The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-08-06

A communication which we publish
this morning is at least remarkable in
one frank statement that it contains
see who will lose by free coinage out
side of creditors, possessors of cash
money and owners of gold" Inasmuch
as he himself favors free coinage, he
seems to imply that losses on the part
Of these persons would be Of no partic-
ular consequence. AS to the owners Of
gold, we fail exactly to see how a man
Is going to lose by policy which is
certain to put premium upon some
thing that he possesses. Nothing is
better assured than that. Under free
coinage, the gold dollar would rise in
price by an amount corresponding to
of the silver dollar below IT'S face val
ue. The owner of gold would be in
precisely the same position then as
the farmer with a thousand bushels of
wheat in his grara.p, If the market
price of wheat should run up from SO
to 100 per cent. He could stand great
deal of that kind of loss.
Why creditor should have
no rights that debtor Is
bound to respect Is something
that is still unintelligible to us. A
creditor is a person who has loaned
capital in some form to another per
q rrrlo II hoo
urgent solicitation and with the free
consent and approval of the contract
and its terms by the party borrowing.
Now, while we admit that the posi-
ton of debtor is an uncomfortable and
unfortunate one, we have not di scov-
cred anything in it that juslifies he
breaking of promises or the repudia-
ton of obligations This would hold
true even II there had been, as The
free silver men claim, a change in the
terms of the contract since it's forma-
ton. Looking at it from the other side
we suppose that no man would claim
that, If the purchasing power of dol
lar had deprecated largely within the
last twenty years, every debtor would
be in honor bound to demand legisla-
ton requiring him to repay double
the amount stipulated in his contract
If man leases a house for a term of
five years, and, during the first year
of his occupancy, a local Improvement
is put In which makes the leasehold
double its former cash value, he does
not make a tender of that much money
additional to his landlord.
All bargains are made subject to such
changes as fnhere In the mutabiIftv Of
human affairs. An attempt to change
contracts during their life to CORE
spond with real or imagined changes
in the conditions meantime would he
to throw all business into confusion.
70 imam tha door TO unlimited fraud
and to make dealings between man
and man impossible. If 1t were true
that the purchasing power of money
had appreciated during the last quar-
ter of century by reason of change
In the value Of gold, which we think
cannot be asserted, except to a linn
tied extent, the amount of such chang
ing, happening within the life of any
particular contract, could hardly be
measured. The debts that exist today.
outside Of a few longtime bonds of
railroad and public corporations. were
contracted within a comparatively re-
cent time. 1t does not seem to us
worth while to so legislate as to de-
stroy confidence, impair credit and
revolutionize business, in order to re-
lieve corporations from obligations
that they have entered into and are
ready to perform.
The amazing thing about this side
of the discussion is the comparative
Indifference with which many mef> re-