The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-10-05
Bryan s~cnndaiinins Western women.

To the Editor of the indianapolis Journal:
Nobody cares one whit what candidate
Bryan says on any side of any question
involved in the political issues of the
day. except that all linking Democrats
become more and more disguised with his
exhibitions of ignorance and recklessness,
ard try to get farther and farther from
him.. At first Republicans rather enjoyed
his blunders, because they contributed to
the Republican cause, but they have be-
ccme so numerous and mcnstrous. and arc
so cruel to self-respecting Democrats
that the prevailing sentiment among
Republicans now is one of pity akin
to the pity one feels towards an idiot or
an insane person and those who are most
affected by his vagaries. But while this
feeling of indifference prevails as TO what
he may say on any political question his
late scandalous attack upon the women of
the West, made at Hartford, Conn, is
such an outrage upon the most heroic and
noble type of American womanhood, that,
upon any theory that he is sane enough
to be morally responsible for his words,
every honorable Western man Is bound to
denounce him as a ~falsifer, and to resent
the outrage upon our wives and mothers
in every possible manner. no matter what
may be his political affiliations or how.
under the stress of party necessity, he may
be compelled to vote.
No one imagines that Mr.. Bryan or any
OF his keepers expected to win n single
vote, even among the masses of New
England; by his travels and ~harangues
the press; he talked lin the enemy,s coun-
try for .the masses he left behind.
When, therefore, he said in substance in
his Hartford speech that the women of the
West were a half-clad. half-fed, over
worked class who were suffering indescrib-
might save their little homes from the
grasping Eastern capitalists who stood
over them with the threat Of Ioreclosing
the mortgage unless every dollar of interest
and principal was paid in money as good
as that borrowed: and when he appealed TO
the women of New England to use their
influence with their rapacious and heartless
husbar to spare these distressed Western
WON the hard necessity of paying off
their mortgages in good money by provid-
ing ar inferior article that would pay debts
whether It would buy goods or not. he
American had ever before dared to do.
There = no such a condition exist
That d not expect to win a single
vote by this misrepresentation is
mani. from a fact that he must be fa-
miliar with. if he knows half enough to
be even a common country lawyer. namely,
that every dollar of Western farm mort
gage is either the savings Of some old man
or woman, loaned directly. or II is the
morey belonging to the savings banks OF
New England, and therefore the aggregate
savings of thousands of frugal working
men and women who had accumulated
small sums by a frugality hardly known
IN eSteTn IdmlleS, ana the town ana city
mortgages have the same relation to the
local loan associations, whose capitals have
the same genesis. To stand up in a cul-
tured city like Hartford and assert for the
press Of the Nation that Western women
wish to pay such debts In deprecated cur
rency is the most Infamous libel ever ut
tered against a class who, by the conven-
tionalities of society. are powerless TO re-
sist it. 1t is as cowardly as it is scandal
lous.
If Mr.. Bryan is sane enough to be trusted
with a case in q justice-of-the-peace court
he must have known that such an open
avowal of the purpose OF the party he rep
resents to furnish "A kind of money that will
pay debts at their face. but buy goods
only at a discount. If at all, would inev-
itably turn from him every deposition in
every savings bank, and every shareholder
in every building and loan association. and
every man who ever expects to be a credi-
tor. even to the'extent of ~ weeks wages.
There are ten times as many creditors as
debtors in this wide-awake country of ours.
and he must be insane who wishes to cham
pion the cause of the debtor to the harm OF
the creditor. merely to crafty 1.-THE masses
who own nothing and owe nothing. He mad
them anyhow from the beginning. The
Coxeys are all for Bryan. Il. l.. SEE.
indianapolis, Oct. 3.