The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-09-08
REID WRITES.
He Tells Republican Editors or
the SO Cent Dollar
Proposed Action the Most Wick
ed Since Secession
SAYS TRIBUNE EDITOR
Praises McKinley's Front Door
step Speeches.
Wants the Tariff Made the Is
sue of the Times.

Canton, o. Sept 8-The following
letter from Whitelaw Reid to Col r.
b Brown, president of the Ohio Re
publican Editorial association, which
win meet in Canton today and call up
on Governor Mckinley has been re
ceived:
r.. B. Brown. President Ohio Re
publican Editorial Association, COur-
Ter Office, GAINESVILLE, Ohio, Dear Sir:
The remembrance of my birthright
touches me and am grateful to the
Ohio Republican editors for it, much
more grateful to them, in fact, than
for your friendly persistence in re-
curing a. letter when you found L
could not come to make a speech My
friend, Mr.. Charles Emory Smith, will
do the latter so acceptably that you
will need neither from me.
1--WE have had the four years in clO-
YER which our friends, the enemy,
promised in 1892. The people are quite
satisfied that they have had enough of
It. In the old lines this campaign was
already won. Voters were absolutely
resolved to go back to the point where
they turned off four years ago and get
into the path again which from 1888
to 1892 has led them the most widely
difsused prosperity this country ever
enjoyed Asserting the power of the
common people they put forward their
candidate, the man whose very name
meant to everyone of them the policy
of those four prosperous years; and the
EFOIk was DracI1callY done
Then burst out the dull Antics. Ezv-
cry thinking or INSCRIPTIONS man that
was in distress and every one that was
in debt degraded and Inundated their
country by asking the people to vote
that ticket but not obey the eighth
commandment.
Now when a question is submitted
10 a popular vote people must infer
that there are two sides to it and they
have a right to vote on whichever side
they prefer. But there are no two
#Fns. Al
party, has right to put the eighth
commandment to a popular vote to
decide the expression of popular desires
at the polls whether this nation shall
escheW its credit by paying its debts
with the rate of fifty three cents on
the dollar and whether every private
debtor shall be at liberty to escheW to
the same extent the man who has
trusted him They propose such a vote
and such a decision is itself a crime.
But having proposed it. the plain DeO-
pie of the country will sustain the
great commandment by a vote which
viii surprise those who would Break
it.
T hope your Ohio daughters will act
with this matter with straightforward
action. Many of our opponents are as
sincere as we are and mean to be as
honest but we think they have done
the WfckedeSt and most immoral pub
lie act since secession. To pay the ma
uona1 debt in silver, to pay private
debts IN silver: to nullify and declare
invalid any contract, however freely
and honestly entered into, for paying
gold; and to turn fifty three cents
worth of silver into a dollar at our
a1ints as often and as long as any mine
owner at home or any silver burdened
Chlnaman, or HindOO from Asia
chooses to bring it to us: the effect of
all this is simply robbery. To ask in
telligent and honest men to vote for
1t is to insult them as we'll as to de-
clare the people have the right to over
rule Mount Sinai at the polls and re
verse the moral law if they want.
dishonesty never pays. There are
a dozen ways of proving it in this case
But first do make the moral nature of
the proposals clear to the average vO-
ter and there should be no more doubt
then of the verdict this honest and
Christian nation will give than there
Is of tomOrrOw's sunrise.
Then if you like it may be well to
5 60 further and show, for instance. that
we are a nation, not Isolated and can
not get on with what our New York
candidate for governor called a cur
rency that can't stand salt water. We
sen now more than nfteen times as
much of our products to gold countries
as we do to the silver countries. Do
we want to take the pay for this wheat,
beef, pork, cotton, corn, etc, not as
now in gold or its equivalent, but in sill
yer bullion to be given free coinage at
our minis? This becomes q. question
not so much of paying silver, but of
taking silver.
rs the great American public to seek
to hold towards all Europe such circu-
1atiOn as India now holds towards Eng
land or a worse one? Surely a fresh
water currency is only fit for a people
content with a fresh water COM
merce.
You can make free silver men see,
from the financial history of every ma
ton that ever tried it, that while max
ing more money does initiate pric-
es, it works both ways. It raises prices
for what they have to buy as we'll as
for what they have to sell; and is apt
to raise the paper first and highest.
The grocer raises his figures long be
fore the day laborer can have his wag-
es advanced, and the laborer never
really catches up until the inevitable
crash comes and both tumble together.
Cheap money never did cheaper the
necessities of life, but it cheapens the
man. Look at Mexico, and China and
India
silver men can be made to see, too.
that making more money does not put
At in their pockets. The bullion owner
may get a hundred times more silver
than now stamped into dollars, but he
wills not be any more willing to give
the wheat raiseFs more The authors
Of this movement have further views
What they want is to find some way OF
paying something with nothing. It is
merely the old unlimited greenback fiat
money craze in q new form. It has
been tried at one time or another by
nearly every nation and has always led
TO ruin 1t met its first great defeat