The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1894-06-20
JOHN SHERMAN. FINANCIER.


Sentinel to task for asserting that John
Sherman has never been on the right
side of any financial or economic ques-
tion." and says:
| We have heard Senator Sherman
| called cold, selfish, and even dishonest,
| but this is the first time we have heard
| that he has never been right on any
financial or economic question. Such
| statements as these are undignifed. 1t
! never does any harm TO be candid.
If the Enquirer has, in fact, failed
to hear this inspiring bit of news. it
must be due to a very limited range
Of reading matter in the Enquirer office,
for John Sherman's record has been ex-
posed again and again, not only in news
papers, but also IN the magazines of the
country. Possibly it might have been
better to say that he had been on all
sides of every question that had come
up since he has been in public life, for,
of course, there is probability that he
would hit on the right side Of some of
them in the course of his vacillating
and inconsistent career. We can, per-
| haps, aid the Enquirer somewhat by
referring it to one or two articles in
which Mr.. Sherman's remarkable versa
tility has been elaborated 1t will find
| quite a lengthy one in the American
| Journal of Politics for August, 1898,
| which is we'll worth reading, as it goes
over Sherman's connection with currency
legislation quite fully and shows how he
turned about and jumped about in the
manner of Jim Crow. For instance, on
the question of redeeming the national
bonds in greenbacks, he declared:
1 have no doubt that the government
of the United States has now the right
| to pay the principal of the five-twenty
| bonds as they mature or become re-
| deemable, in the lawful money of the
| United States. The law makes no dis
| elimination in favor of bOndholders. The
| only discrimination made is in regard to
interest.-Congression Globe, vol. 81, p.
| 1883.
And he repeatedly declared not only
that the government had the right to do
this. but also that it would be done. He
held this position all through 1868, and
yet when Senator Williams. on March
3, 1862 introduced his bill ito strengthen
the public credit" which recited that
the United States is solemnly pledged
to the payment in coin" of these same
bonds. Mr.. Sherman voted for it. And
so with other matters which the Enquir-
er will find set forth in the article men,
toned.
In the June number, 1898, of the Jour-
| Of Dol
will find a partial record of Mr.. Sher-
mans positions on the silver question. SO
far as known he began as a gold mono
metallist. He wrote to Mr.. Ruggles, our
representative to the Paris monetary
conference Of 1867, advocating that view,
and. subsequently. after various efforts,
secured the passage of the act of 1873
demonetizing silver without letting his
congressional colleagues know what he
was doing. In 1876 he made an elaborate
speech for the reconciliation of silver.
and the redemption Of the greenbacks in
silver dollars. In 1873 he was very in
strumental in defeating the original
Bland bill for the reconciliation of sill
.
| to Mr.. Groesbeck, one of our delegates
to the international monetary confer
ence of that year. that recommendation
was a mistake, and that he was very
much in favor Of the restoration of BIZ
metalIism. In 1890 he fathered that
piece of superlative imbecility, the Sher-
man silver purchase law. and last year
he was an active advocate of its uncon-
ditiOnal repeal This year he announces
himself in favor of restoration of BIZ
metaIlism at the present market ratio
say about 1 to 80 In 1870, and for sew
eral years later, he was a warm advo-
cate of an income tax and opposed to
tariff. Now he is reversed.
In all this whirligig record he has not
hesitated to attempt to sustain his repu-
tation for consistency by the most shame
less falsehood. The latest instance of
this, that has come under our notice, was
few days ago when he solemnly de-
cIared in the senate that the sugar trust
was not in existence when he helped
frame the Mckinley law in $780, The
| falsity of this is notorious, and Senator
Sherman himself had stated in the SEN
/ ate only two days before that the sugar
trust had been in existence for seven
years. We believe there is not another
man in public life for whom such a
glaring, open, and utterly shameless
record of mendacity can be established
by public records as for this leading
fnancier of the republican party. and
we are certain that there is no exagger-
alton in the statement, made by Kan
sas populist orator few days since. that
John Sherman has done more injury to
the country than Jeff Davis did"
POPULIsT COWARDICE.
Some of our contemporaries are de-