The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1895-04-26
A TWO-EDGED SWORD.

A TWO=EDuED SWOKU.
The burden of the cry of the cheap
money advocates is that if the view
of the silver extremists could be car
ried out, it would make the matter of
debt-paying far easier. OF course, il
5O-cent dollar could be made to do
the work of one worth 100 cents it
would remove the burdens OF the
debtor class one-half. In other words,
they would be obliged to pay but 5O
cents for every one dollar in value
they have received. 1t does not re-
uuire any great amount OF SmartneSs
to see that the Inauguration of such a
scheme would at once unsettle BUSH
ness in all other departments, for it
would simply mean reputation OF a
large portion of the Indebtedness of
the business world, and must carry
with it all the evils which repudia-
tion always implies. The doctrine
which the cheap money advocates put
forth would also imply that debtors
and creditors are two distinct classes !;
that debtor is never a creditor, nor
a creditor a debtor, which at once
shows the faliacy of the position they
take to every thinking person. The
Minneapolis Tribune, in discussing the
matter, says:
Who are the debtors? Do the
debtors all consist of one class? and
the the creditors of another? Could
a line Of separation be drawn and the
debtors placed on one side and the
creditors on another? Not by any
means. The two classes are ineXtric-
ably mixed. There are just as many
creditors as debtors, and nearly every
debtor is also creditor Nor are the
creditor class confined to the rich or
even moderately prosperous Every
depOSitOr in a savings bank is cred
itOr. Every man who has wages COM
ing to him, every farmer who has
money coming to him on horse trade
or for the sale of other products, is a
creditor. Every professional man who
is owed fees is a creditor. Every de-
pOsitOr in a bank, even if his balance
is not more than 81; every owner of
share in any kind of company, every
owner of a state or municipal bond,
every possessor of life insurance
policy, is a creditor. The funds of
widows and orphans, as rule, are in
vested in some sort of securities, and
these widows and orphans are depend
ent upon the income derived from
interest on bonds and mortgages for
their livelihood. They are creditors.
If they are paid in deprecated cur
rency, which would cheat them out of
half their fortunes, it would reduce
many of them to suffering, and even
to beggary.
The Tribune further shows where
the carrying out of such policy
would strike at the mass of the peo-
pie, as well as the capitalists, against
whom the cheap money advocates con-
tinually rail. The deposits in the
savings banks are held mostly by the
laboring classes. In other words, the
laborer who has few hundred dollars
saved up in these institutions is the
creditor who would suffer. The widow
and orphan would also be cut the
same way, and would feel 1T more, for
they are not in shape to protect them
selves in the least, while the large
capitalists are. 1t is the mass of the
people-the small depositors and
small investors-who would suffer the
most. For their hard-earned dollars,
which they have struggled to lay
aside for a rainy day or for the COM
fort of old age, they would receive a
dollar whose purchasing power would
be reduced from one-third to one-half
from the one they laid aside. The
attempt through the agency of cheap
money to repudiate One-half of ones
debts would prove most expensive
experiment.