The Coconino weekly sun., 1896-08-27
THE M0RTGAGED FARM Payment of Debts in Debased Cur rency Means Practically
 Repudiation.
A REPRESENTATIVE ANSWERED
Fallacy of What is Considered the Strongest Free Trade
 Argument.

The following letter is one of many that are daily received by the Times Herald. It is supposed to contain the strongest free silver argument that can be addressed to the farmer. and it is used by the free silver orators with inn mense assurance of its success:
 Lincoln, Neb.. Aug. 3.-To the Editor: My land Is encumbered by a mortgage of $lOOO payable In lawful money November l. 1897. l must pay thls debt with the products of my far% |. UnSer on,s ordinary cir, bushels of wheat next year. If there Is no change In our financial system. thls wheat. at 60 cents per bushel. will pay half the hsp1i is reduced to 50 cents by free colnsse a bushei of wheat, without any change in Its value. will be worth 5O-cent dollar. fore, De able to pay the entire debt with the 1000 bushels of wheat. The burden of paying debt of 5000 has doubled since l borrowed the money, l have obeyed the and shall obey them under silver standard The opponents of free coinage of silver are appealing to the laborers the creditors and policy holders to protect their @ own per. for my own Interests who will do 50 for me? ts there any reason why should not vote for the free and unlimited coinage of silver3 Very respectfully. J. W. Binger. - The answer is not far to seek.
 When this farmer borrowed the money it was the equivalent of 5000 in gold. It was the same as if he had received it all in gold $20 pieces. He could have had it that way if he so desired. Per haps he did, for many such loans have been made. When he expended it he got 5000 in gold equivalent. He probably improved his farm to that extent or Lx..,ht .to,e ar ,nochiporv Tn ,yhotovn, way he used it, unless he burned it up or sUuandered it, he got value received. The borrowing and lending was a busi- ness transaction and tlre borrower used the money to promote his business in. terests.
 At no time since that mortgage was executed, for few mortgages run over five years without renewal. would n thousand bushels of wheat have paid it. Suppose we had borrowed the money from q neighboring farmer more pros porous than he. That neighbor would probably have to carry something like two thousand bushels of wheat to town, sell it for thousand dollars, get the money and hand it over to his friend. There have been in the past thousands of such transac- tions. In fact, in every farming community there are few farmers, more thrifty and of better business quail ifications than the others, who always have money to lend out of their savings. They get the money from the products of their farms, but they are not loaning those products. They are lOaning the money, and since 1879 it has been gold or it's equivalent. Why should they not have the same kind of money in re- payment?
 Is 1t any wonder that the advocntes of unlimited free coinage are charged with dishonesty and that silver is called dis honest money, when by the passage of n law thousand 50-cent dollars will be sufficient to discharge n debt of a thou. sand 1OO-cent dollars? Such law amounts to the repudiation of one-half the debt obligations of all the debtors in the United States.
 When Mir. Binger in the above letter says, 1.-The burden of paying a debt of S1OOO has doubled since borrowed the money," he must remember, if he is stat. ing what is true, that the burden is not alone upon him. but upon every other business man who has borrowed money. Merchants and manufacturers feel the same stress of the hard times as the farmers do. It is not because they bor- the burden is greater, but that their earnings and assets have not turned ort as they hoped md expected. Connect. tion and overpr0ductiOn have affected the whole world. but repudiation is moi the proper cure for 1t.
 Honesty is the best policy-as policy merely, without reference to It's morni Quality-for nations as well as for indi.