of apprehension during
the war and after the war, from 1865 to about
| 1875, travelled over Maine and other New Eng
land states, lecturing and distributing tracts to
the workingmcn on the robbery being practic-
ed upon them by an irredcemable currency
and camoring for an immediate resumption
of specie payment Greenbacks at the time
were worth about 80 cts. on the dollar and the
"immediate" specie payment demanded by
Mr. Chase would therefore have involved the
governments issuing four or five hundred
millions of six per cent. gold bonds to buy the
specie,
The advocacy now of the llmitess issue of
irredcemable fiat money by Il man with such
antccedents cannot fail to make profound im
preston on sensible voters.
Mr. Chase aside from this somewhat ques
tionabc record, is otherwise of a different
class from Wood l.. Townsend, Gen. Bates,
Frank Hall, and the general run of grecnback
spouters who have favored this locality. The
others talked sense and in the main made
good, argumentative democratic speeches. Mr..
Chase is notable only for Incorporate dcnun-
citation and abuse. When he essays reason
and argument, he mostly utters ridiculous
twaddle. Take u specimen: "A year ago"
said be- wheat corn, beef and cattle were
worth 90 to 40 per cent more at Liverpool and
Manchester than they are to-day. Why? I'll
tell you. During the last year John Sherman
has drawn Sl50,000000 of gold from the Bank
of England for resumption purposes. The
Bank of England puts out three pounds in pa
per for every pound of gold IN its vaults. The
abstraction of S150O00,000 of gold from its
vaults by Sherman compelled a contraction
equal to $50, 900 900 of the currency of Eng
land! and this contraction has brought down
the price of our produce! Now Ipropose that
John Sherman shall send back the 0,O00,-
600 Of gold he has in the treasury and buy up
our bonds with 1t and burn the bonds. The
5000 600 of gold will enable the Bank of
England to issue $GOO0OO000 of currency, and
such an expansion there will double the price
of our wheat, corn, beet, cotton, &c, and put
money in the pockets Of you tarmers!!'
We heard him for about three-quarters of an
hour. Besides senseless vaporing and froth
against the bondholders and rich people gen
orally, we heard nothing more sensible than
the above, and concluded it was waste of time
to hear any more such swash. We can only
suggest, with all due Difference, to the almOners
of the great Wall street and Sherman n. G. b.
fund, that the $40 day they are
spending on Mr.. Chase appear to be spent, as
the fellow SAID, ID FOOLISH"