St. Paul daily globe., 1895-04-16
REPLIES TO GROVER
Silver Cranks Rush Into Print
to Attack Sound Money
Sentiment.
SCREED ON BlMETALLISM.
Press Of the Country Almost
Unanimously Indopses the
Letter Of Cleveland.
SCREED ON BIMETALLISM.
IT STIRS UP SILVER BLAND.
Anarchist Altgeld Also In
duIges in His Usual Criti-
cismS.

C1lCA6O, April lO.-W. II. I1di
vey, chairman of the executive COM
mittee of the Bimetallic league,
whose headquarters are in Chicago,
prepared today the following re-
ply to President Cleveland's letter
to the Chicago committee of busi-
ness men:
Chicago, April 15.-To His Excel
lency, Grover Cleveland, President,
Washington-Dear Sir: In reply to
your letter addressed to commit
tee of business men of this city,
we wish to say that the committee
that waited upon you and persons
who attached their names to the pc
tition such committee presented did
not represent a majority of the
business men and citizens of this
city who take a deep interest in the
welfare of this republic. They rep
resented that class that owns money
and securities payable in money
fixed incomes.
We respectfully submit that your
letter does not present the true
merits of this controversy You
call the attention of the farmers and
wage earners to the fact that ris-
ing prices, while enabling them to
sell their products and labor at a
higher price, will also cause them to
pay equally more for what they
may purchase, but you neglect to
say that your statement is not ap-
plicable to debts. With
PRICES COMING DOWN
regularly and steadily since the de-
monetization of silver our merchants.
manufacturers and the people gener-
ally doing business on a falling mar
ket, so that the time intervening be
tween the purchase of their merchan-
disc or raw materials or placing it
months after the market has removed
the margin they would have otherwise
made. This shrinkage in values added
to the ordinary risk, ar / the expense
of business has led to an ever increas-
ing volume, Of debt to money-Iending
period, until it has increased all told
public and private to about $4,000. .OOO.-
600, or about two-thirds of the total
value of all the property in the United
States.
Money, and these debts payable In
money, have been steadily increasing
in eXchangeable value with the prop
erty of the people. A debt for 81 900
that 200 bushels of wheat would have
paid for ten years ago now REQUIRES
the farmer to furnish 1000 bushels of
wheat In exchange for these dollars
with which to pay the; same debt. The
debts now in existence are principally
old debts. or renewed or refunded
debts, or new debts contracted to paw
other debts the people may have been
forced to contract by reason of the
continued decline in prices. The own
erS or products must now give up
twice as much property to pay their
taxes as in 1873. Seventeen thousand
bushels of wheat would have paid the
presidents salary of $25, 900 in 1873 and
1t now requires 100000 bushels of wheat
to pay your annual salary of S50. .OOO
Taxes have increased as expressed inS
dollars, and have doubled and quad
rupled as measured in the property
the people surrender with which to
pay 1t since 1873. We have constantly
pointed the people to the ever-increas-
ing exchangeable value of the cred
1tors' dollar, and to the reason why it
was increasing, but the influence of
these creditors have dominated your
administration, and you insist on such
a currency as they have established as
A SOUND CURRENCY.
1t means the confiscation of the prop
erty of the people by the sale of prop
erty under mortgages, judgments and
executions. 1t means that fixed in,
comes will wipe out the interest of
stockholders in our railways and cor
porations. If it is an injustice to re,
store prices SO that the people can
exchange their property for a suffi,
cfent number of dollars to pay their
debts and bring happiness and pros
perity to our land again, it was a
greater injustice to destroy the value
of property and enhance the value of
money by demonetization of silver and
the establishment of a single gold
standard. We agree with you
that it is time for the people to reason
together, and that to that end we
respectfully ask that you make 1t
possible for them to get printed copies
of the act of 1892, on which our fore,
fathers based our financial system and
all subsequent acts, together with the
act Of 1873, that reversed the former
policy and acts subsequent thereto. as
well as all statistical and other infor>
nation of an official nature at Wash
ington bearing thereon We but ex-
press your own opinion as president
of the people when we say that all the
people should have the opportunity to
investigate and intelligently pass upon
this proposition. Respectfully,
w. H. HARVEY,
Chairman Bimetallic Executive Com
mittee.