The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-09-06

ard greatness has been mutually built ur
by the harmonious COOPERATION OF tneir
blood of the East and the West mingled on
the common battlefields of the Republic
And now comes this young man. as if We
had not suffered enough from sectional
strife, and talks of .enemy's country
They seek to excite what they call the
poor against what they call the rich'-in
this land of great opportunities for all
where, now ever, so many of the poor
of Yesterday are among the rich of to-day
and so many of the rich of to-day may be
among the poor of tomorrow Their candi-
date for the presidency presented char
acteristic spectacle when, some time ago.
he was kindly shown over the farm of the
Governor of New York, who is himself an
example of the poor country boy risen by
able and honest effort to affiuence and dis
tinction: and when that candidate then
straightway in a public speech drew in
vjdfoiIs cornpa risons between the elegant
houses on the Hudson and the poor cabins
in the West--teaching not the true Amer1-
can lesson of success won by honest INDUS
try, thrift and enterprise, put the lesson \
that those who have succeeded less should
hate and fight those who have succeeded
more-a lesson utterly, un-American, I'M
patriotic and abominable.
They tell the farmer-most cruel decep-
tion-that he must and will be made indie
pendent of the world abroad, while year
worth of our agricultural products must
seek the foreign market to find purchasers.
and while nothing Will nurt the f ID i tbe
more than a serious impairment O! the
great home market by a business crisis.
They proclaim themselves the speciaaI
champions of the toiling masses, White
their policy would rob the laboEing man
of half of his savings and grievously cur :
tail the value of his wages. Am l asked
if the silver standard will relatively re-
duce wages why so many employers of Ia
Dor are opposed to it? The reason IS OBJ
vious: because, aside from all consldera-
lions of sentiment, the prudent employers
of labor know that they would lose vastly
more through the disastrous disturbance OF
business sure to be caused by fee-colnage
victory than they could possibly gain by
the cheapening of labor And would not
the toiling masses suffer most from that
the laboring man who tells him that ne can
profit by the ruin of his employer
THE REAL USURERS.
''They pretend to be enemies of plutoc-
racy. and advocate a policy which, if 1
were a selfish, INSCRIPTIONS money shark,
l should welcome as my finest opportunity.
Am / asked. if a free-coinage victory would
play into the hands of the money power,
why the bankers and capitalists are gen.
orally against ii? The answer is simple.
No doubt there are those among the rich
of the country who will not scruple at any
means to increase their wealth; who will
crush their competitors with a rude and
lawless hand, and take any advantage or
the embarraSSmentS of the unfortunate.
They are the men who VIII thrive most s III, In
general ruin. But the vast majority of our
bankers and business potentateS are hon
orable men who are proud of their good
name: who treat honestly and fairly those
with whom they deal; who do not see their
interest in the ruin of their customers, and
who know that their own prosperity is
safest in the prosperity of all. Therefore
they against free coinage 1t is not
these. but the worst element of the money
real pitiless bloodsuckers in the West and
South are their own village usurers, their
own sharpers around the courthouSes, not
the legitimate banker or Eastern capitalist.
denOuncp
ard the device of monarchs and aristo-
Gratis, while the history of the world teach
es that from time immemorial 1t vas a
favorite trick of INSCRIPTIONS CeSpotS to
fleece their subjects by debasing the coin
Of the realm, and that those wac, out of
the monetary confusion evolved fixed
standards of values and money that would
not cheat, have always been ranked among
the most meritorious Generators Of man
kind, and especially Of the poor end weak.
They seek to indame the vanity of the
American people by telling them that we
any monetary system we like and to keep
up the value of our money without regard
to all the world abroad-while our own
history teaches us that a century ago the
American people were strong enough to
shake off the yoke of Great Britain, but
not strong enough to save their continental
money from declining in value to nothing;
that in recent times the American people
were strong enough to subdue gigantic
rebellion but not strong enough 10 keep
an indefinite issue of greenbacks at par,
and that this Republic may be able to con-
make twice two five, to make itself rich
er by watering it's currency.
They speak Of the silver dollar as the
money of the Constitution, while they must
know that there is not one single word in
the Constitution which, honestly interpret
ed could justify such a claim
They invoke for their cause the names
of Jefferson and jackson, while every read
er of history, knows that Jefferson and
wild scheme of creating by, law a false
value, and would have kicked out of their
presence as public. nuisance any one
seriously advocating it.
Such things the free-coinage agitators
tell the American people, assuming them
to be without intelligence Far worse are
the appeals they address to them, assuming
them to be without moral sense.
They have been teaching the people that
things have fallen about one-half since the
so-called decentralization year, 1871 have
shown why those prices have fallen-it is
not equitable that debtors should be held
to pay more than half the amount of their
debts in gold, that they should be released
in correspondence with the decline of prices
and that it would therefore be right to re-
duce by free-silver coinage the value of
the debt-paying money by one-half.
WOULD DESTROY ALL CONFIDENCE.
IF this were right as a general princi-
pie, how would it apply to our debts? OF
our government bonds there are very few
that do not bear date long after 1873 Many
of them were sold for the express purpose
OIL bringing SOlQ into the treasury. Our
corporation bonds are, as a rule also quite
young. But all these obligations are
mere trifle compared with the immense
sums of debt contracted in the daily trans
actions of business. The average life of a
real estate mortgage is only five years But
probably nine-tenths of all debts are
those between firm and firm between
man and man in the form of notes. bills
of exchange, wage bills and open accounts,
the amount of which is incalculable. How
old are these? From one hour to six
months. How would the principle apply
any. shadow, or pretense, or bubble of
equity in scaling them down so per cent,
by a sudden drop from the gold to the sill
yer basis?
Subject the principle Itself to a simple
test. When | contract debt, / owe what
Our whole business life and social fabric,
all human intercourse, rests upon the bind
ing force of such understandings Unless
1T be expressly understood, has the debtor
the slightest right or reason to demand
that the creditor shall be satisfied with a
less amount in payment If wheat or cotton
something else had meanwhile declined
in price? If so. would not the creditor
also have the right to demand that the
debtor should pay moro in proportion If
wheat or cotton or something else mean
while had risen in price? If neither of
them had thought of proposing or of ac-
cepting so adventurous contract how can
such claims be justified if based upon
mere secret mental reservation or an ar
bitrary afterthought? 1t is not monStrouS
that such an assumption should be taken
as a warrant for the reduction at one
sweep of all debts by a debasement of the
standard of value?
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