Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1891-08-27
WHILE the members of the Peoples

~ AALL l4O --ACL-DOAo u Vic .
Party do not agree on all matters of
party policy, how is 1t with our repub-
licaE friends. Senator Sherman does
not agree with the western republic
cans in regard to the free coinage of
silver for he said in a recent interview,
'our people in the east" the Senator
said, after a little by talk, ''do not
seem to understand this campaign.
They do not appear to have any COM
prehension of what 1t means to them
as well as the country. No matter
what their difference upon the tariff
question may be every republican who
reveres the memory of his party should
be made to understand that there is
another and perhaps graver ques-
ton to be settled in Ohio this year.
While our politics for the past few
campaigns have hinged upon minor
questions we are to-day brought back
to the great financial problem which
we I'll thought had been settled in the
great war OF 1875, when Mr.. Hayes
won the fight for an honest dollar
against Governor Allen, who repre-
sented the liberal currency idea.
Then it came in the guIse Of green
backs, and now it comes in the garb
of free silver.
''The arguments for free silver are
exceedingly seductive to one who is
in debt and wants an easy way out of
it, or to the workingman who wants
more wages. I have in my hand a lit
tie pamphlet being largely circulated
In this state, called The Seven Con-
spiracies,' which is wild yet attrac-
tive attack upon the entire financial
history which the republican party
has built up since the beginning OF
the war to the present time. 1t is the
product OF the Farmers Alliance.
which seems to be bending all its en-
ergIes in assaulting our financial sys-
tenn, treating the tariff more as an in
cident than as an issue. The democ-
racy, although committed to the ALI
ance idea, seems to push the tariff as
the main issue, and to treat the finan-
cial question as an incident. This is
natural on account of the wide differ
ences in its own party upon the silver
question. Two-fifths of the convention
which nominated Governor Campbell
were strongly opposed to unlimited
coinage. All, therefore, is not harmo-
NOUS with our chief opponent. But
it never does to belittle an enemy, and
in a campaign like this every road
should be picketed, every man ready
for action. But you ask me how free
silver would affect the workingman
and every interest aroused.
'It would cheaper the purchasing
power of his dollar. He could not
compete with the merchant and the
manufacturer. who could mark up his
wares to meet the initiation standard
every hour if he chose; while the man
who labors would find it very difficult
and tlresome, ifnot an impossible task,
to get his wages advanced to point
that would meet the increased price
of every commodity of life upon an
inflated basis, and if he did, what bet
ter off would he be, and how much
worse off the country7 Therefore the
man who is to-day getting $3.50 day
or $L50 for a bushel of wheat, would
find that under free silver the pur-
chasing power of that S15O would
very rapidly drop to $L25, and that
the % cent loss would fall, not on the
merchant or the manufacturer, but
upon the man who labors or who tills
the soil.
''That is the inexorable law of trade
because the price of commodities il
fixed by the markets of the world and
cannot be changed by any local legis
lation or the vagaries of any single
country. This fact has been demon
strated SO often that it seems a waste
of time to discuss it. Yet, here we ART
again. loaded with the necessity o
demonstrating, not only to the people
of Ohio but to the country, that dol
lar acceptable the world over for it
full face value is essential to the ma
terial welfare of any nation"