San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1896-08-02
SUNDAY. AUGUST 2, 1896.
FIFTY-THREE CENT PEOPLE.

where you will. talk to whom you
will, read what paper you will, go al
most into what church you will, and
editorial and sermon: People have
the fifty-three versus the one hundred
is the theme of conversation, and
run wild over the combination. The
16 to / puzzle has got the drop on or
riot everywhere 1t is at the bottom
of this fifty-three to hundred bust
ness, and the bottom will drop out of
them both together 1t is wonderful
thing to note how the insanity streak
runs riot at times, just like the seven
teen year locusts, or the seven year
itch, or any other of those periodical
ills that come and go like comets on
their eccentric orbits, without any
apparent regularity in their move
\ ments.
But it is not to discourse of this 16
to- or this free silver business that
the text of this morning is announced
as "Fifty-three Cent People" Were
there no fifty-three to a hundred peO-
pie to be found outside of politics,
there would be no need of calling the
attention of the Light congregation to
that matter for politics are left to the
pulpits to discuss and enter not into
the consideration of the Sunday Morn
ing Light discourses. Unfortunately
this is not the case The number of
fifty-three cent people in this world
is legion. They ate as the sands 81
the sea shore for, multitude and
swarm like the pestssf Egypt in the
IA 81 the plague pyer all the face
Of the lan Again Fl their pernicious
lives and examples fine truths of this
plain discourse are 1eveled.
Hundred cent people are compare
lively scarce in any community, and
they are unusually scarce wherever
manhood and true worth of character
are rated below their worth. Fifty
three cent people are as common as
blackberries and growing more so as
the standards of real worth and good
!. ness are lowered. These standards
are lowered wherever professions are
taken for practices and men and
women rated accordingly. What is
more needed in this world today,
much more than a sound standard for
the money issues of the government,
is sound standard by which to meas
ure men and women. Just like the sill
yer issues of the country, upon which
a hundred cents are stamped, when
the coin only contains fifty-three cents
worth of silver, are the people, upon
wlf6iIr church and state and business
circles and social authority have put
the hundred cent stamp when in real
ity the value is only fifty-three.
The business man who represents
what he has to sell by one measure
of value and what he is to buy with
another, is only a fifty-three cent sort
of fellow He has a fictious value
stamped upon him by the home mint
and it deceives. He is wary, plaus-
ible, secret, oily, carries fair out
side, is ostentatious in his moralities
and his charities, careful not to ruftie
the pin feathers of general opinion
and so gains credit for having a hun
.dred cents worth of manhood in him,
when in reality he has only fifty
three. Watch him when he is off his
guard; ndte how his secret actions
belle his open profession; mark how
he is one thing to himself and another
to the public; see how he takes away
with a scoop what he gives with the
hand and you will soon discover that
he only bears the hundred cent brand,
while his true value is fifty-three.
The politician who promises one
thing to his constituents while run
ming for their favor, and deals them
out dose of quite another kind when
he has their votes safely corralled, is
also a fifty-three cent man. Perhaps
it is too much to expect that a politi-
clan should be any more than this,
but politician is not above the neces-
sity of being an honest man. If there
I is anything in the service of the state
y that eompels a man to be rogue and
deal underhandedly, then it is time
that there was real reform in that
service. The Light preacher does not
believe that in serving the people
there is need of either insincerity
or fatality. This country has in pub
lie life today scores of hundred cent
men; men who scorn to deceive or