The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-09-10
H0BART'S VIRlLEI LETTER
(continued from First Page.)

Continued from First Page)
 that would reduce 1t by the value of a single dime would be an intolerable wrong to each depositor, Every bank or banker who has accepted the earn ings of these millions of dollars to the credit of our citizens must be required to pay them back in money not one whit less valuable than that which these banks and bankers received in | trust.
 There are, in this country, nearly six thousand building and loan associa- tfons, with shareholders to the number of 1,S00 GOO; and with assets amounting to more than $50O,0O0,0O0 Their aver age of holdings is nearly $900 per capi- ta. and in many casees they represent the savings of men and women who have denied themselves the comforts of 1 life in the hope of being able to accu- mulate enough to buy or build homes of their own. They have aided in the erection of over million of houses, which are now affording comfort and shelter for five millions of our thrifty | people.
 | Free coinage at the arbitrary rate of sixteen ounces of silver to one of gold would be equivalent to the conflscation of nearly half the savings that these people have invested It would be tan- tamount to war upon American home makers. It would be an invasion of "the homes of the provident," and tend l directly to destroy the stimulus to en- deavor and the compensation of honest toll" Every one of the shareholders of these associations is entitled to be repaid in money of the same value which he deposited by weekly pay ments or otherwise in these companies, l No one of them should be made home less because a political party demands a change in the money standard of our country, as an experiment, or as con- cession to selfishness or greed.
 1 The magnitude of the disaster which l would overtaRe these and cognate in- terests becomes the more strikingly ap- parent when considered in the aggre- gate. Stated broadly, the savings banks life insurance and assessment companies, and building loan associa- tions of the country hold in trust S15,- l oUJ, tl ,ooI. l E6 QGpdotlllCilt Ol llAt Cui rency to silver basis, as proposed by the Chicago platform, would wipe out at one blow, approximately S.96S, 504,- S56 of this aggregate. According to the l report of the Department of Agricul- ture. the total value of the main cereal crops in this country in 1894 was $995, 43S, ,107 So that the total sum belong ing to the people, and held in trust in these institutions, which would be ob | liberated by the triumph of free and unlimited silver coinage, would be sew en and one-half times the total value of the annual cereal crop of the United States. The total value of the manu- l factured products of the country for the census year of 1890 was S9372, 5S7, | 2S3. The establishment of silver ba- sis of value, as now proposed, would | entail a loss to these three interests alone equal to eighty-five per cent. of this enormous output of all the manu- fecturing industries of the Union, and would affect directly nearly one-third of it's whole population.
 One hundred and forty millions of dollars per annunn are due to pension CTS of the late war That sum repre-. sents blood spilled and sufferings en- dured in order to preserve this nation from disintegration. In many cases the sums so paid in pensions are ex ceedingly small, in few, if any, are they excessive. The spirit that would deplete these to the extent of a farth- ing is the same that would organize se- dition, destroy the peace and security of the country, punish, rather than re- ward our veteran soldiers, and is un- worthy of the countenance, ,iiby thought or vote, of any patriotic citizen of whatever political faith. No party, until that which met in convention at Chicago, has ever ventured to insult the honored survivors of our struggle for the national life by proposing to scale their pensions horizontally and to pay them hereafter in depreciated dollars worth only fifty-three cents each.
 i The amounts due, in addition to the interests already named, to deposltors and trust companies in national, state and private banks to holders of fire and accident insurance policies, to holders of industrial insurance, where the money deposited or the premiums have been paid In gold or it's equiva- l lent, are so enormous, together with the sums due, and to become due, for state, municipal, county, or other cor poration, that if paid in Appreciated silver or it's equivalent, it would not only entail upon our fellow-country- men a loss in money which has not been equalled in a similar experience since the world began, but it would, at the same time, bring disgrace to our country such as has never befallen any other nation which had the ability to pay it's honest debts. In our condition, and considering our magnificent capac- ity for raising revenue, such wholesale repudiation is without necessity or ex- cuse. No political expediency or party exigency, however pressing, could jus tify so monstrous an act.
 All these deposits and debts must, under the platform of the republican party, be met and adjusted in the best currency the world knows and meas ured by the same standard in which the debts have been contracted or the deposits or payments have been made.
 Still dealing sparingly with figures, of which there is an enormous mass to sustain the position of the advocates of the gold standard of value, cite one more fact, which is officially estab- lished, promised by the truism that