The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1896-10-07
COMPULSORY DIsHoNE Sly.
Benjamin Harrison Tells How People Would
Be Made Dishones. by Law If Bryan Were

Benjamin Harrison Tells How People woG'd
Be Made Dishones. by Law if Bryan Were
Elected.
In the October number of the "Forum"
Benjamin Harrison, writing upon COM
pulsory Dish nesty" says:
"The free silver leaders do not seem 70
me 10 deny what their opponents assert
namely, that the free coinage of silver at
the ratio of l6 10 will, if the relative
commercial value of gold and silver re-
mains unchanged, wipe out about one
half of every existing promise To pay
money; that every promissory note, bond
savings deposit, bank deposit, building as
sOciatiOn certificate. life insurance policy,
pension, salary and wage contract will be
affected precisely as if note, bond, certif-
icate, deposit book, contract, or pension
certificate had been surrendered for a
new one i'm which WAS written one-half
the amount OF the old. "lIow much ow
est thou unto my Lord?" and he said:
"a hundred measures of Oil" And he
said unto him: Take thy bill, and sit
down quickly, and write fifty"
y
when the silver debate was on in the
Senate in lS9O-9l, that Southern Senat-
or had said To him: Il do not want you To
think that am fool. l know that the
free coinage of silver will scale the debts
that my people owe-and that's what we
want. We are poor and in debt The
Senator thus addressed replied: We'll, |
I -, l. 10, int n
integrity, but at the cost of your moral
integrity When Senator Hill, of New
York, in the Chicago convention, pressed
this objection to free coinage and Senator
Villas, of Wisconsin, declared that free
coinage was robbery, Mr.. Bryan, in a
speech that won him the nomination for
the Presidency, had only this to say in
! reply:
But if he means to say that we can
not change our monetary system without
protecting those who have loaned mon
ey before the change was made, | want
/ to ask him where, in law or i'm morals, he
| can find authority for not protecting the
| debtors when the act of 1873 was passed,
but now insists that we must protect the
| creditors?'
at is the supposed injury to the debt
ors of 1873 that Mr.. Bryan proposes TO re-
] coup from the creditors of 1895. He takes
no account of the fact that the debtor and
| creditor classes are not fixed classes in
this country; that the debtor of 1873 may
be the creditor of lS9i; and that the coun-
ter claim pleaded in behalf of the debtors
| of 1873, would be levied on their own
goods in considerable part, and be paid Il
the men who are supposed to have been
despoiled in 1873. The only bonds that
run p years are railroad and other corpO-
rate bonds. Farm mortgages rarely run
more than five years. The railroads, the
banks, the large corporations, and the
| United States are the great debtors of
| 1873. who are still the debtor class: and
among their creditors are the thrifty poor,
the widow, the orphan and the disabled
| veteran. The proposition is that these
great debtors shall now he permitted to
discharge their obligations in dollars
worth one-half the dollar now in use |
must qualify that statement: but il i not
that they shall be permitted, but compell-
ed. to pay in the debaSed dollar. Dishon-
esty iS not made optional, but compulso-
| ry: for while the United States must re-
ceive its taxes and custom dues, and the
| banks their loans. i'm the new dollar, they
cannot pay in the Old. And more than
all this we are promised legislation that
shall prohibit us from promising 10 pay
in gold the gold We have borrowed. If
the debtor is too honest to set up the de-
fence. | suppose the court will he re-
quired to appoint guardian al ltem to
file the plea for him.
"Only one chance of escape is offered TO
Us from the conclusion that one of the
great historical parties of this country is
now making a campaign for the repudia-
tion of one-h half of all the Indebtedness of
the country-national, corporate and in
dividual-and that is found in the sug-
gestion that free coinage will raise tn
value of silver sufficiently to make the
silver dollar the commercial equivalent
of the gold dollar. This suggestion was
put forth when Mr.. Bryan was in some
measure under the influence of that con-
servative sense of responsibility which Is
[ usually felt by the man who i proposed
for the greatest office instituted by the
constitution. But il j. not a proposition
upon which the free silver advocates
agree, think. IL j not put t. the front
OF the campaign-it was not 50 well
thought of aS to appear in the platform,
either ~ a probable result of free coinage
or even aS thing to be desired. To bor-
row an illustration from :. :. PrentiSs,
Mr.. Bryan uses the suggestion-that sill
yer will rise to "A parity with gold-aS a
heavy bird of flight uses the limb of
dead tree for percn-the bird keeps its
wings extended aud in gentle motion
while it tries the strength of the limb. |
have not observed that Mr.. Bryan has
much argued the point. Indeed, he has
been sharply taken to task by friends for
making it. Ii destroys the whole silver
program. They say that gold has appre-
ciated; that the gap between the silver
and gold dollar has been wholly caused
by the rise in the value of the gold dollar;
that the silver dollar is tn erefJre the old
aud true measure of values.
| But it is not true, a Mr. Bryan seems
To intimate. that the law of 1873 changed
or money STANDARD TO the injury of the
debtor class. The silver dollar was drop
ped from our coinage. bat it was not then
a cheap dollar, but a par dollar; the
37li grains of pure silver in it were a fall
equivalent Is bullion of the 2}.22 grains
of pure gold contained in the gold dol
lar. II is not fair then To liken the