Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1893-06-15
NO PoKER-CHIP MONEY.

Press "Mr. Cleveland Is or the
opinion that an issue of State bank
notes would give immediate relief
from the money stringcncy, especi-
ally in the more sparcely settled
States"
The Press is republican paper
and it has no right to speak for Mr..
Cleveland on this or any other sub
iect. Mr.. Cleveland has made no
special study Of financial questions
but he has too much common sense
to believe that a financial stringency,
caused by debt and contraction, can
be relieved by the issue of notes
that no one is bound to take for debt.
Poker chips enable the game to
60 on more actively, and if there is
a stringency in the game fresh
supply of them mag seem to remove
it. But where these chips are issued
they arc not money, but mere tokens,
and unless the money is back of
them they relieve no stringency in
the final settlement.
We want no poker-chip money.
We want money Of final account,
cash that will pay all debts, public
and private; that will circulate as
full legal tender in every State in
the Union; that will pay every form
of indebtedness that Illinois, Kansas,
Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Texas or
Tennessee owes to Massachusetts, or
New York.
The free coinage of silver will
give us standard dollars of full legal
tender, and when we get rid of the
pernicious theory that silver dollars
must be redeemed in gold the coin
age of these dollars will give us a
currency responsive to our always
increasing population and to the
marvellous development Of our trade.
The west and south are right in
this matter, and they will not COM
promise their rig ghts and the rights
of the people Of the whole country
by sacrificing free coinage for per-
mission to issue poker-chip currency
that is not cash, that will not pay
debts and that, while seeming to in
fate the currency, really contracts
it by increasing the amount of debt
and the consequent demand for gold
which this system makes the only
money of final account; the money
in which all debts must be finally
paid; the money against which all
paper and silver issued would be
made debt.
The free and unlimited coinage
of gold and silver is constitutional
right of the American people, and it
shall not be compromised away nor
traded away to the Napoleons of
finance in New York or the mort
gage dealers of Boston.
The democratic National platform
has defined the attitude of the dem
ocratic party, and when congress
meets its first act should be to pass
an act for the repeal Of the Sherman
act and the establishment of the
free and unlimited coinage of the
precious metals on the basis of the
constitution.
This is right Of the entire Am
erican people, and the time has come
to enforce it. They have been
swindled long enough. The crime
of 1878 must be atoned for and not
made precedent for new robberies
of the people. The control of the
treasury and of the financial policies
of this Nation must be rescued from
the hands of the plutocratic class and
restored to the people.
If, after making this pledge in its
platform, the democratic party could
fail to stand by it, the defeat the
republican party sustained in 1890
and 1892 would be repeated against
the democratic party in 1894 and
1896.
If the democrats fail to pass bill
for the free coinage of gold and
silver, the party will get the worst
defeat party ever got in the history