Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1896-04-16

our religion. or our creed is asSailed.
The coming presidential campaign
will be fought principally over the
financial issue, unless some unforeseen
thing happens to distract the attention
from cit. Realizing this, what is or
will be the probable outcome :?
The situation as wa see it is this:
The interests of the eastern states, the
manufacturing centers where the
money of this country has been accumu-
lating for many years, through the
policy of protection carried out by the
republican party; where the mortgages
upon the agricultural lands Of the west
and south are held, and where also are
boarded the obligations Of the govern
ment, are for dear money; for kind
of money that is considered OF more
value by these wealthy men because OF
its greater value in foreign countries
where they spend the most Of it; for
gold money or basis of all values. They
are not caring about how much any
other part of the country may suffer by
reason of its inability to adapt itself to
a gold standard system. They sell
their stocks and bonds on a gold
market, buy their fnery and seek their
amusements in gold base country,
and have to have the gold with which
to buy their sons and daughters blue
bellied titles with wives and husbands
thrown in That section-but small
area of territory, but densely populated
and corpulently wealthy-is, and will
be unalterably opposed to any change
in our system Of finances that would
be likely to lessen the value Of a gold
dollar over silver dollar. Those men
will unite, in all parties, in an attempt
to compel the nomination of men and
adoption of platforms in sympathy with
their interests. And they will have
sympathizers IN the west and south;
some of them men whose sordid love OF
wealth has drowned out love of coun-
try and humanity, and others who hope
to curry favor with an element they
= think may possibly win iE their politi
cal plans.
These are the elements that are at
work in the interests of gold monomet-
allism.
Opposed to these elements are what
The entire agricultural interests of the
west and south. We sell most of our
products on a market fixed by silver
using countries. We have no bonds
or stocks; no wealth to throw away in
pleasure trips to Europe; no morbid
desire to buy count or duchess into
our families. We of the west and
south have our wheat fields and corn
fields, our cotton and tobacco planta-
tions, our cattle and hogs, our machine
shops and dairies. We have not asked
for Uncle Sam to levy q. tax on wha;
those eastern fellows consume in order
TO help us on our Infant" farms and
struggling herds; we believe that if
given fair show in the markets of the
world we can maintain ourselves in
respectability and put up our share OF
the necessary expenses of running the
government.
Those of us who are in debt want tC
pay out; but we don't want to pay two
bushels of wheat when we only con
tracted to pay one. We want the
functions of all kinds of money to be
the same, and we believe it un-Ameri.
can, unpatriotic and unjust to have, as
we have today, one kind of money fol
the use OF the wealthy and another
kind fer the poor and moderately we'll
to-do. We believe that silver money
should be made as good as gold money
that it should have al the rights and
privileges of the yellow and more aris
tocratic money. We do not care s
snap whether the Englishman likes sill
yer or not-we know we can get alonf
without him better than he can ge
along without us. The interests of th,
vast territory of the west and south il