Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-10-04

cold facts, it will point out, with fatal
| certainty, who were the classes that COM
bined to demonetize silver, and their
purely selfish purposes.
The holders of the Indebtedness of the
United States at the close of the civil
war in 1866, were the classes who. in 1873,
demanded that this vast sum should be
made payable in gold, in spite OF the fact
that 1t would double the burden of the
debt Of the government, and that 1t re-
pudiated the right of the people. secured
in each and all of our national obliga-
lions, to pay them in coin of the standard
value of the United States, on the 14th
day of July, 1870" That is the language
of every act providing for the issue of
bonds, and the act of January A, 1875, pro-
viding for the resumption of specie pay
ments of all our treasury notes
The holders of this vast mass of debts
and claims, many of them fraudulent,
and all of them eXtortionate, took up a
large part of the bonds that were issued
to refund them, with greenbacks, at SO
cents on the dollar, that had been paid
to them for shoddy clothing for the ar
mics and to bounty jumpers, and for
transportation of troops, and for horses,
wagons, steamboats, and thousands of
other supplies, all at most eXtravagant
prices. We will not stop to balance the
equation between SO cent dollars and 80
cent bonds. The bondholders would con-
slider that immoral, and our patriotism
has made that debt sacred to US, what
ever may be the corruption it represents.
1t is not immoral, however, though it is
painful, at this moment of his triumph,
to quote a letter from Herod (JOhn Sher-
mani who is now the accepted leader of
the republican party next to Mark Han
ma, and is also the leader of that band
of the lost sheep of the house of Israel,
next to Rothschild and Perry Belmont,
who after capturing $4,000, 900 from the
ty6o cT1t fnt. fol- onN nI1gs
ment, have captured the administration,
the creed and the flag of the democratic
party, and have palmed themselves Off at
Indianapolis as the only true, pure and
original democracy. The letter of the
great leader of these two great twin par
ties is as follows.
Note the fact that this letter was in
1868, where our creditors were moving
earnestly to have our bonds made paya-
BILE in coin" and Mr.. Sherman in con-
gress opposed them, because he was
afraid that they intended then, to lay a
plan for compelling the people to pay
them in gold coin:
Dear Sir:-I was pleased to receive
your letter. My personal interests are
the same as yours; but like you, [ do not
intend to be influenced by them. My
construction of the law is the result of
careful examination, and | feel quite sure
an impartial court would affirm it If the
case could be tried before court. l send
you my views as fully stated in a speech.
Your idea is that we propose to repudiate
or violate promise when we offer to re-
deem the principal in legal tenders.
Il think the bondholder violates his
promise when he refuses to take the same
kind of money he paid for the bonds. If
the case is to be tested by law I am right;
If it is to be tested by Jay Cookies adver-
tisements 1 am wrong. 1 hate repudia-
ton or anything like it; but we ought not
to be deferred from doing what is right
by fear of undeserved epithets.
'If under the law as it stands the hold
ers of the five-twenties can only be paid
in gold, then we are regulators if we
propose to pay otherwise. If the bond
holder can legally demand only the kind
of money he paid, then he is a repudiator
and eXtortioner to demand money more
valuable than he gave. Truly yours,
JOHN SHERMAN"
When Mr.. Sherman accuses us as ere
pudiators" for demanding the right to
pay our coin obligations in silver dollars
that were full legal tenders and had the
right of free coinage, when that letter
was written, claiming the hight to pay
them in greenbacks, we can only answer
SHANE, where is thy blush'
When our bonds were issued to refund
this enormous debt, the holders of them
determined that they should never be
paid, but should stand, as the five billions
of British debt stands today, as per-
petual mortgage upon the people of this
great country; the interest on which
should be paid, but the principal, never.
What they expected to gain by this per-
petual mortgage is just what they have
gained by stopping the payment of the
bonds now held by them, and by forcing
upon the people, through the so-called
gold reserve" and "the endless chain"
that is pumping out the gold as fast we
can supply it, the necessity of the in
crease of the national debt by the issue
of more bonds.
Our democratic administration So
called, is helping the international gold
trust to violate in this movement one of
the established canons of the demo-
cratic creed. We hold that "a national
debt is national evil" not to be perpetu-
ated when it can be paid.
The British doctrine is that a national
debt is national blessing, because be-
ing held by the wealthy, titled and ruling
classes, it holds them to their allegiance
while they hold the poorer, industrial
peoples noses to the grind stone. Choose
We between them; but, in choosing, re-
member those people, as good as we are,
and their children. who comprise the
peasantry of Europe, are suffering for
this cause, and beware!
Let us now institute a comparison be-
tween the financial situation of our
country in 1873, when we destroyed sill
yer coin as full legal tender money, and
the financial condition of Great Britain
III 1910, WneI tndC government did the
same thing, and probe the motive in
both cases.
At the close of our war with Great
Britain, in 1916. the Napoleonic wars in
Europe had just closed. Her debt in 1916
was $4,5o0, 100000. All of it owing to her
own people.
In consequence of the Napoleonic wars
the other states of Europe were in debt
in 1916 to the amount of So, 470, 000, 00O of
which, at least s1,OOO,O0 900 was owing to
Great Britain and her people, and she
was then, as she is now, the greatest
creditor nation and the greatest debtor
nation in the world.
While for fifteen years the other great
European powers were fighting Napoleon
with armies in the field, Great Britain
was supplying them with munitions of
war and with money, and her fleets of
merchantmen and her warships were
ruling and robbing the oceans, the islands
and continents, including our ships of
commerce. She came out of those wars
the ruling financial and commercial pow
er of the world. while the states on the
continent were greatly impoverished.
Then she resolved to double the value
of her debt without increasing it's