The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1893-08-10
GOV. PENNoYER ON THE CRISIS.

Amerlcan REVIEW t0r august on tne
financial problem. Gov. Pennoyer has
been discredited somewhat, east of the
Rocky Mountains, because of his caus-
tic criticisms of President Cleveland.
The impression has gone abroad in the
land that Gov. Pennoyer, although q
ID .LUcrat, is not man OF culture, but
~A Eyed westerner, inpregnated
49, ocialistic ideas.
Governors essay In the North
an trican Review shows him scholar
and q student of history. He writes
egant English, and puts his ideas
.orcibly and succinctly.
1t is seldom that our far western gov
ernors write for the leading periodicals,
and those who have regarded Gov. Pen
noyer as an uncouth child of a prime
val civilization, thrown into promi-
nence by one of the accidents of poll
tics, will have to change their opinions
after reading the Governors essay.
The Governor opens with o discus
sion of the Worlds Fair, which will
strike good many sober minded peo-
pie with vehemehce, We quote:
"Tbe erection in Chicago Of vast, but
meretricious buildings apeing In
splendor of lath and plaster, wood,
white paint and stucco, the most costly
and stable edifices which have been the
slow result of the architectural genius
of the ages This involved the ex-
penditure of millions of money, some
of which was appropriated by Congress
without warrant of law, and some by
the legislatures of states, IN defiance OF
justice, as no man who cannot visit
the Fair ought to be taxed for the bene-
fit OF the man who can"
Gov. Pennoyer then discusses the
condition of Europe at the time Colum-
bus set sail to discover q new world.
We quote.
"Ac the time when Columbus sailed,
the so-called civilized world was still
encompassed In the gloom of the dark
ages. For nearly fifteen centuries the
splendid civilization attained in Greece
and Rome hau been gradually but
surely declining. Civilization had re-
trograded, commerce had fallen into
comparative decay, the arts had de-
clined, while the people had sunk into
q hopeless condition of serfdom. All
this every student of history well
knows, but every student Is not well
aware of the great producing cause of
this decline, from the magnificent
zation to the gloom and ignorance and
smi-Dar rbarism of the succeeding ages,
was the direct result of diminution In
the volume of money, which Is the very
life blood of commerce and progress.
shown that where money liz plentiful
there the arts flourish, the people are
prosperous, aud nations march forward
% en- "a htIf xuh "a
volume diminishes a decline in the
condition of the people follows as
surely as the night follows the day.
While the gold and silver mines of
Greece and Spain yielded their precious
treasures, Rome prospered; when they
| failed, Rome declined. AT the COM
mencement of the Christian era, which
occurred at the very apex of Roman
greatness, the coined imoney of the Ro
man empire was estimated ats i 800, 900, :
600, while at the.time Columbus SET sail
frem Palos the estimated coined money
less than S20OOO0,OO0. The result of
the gradual diminution of the volume
of the worlds money Is legibly written
the condition of the people. There ii
as an instruction and warning"
Gov. PennOyer maintains that Co
lumbus sailed west, 400 years ago, to
lethargic sleep of the ages and infuse
new life and energy into the civiliza-
tion of Europe. He says the first search
made by Columbus and his followers,
after they landed in San Salvador was
for gold and silver. We quote again
"Contemporaneous with the sailing
of Columbus the coined money of the
world had passed under the control of
a class of men who thereby had become
the virtual masters of the world, hold
ing both nations and individuals under
their relentless domination. The dis
covery of the precious metals in the
Western hemisphere broke the bands
of this slavery and disenthralled Europe
from its abject condition of money ser
vitude."
/ After a while Gov. Pennoyer gets
down to now, and proceeds to discuss
| the present monetary distress In the
| following slap dash, direct way. Again
we quote from the Governor of Oregon
"The stupendous folly and colossal
crime of this policy decentralization OF
remember that the worlds supply of
gold is estimated at $3,700,0O0,0O0 and
that the grand total of the national in.
debtedness aggregates over $35 .0O0, 900,
600. These debts, as well as the debts
of corporations and private individuals,
are now all made payable in gold. No
mountebank ever imposed upon cred
ulous auditory a more transparent
fraud than the attempt to do the
worlds business on gold basis. The
two drunken louts who of a cold winter
night discarded one blanket because II
was white and struggled aud shivered
under one yellow blanket, too short and
too narrow to cover them both, were
not one whit more foolish than Is our
government in discarding the broad
bi-metallic basis of oar fathers and
adopting the single gold basis, entirely
inadequate TO the demands Of our IN
creasing population and our yet unde-
veloped resources.
A moneyed oligarchy, after four hun.
dred years, has again gained control of
| the worlds supply of gold, and again
dominates for its own enrichment the
| financial policy of the nations. Is there
| no hope of deliverance from the CALLING
fetters of its imposed thraldom? II
not, what of the future? Go among
the great masses of the people of this
| country and read the lessons legible on
every hand. The widely -diffused pros
| perity of former years is no more. The
| light of hope that heretofore bright
| ened the farmer as he enriched bis
acres and enlarged his granaries, and
| the face of the labOrer as he added little