The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1896-10-24

blame 30 much for hardness Of heart a.
| for softness OF head. They mean wei
usually. but they find life difficult and
disheartening problem. and instead Of
| standing to their work like men. winning q
| they must, they whine about the social
forces being unjust and listen eagerly both
| 70 the designing scoundrel who exercises
| his passions for his own profit and tbs
well-meaning enthusiast, who thinks n
has some patent cure-all to make every ore
happy. These amiable enthusiasts like t.
assure the masses of struggling mankind
that their specific will cure all misery and
do away with unequal distribution OF
wealth and secure business success alike
to the deserving and undeserving. just as
quack doctors are willing to guarantee
that their drugs will make all men equally
healthy, equally strong, and equally clear
sighted. If each of them can be allowed
TO try his own patent remedy he Is wilt
ing to combine with 1t the remedies Of
others. Mr.. Bryan's own favorite motto
is Reputation, but he is willing to join witt,
Mr.. Altgcld's receipt of free riot and free
pardon OF those foulest OF criminals tn
men whose crimes take the form of assas-
sination, and even Mr.. Tillman's nostrums.
which. so far as they can be understood,
include a general attack on everything
that is decent. whether the abhorrcd spirit
of decency takes the form of speech or
action. All of them believe, or affect to
believe, that people generally must be
beAetited by giving them something which
they have not got and as OF course this
something must be taken from somebody
else, tneir plan ultimately resolves itself
into a rather complicated system Of roll
berry by which every class excepting al
ways that which by hard work and thrift
has accumulated a competency ~ 80 Se Sen
Gifted by the plumber OF every other class.
It is both amusing and melancholy TO see
.t. x.,Ixt kA ,nGeI ~ y
doctrine are reduced the minute they in
any degree endeavor to put II into practice.
The present movement was started large
ly in agricultural communities, and In or
der to appeal TO those among the farm
ers who were discontinued II was proposed
to allow them to pay all their debts In
money worth half what 1t is at present.
Wage Farmers Are Creditors.
1.-THE largest creditor class in the
United States is the class of wage-earners,
and now the popullst and popocrat leaders
find themselves awkwardly placed when
they endeavor to explain to the working
man just how he is going to be benefited
by having his wages cut one-half. They
rarely try to explain ii at all, but attempt
to distract his attention by bowling that
inasmuch as all wel-to-do men and en-
ployers of labor don't like the prospect OF
ruin the less well-to-do and the working
men generally should grasp at ruin with
enthusiasm. IT is highly typical and char
acteristic of the whole class of make-be-
lieve social reformers, who want to over
turn our existing civilization so as to
benefit the poor man, that the very first
practical step which they propose to tale
Is one which would entail more misery ard
suffering on the poor man than all the Oh
preston of the most evil-minded capital
lists could intlict on him in a century. IT
is a grim and striking example of what
We have to expect from the men who be-
lieve they can benefit one class by harnring
another, and who affect to think that by a
general overthrow of the existing order
of things they may be able to help some de-
serving people upward through the brutal
chaos of pain and hatred which they will
cause. 1t would be difficult to wish bet
ter object lesson of the truth that these
men are the worst possible foes of the very
people whom they would profess to be-
friend. There are many of us who can
swim in troubled waters: but the poorest,
the most helpless. the men who now finJ
1t most difficult to live. are the very people
who would go down soonest in the storm.
In the hideous weller of social revclu-
ton it is the brutal, reckless ana the
criminal who prosper, not the hard-work-
ing, sober and thrifty. Life is often hard
enough at best: 1t is sometimes quite as
hard for the rich as for the poor, and too
often the good man, the honest and pa
fate and sees some rascals and some idlers
prosper undeservedly but the surest way
to increase his misery tenfold for him
TO play into the hands Of the scoundrelly
demagogues, to abandon that stern moral
ity without which no man and no nation
can ever permanently succeed, and II
seek a temporary relief for his own real
or imaginary sufferings by plunging others
into misery.
Savings to Be Cut in Two.
Mr.. Bryan is very apt TO rail at the
class of creditors in this country is the
class of wage-earners. Very rich men are
by no means OF necessity creditors. The
people who have their little all in savings
banks or in trust companies, or who have
life insurance policies-au OF those would
suffer much more than the very rich men
II Mr.. Bryan had his way. But those who
would suffer most would be the wage
earners. Every Saturday night. or at
least one Saturday of each month the
wage-earners, the creditors of the en-
ploycrs for the work they have done. are
paid the wages that are due them. Under
free silver those wages would be worth
half what they are now. If there were
a great imitation of the currency the prices
would go up rapidly: wages might after
awhile SO up little, but they would go up
very slowly, and never as high as prices
yer coins which hold in my hand. You
VIII notice that there are four and that
all are nearly the same size. One of them
is French fivo-franc piece, one Of them
Is an American dollar, the other two are
Mexican dollars. In actual worth as bull
lion these two Mexican dollars are each
little more valuable than either of the
other two: yet when L bought these three
coins the other day paid, not counting
commission of ten cents, one of these
American silver dollars for the fve-franc
piece, and another of the same silver dol
lars for both these two Mexican dollars
Now, what is the difference between the
American and French coins on the one
hand, and the Mexican on the other? Sup
ply the fact that in hlexicc there is free
coinage of silver, whereas in France and
America silver coinage is limited and the
whole currency rests on a gold basis.
That is all. Ii Is not because Mexico is a
weak power. England and Russia are
very strong powers; yet Russia cannot
keep the silver rdble above its market
value, and England could not keep the
Indian rupees above theirs any more than
Mexico could keep up the value of her
dollars. Under free coinage our dollar
would be worth about half what 1t is now.
1 say about half. because the value of sill
yer huctuates continually, with on the
whole downward tendency.
"At the beginning of this campaign the