The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-08-25
RINGS AS TRUE AS GOLD
HON. F. J. PHELPS ARR1IGNMENT
 OF SILVER ADVOCATES.

No Man is in Honor Bound to Dishonor
 To Support the Chicago Platform or
 Ticket Would be Worse Than Criminal
 Never Republican, But in Times Like
 These Parties Are Lost Sight of-The
 Gravest Crisis in the History of the Ma
 ton.
 Burlington, Vt, Aug. 24.-The Free Press will print tomorrow a letter from Hon. Edward J. Phelps, ex-min- ister to England, to Hon. G. G. Bene- dict. The letter is date Newport, R. l., August 22 1S96," and it says:
 You are right in supposing that un- der existing conditions there are no ties of party and no difference of republi- cans upon questions of policy that will deter me from giving my vote and voice as effectually as can in opposi- tion to the Chicago nomination and platform. I regard the pending presi- dential election as presenting the most dangerous crisis that this country has ever encountered. It does not, in my judgment involve any political con- troversy, nor any question of the su- premacy of party, for such considera- tions are lost sight of in the far greater gravity of the situation.
 .The real issue is one upon which all patriotic men and all who are interest ed in the prosperity and welfare of the country should find themselves upon one side and opposed to a common ene- my. The attack that we have to re- sist is not upon the policy, but upon the life of the nation. For they would take it's life who destroy the means by which it lives-the business of many thousands and the industry of mill lions
 .'On these we are all, rich or poor, high or low, alike dependent That there should be prosperity in some em- ployments and not in others or among one class of people and not among oth- CTS is impossible Business compre- hends all lawful industries. It repre- sents an entire and indivisible system which must prosper or languish as a whole. When it is stimulated all profit when it is depressed all suffer. And
 
 tween business and labor is that the one is the necessary and principal en- ployer of the other. When business fonrishes the laborer is in demand; when 1t declines he stands idle
 Business of whatever sort in a coun- tfy like ours, rich in resources, full of energy and vitality, rests chiefly upon public confidence and 8. sound and sta ble currency. When either is, and much more. when both, are impaired or even gravely threatened, business suffers, general depression comes, labor de- ciines and the wolf approaches many door. Without confidence there can be no credit, no enterprise; capital is boarded, sent abroad or lies idle, and all industries diminish or cease and the surest way the world has ever seen to destroy confidence is to debase the currency and to make it uncertain, from day to day, how much dollar is worth and how much it is going to count for, in the near future, to take away, as is now proposed, one-half of it's value and to set the other half to fluctuating to an indefinite extent.
 There is no man more criminal, or who is worse public enemy, then he who engages in or countenances that infamous and destructive attempt And he is ten-fold criminal who seeks success in it by playing upon the prej- udices and the passions of the less in- telligent and stimulating warfare of classes that most desolating conflict that can come upon any nation, well knowing, for he has all the experience of the world to teach him, that he is not composing the destruction of one class, but of both, since those whom he dupes into serving his purpose must inevitably be the earliest and the worst sufferers by it's consequences.
 Because the less man has, or the less he earns, the more necessary it is to him that the value of that little should be. maintained and made sure, and that the few dollars in his pocket should be as good as there are.
 Aside from the financial delusions of the Chicago platform, it's other feat ures are almost equally objectionable. It proposes to repudiate in great part the national debt; to destroy the pro- lection we enjoy under the supreme court of the United States; to restrain the arm of the national executive from the repression of lawless violence, and even from the preservation of the very agencies of the government itself; to violate the obligation and sanctity of existing contracts, and to restrict the freedom of private contracts in the fu- ture. It seeks, in short, to break down the dykes which the constitution and the law of the land have with long and laborious assiduity raised for the de- fence of the common interests and wei fare of the people, and to let in upon us the seething and polluted flood of communism, mob law, bankruptcy, re- pudiation and anarchy, which it is the chief object of all civilized governments to exclude.
 Gan sensible men contemplate these proposals without perceiving the de- struction they involve?
 "The only men who can profit by the success of this crusade are to the pluto crat silver mine owners already rich al- most beyond the dreams of avarice, who have set it on foot and diligently pro- pagated it, and their followers who, if it prevails will get into office by it's means The rest of us will be com mon sufferers in the general ruin. do not believe there is any man whose experience is large enough or whose imagination is vivid enough to predict the extent of the evil consequences, which if adopted the theories of these