The River Falls times. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1894-1933, 1896-09-22
THE CASE IN COURT.
TO BE DECIDED BY RIGHT, REA-
SON AND FACT.
An Interesting Interview With the
Famous Historian and Scholar, John
Clark Ridpath The Populist-Demo-
cratic Congressional Candidate.

This eminent historian has been
named as Fusion candidate for con-
gress in the Fifth district of Indiana.
He is neither apolitician nor CAPT.
talist, but he is a man of high ability,
close student and a friend OF the
common people. In a recent interview
he used the following language, which
should be pondered we'll by every lover
of our country and it's free institutions:
According to my way of thinking
our government has been steadily drift
ing away from the people and getting
into the power of special interests. The
circle of government has narrowed
and narrowed, till it appears to me the
height of absurdity to call it any longer
a government of the people, for the
people and by the people, | want to
see this process completely reversed.
want to see the government restored
to the people. / believe precisely what
Webster and Theodore Parker and
Lincoln said viz: That our republic
is, or ought to be, government of the
people, for the people and by them
'How can there be any harm in such
a doctrine? In the name of common
sense has it come to pass that patriotic
citizens of the United States Of Ameri-
ca cannot advocate the right of the
people to govern themselves? Has it
come to that that we have, sure
enough, lot of self-constituted mas
tiers who shall tell us what is good for
us and how we shall obtain it? Are
we Americans lot of younglings who
are unable to lead ourselves, but must
be led rather as with string and led
on porridge as with spoon?
among the methods as it seems to
me by which the government is to be
recovered by the people is, first of all,
as the matter now stands, the restora-
ton of our currency. We want our cur
rency system put back precisely where
it was under the statute and constitu-
ton for the first eighty-one years of
our existence as a nation. Our statu-
tory bimetallic system of currency was
taken from us in 1873 by a process
which I do not care to characterize in
fitting terms. Now we propose to have
il back again. The restoration of our
silver money to the place it held before
is the peoples cause, and the people in
this contest are going to triumph. They
are going to triumph in the open light
of .day under the clear CLEAN of light
and truth.
1.-THE silver dollar was of old the unit
of money and account in the United
States. That dollar to this hour has
never been altered by the fraction of
grain in the quantity of pure metal
composing it. Every other coin,
whether gold or silver, has been alter
ed time and again, but the silver unit
never. The silver dollar was the dol
lar of the law and the contract 1t is
to this day the dollar of the law and
the contract To the silver unit all
the rest, both gold and silver, have
been conformed from our first statute
of 1892 to that ill-starred date when
the conspiracy against our old consti-
t,1tional order first declared itself. The
gold eagle of the original statute, and
of all subsequent statutes, was not
made to be SO, but to be of the value
of $40. The half-eagle was not made
to be So, but to be of the value of SIS,
The uuarter-eagle was of the value of
$3.50 and the double eagle was of the
value Of $40. Even the gold dollar of