Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1896-04-28
Fixed Incomes and Free Silver.

replying to the appeal for sound mon
ey issued by the New York Chamber
of Commerce, says that resumption of
free coinage of silver is objectional to
persons of fixed incomes.
This is true, but in a broader sense
than intended. Persons of fixed in
comes are not merely millionaires or
army or navy officers. All who labor
in this country, whether the pay be
called salary or wages, are also per-
sons of fixed incomes, and they decid-
eddy object to having their income
cut in half for the benefit of the silver
mine owners.
The blacksmith who makes SIS a
week, the carpenter at So per day,
the salesman ut $1,000 year, the
agricultural laborer at 81 30 day,
the teacher at $40 per week. all are
persons of fixed incomes. They find
their incomes none too large for their
necessities. Why should they not OBJ
ject to slump to silver, free and I'M
limited, for the benefit of those who
own silver, but at loss of so per cent
in their fixed incomes?
1t is the labor of the country that
most determinedly demands the gold
basis; that demands stability in the
to loss of half its fixed income.
Silver mine owners and agents must
reckon with this element, and it is a
mighty element at the ballot box.
Let platform writer's note this fact as
we'll as silver mine capitalists. -
Chicago Times Herald.
1t is almost a wastesof time to COM
ment upon anything that appears in
the Chicago Times Herald with refer
ence to the silver question. If there
is statement against silver SO wild,
so absurd, so .incongruous and SO ut
terly false as not to find place in
the editorial columns of that paper,
it can only be because the financial
editor has not happened to think Of
it. If somebody should suggest to
him that the free coinage of silver
would convert the seventeen year
locusts into an annual pest, or inter.
fere with the orderly procession Of
the equinoxes, we may be sure that
the idea would speedily appear in the
columns, of that paper, with all the
gorgeous coloring that lurid imagi
nation could supply.
Still there is now and then person
who may possibly be misled by the
very boldness of the Tlmes-Herald
statements.
Doubtless this is the theory of the
Sound Currency Committee of the Re
form Club, for the above article ap.
pears in one of its ''sound money
supplements, which are being scat.
tered broadcast over the country.
The idea sought to be conveyed is
that all wage workers have fixed in.
comes"
That is, no matter how greatly the
prices of houses aud everything else
in which carpenter work is done may
fall, the carpenter is still going to gel
the same pay. No matter how much
or little the employer gets for shoeine
horses or making wagons, the black
smiths pay will remain unchanged
though the merchants profits may be
destroyed and he be forced into bank
ruptcy by the fall in the price of hi
| goods, the salesman will draw hi
$1,000 year.
If the farmers wheat drops to q
cents, his corn to 12t, his oats to ant
his potatoes to nothing at all, th'
farm hand is still going to receive hi
monthly pay undiminished.
u Such is the philosophy of the Times
Herald, and by adoption, of tn
Sound money" committee.
| 1t is hard to say whether we SHOULD
smile at the absurdity, or become in
dignant at the bare faced fraud. Per
haps it would be as well to treat
with silent contempt, for there is no
an intelligent workingman in TIL
country who can be deceived by any
thing SO fliInsy and false.
| The working man knows perfectl
, we'll that his employers ability to pa,
him his wages depends upon the pric
obtained for the product of his labor
He knows that the statement that hi
pay is fixed" sis absolutely false
, Every day some great establishment
} either limits production or cuts wage
J because of the low prices of products
He knows that prices are lower thai
J ever before, and that there is NOR
idleness, poverty and suffering extan
than at any previous period in on
country's history.