Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1896-10-02
SENATOR pETTIGREw

SENATOR PETTIGREW
1t is justly feared that Senator Petty
grew really very little when he had full
opportunity, and that very expectation
or hope that he will ever grow large
in any largely creditable sense, will be
sadly disappointing. He evidently
means to remain petty still.
If any senator of the United States
has not learned yet that the reason the
alleged United States silver dollar is
justly called "a fifty cent dollar" is be-
cause it contains less than fifty one
cents of money metal value in the mar
kets of the world and that it is upon
this market value alone that it must
depend, under free and unlimited
coinage, he isn't bright enough for
any public position except, perhaps,
the office of a latter day United States
senator.
If, with or in despite of all the maps
that he can make or hire made, he
doesn't know that general farm pro-
ducts, Notwithstanding the continued
cheapening of such products in the
same way that all other products have
been cheapened, that is, by improved
methods of production, have not de-
clined in value since 1873 to any such
extent as silver has declined, nor that
even his one high note, wheat growing
in the United States, was never more
profitable than in 1891, he doesn't
know enough to instruct anyone on
that subject.
If he asks US to believe that he did
loan or might have loaned at any reas-
enable rate of interest in 1893, either
Mexican dollars or United States dol.
lars of any money metal except copper
or nickel, and "isn't kicking" nor
'wouldn't kick" ut having to take Mex
ican dollars in full paymentof their face
value in 1896, we must, in candor, an
swer that, while he is, evidently, a very
poor tinancier, we must be excused
from believing him as poor financier
AS that would prove him.
II he doesn't know that the interest
rate on money is much higher in
Mexico than in the United States and
Europe, and that the Mexican govern.
ment pays IL rate OF interest in gold, on
its gold bonds, from % per cent to 40
per cent higher than is paid by this
country and by the leading nations of
Europe, he doesn't know nearly as
much as he might easily learn by the
least attentive observation.
Ii he thinks he can make it appear
to us that the Chicago convention
proposition to pack the supreme court
to declare constitutional the unjust
and justly unconstitutional double
taxation of property and the income
derived from that property. is in any
true sense parallel to Abraham Lin
coins protest against the Dred Scott
decision before the civil war, he seri-
ously disparages both our intelligence
and our patriotism.
And, if he hopes to convince us that
the "appeal to the avarice of the old
soldiers not to vote away the value of
their PENSIONS is ignoble and unpatri-
otic, while his "appeal to the avarice'
of farmers, to attempt to double the
quoted price of their products. whose
real and even relative values must still
remain the same, is noble and patri-
otic, he is extremely stupid, even for a
United States senator of '96.
After the complete exposure by
Judge Gardner of Senator Pettigrew at
Huron and at st. Louis, any add ed
assurance from the senator that he will
not resign his office is wholly super
fluous
Any such grace of conduct from our
senior United States senator cannot be
reasonably nor justly expected. As
the street urchin would say, "he amt
built that way
ALBERT c. HOPKINS.