The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1891-09-03

General John Beatty, the Republican
banker of Columbus, who stands with
Grover Cleveland on the money ques-
ton, is out with card in the Plain
Dealer pronouncing the Mckinley
straddle on the silver coinage question,
both dishonest and unfair Beatty is q
gold bullioni5t, but he is also a candid
man, and has a contempt for partisan
hagglar aud q thorough contempt for the
sIlp-and- -go-easy tactics of q politician
of the Mckinley school. This scathing
review of McISinley's effort to deuounce
the free coinage plank of the Demo-
cratic platform and at the same time
to defend the Republican plank, will be
found spicy reading. General Beatty's
card is as follows:
The Democratic platform declares
for the free and unlimited coinage of
the silver of the world, to be coined as
freely as gold ia now, upon the same
terms and under existing ratio. The
platform of the Republican party
stands in opposition to anything short
of full and complete dollar aud ap-
proves of the legislation of the last
congress touching silver, which legisla-
tion enjoins the monthly purchase
of silver up to 100000 ounces, an
amount fully equal If not in excess
of the entire silver product of
the United States. That legislation
is mighty bulwark for the production
of silver. 1t has preserved and en-.
larged its monetary uses upon safe
basis, and has provided that the silver
dollar shall be kept as good as the best
dollar of our coinage, always equal in
legal tender quality and debt-paying
power.-McKinley at Niles.
The arguments Major Mckinley used
against the free coinage plank of the
Democratic platform are precisely the
same arguments urged against the re-
cent act of congress compelling the pur-
chase and authorizing the coinage of
4,500, 900 ounces of silver monthly. The
major now comedies that the arguments
are good but at the same time approves
the measure against which they were
originally urged.
The difference between the Republi-
can and Democratic platforms of Ohio
with respect to the silver question is
imaginary rather than real. Both plat
forms are absolutely unwise and thor
oughly dishonest. The policy approv-
ed by the Republicans as well as that
proposed by the Democrats will, if ad-
hered to, render the so cent dollar the
only metal currency of the country. If
the short dollar is a good thing it would
be better to reach 1t at bound than to
90 to it by stages. If bad the sooner
we are confronted by its disastrous
effects, the more speedily we shall aban-
don 1t and place ourselves upon O solid
and sensible business footing.
The platform that Major Mckinley
endorses and which he endeaVors to
maintain and uphold, proposes to issue
| 100000 80 cent dollars per month or
60,0O0,000 year. This means 600,000,-
600 of short dollars in ten years. Just
how many of these cheap dollars are
now outstanding do not know, but [
| do know that our stock of gold is rap
| idly diminishing and our stock of 80
cent dollars rapidly increasing, and that
| the time Is not far distant when the
very policy which Major Mckinley ad-
yOcates will drive every honest 100 cent
dollar from the country and leave in it
| nothing but the dishonest 80 cent dol
| lars to pay soldiers, farmers and labor
| ers, for pensions, products and wages.
Both parties promise to keep the
short dollar on a par with gold, but SEN
sible men know they are lying. 1t
would be impossible for the govern
ment to purchase 100000 ounces Of
silver a month for any considerable
length of time without coming it, and
it is nonsense to say that to continue to
| issue 100000 of short dollars per an
| mum for ten or twenty years would not
make the short dollar the only measure
of value in this country. We have now
| stored In the vaults of the United States
treasury 10000 tons of these 80-cent
| dollars which nobody wants. The truth
is that 81, 900 in silver weighs over sixty
pounds avoirdupois, and that is more
than the average citizen wants to lug
about with him; even 800 or six pounds
are somewhat trying on a mans sus-
penders on hot day in August.
Major Mckinley exhibits more cheek
than consistency, therefore, when in
one breath he prates about paying hon
est money to soldiers, and In the next
advocates the issue of 100000 of So
cent dollars per annum. The most he
can say truthfully is that he don't pro-
pose to give the country quite as many
| short dollars as some other fellow, but
the other fellow may very pertinently
reply that il we are to have short dol
| lars at all the more we can get of them
| the better, and 1t strikes me that the
| other fellow, whoever he may be, would
have the best Of the argument.
JOHN BEATTY.