The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-09-10

| | conclusion, and but one If possible,
 means, as before intimated, legislative | warrant for the repudiation of all ex-
 isting indebtedness, public and private,
 to the extent of nearly fifty per cent, of
 the face of all such indebtedness It | demands an unlimited volume of fiat | currency, irredeemable, ana therefore
 without any standard value in the mar
 kets of the world Every consideration 1 of public interest and public honor de-
 mands that this proposition should be | rejected by the American people.
 This country cannot afford to give it's sanction to- wholesale spoliation. It
 must still encourage thrift in all proper
 ways It must not only educate its
 children to honor and respect the flag,
 but it should inculcate fidelity to the 1 obligations of personal and national
 honor as we'll Both these great prin- | clpleS should here after be taught In the common schools of the land, and
 the lesson impressed upon those who
 are the voters of to-day and those who
 are to become the interiors of sover- | eign power in this republic. that it is
 neither wise, patriotic nor safe to make political platforms the mediums of as- sault upon property, the peace of socie- | ty and upon civilization itself
 l Until these lessons have been learned
 by our children, and by those who have
 reached the voting age. it can only be surmised what enlightened statesmen
 and political economists will record, as | to the action of party convention | which offers an inducement to national
 dishonesty by a premium of forty-sev
 en cents for every fifty three cents 1 worth of silver that can be extracted l from the bowels of the whole earth with a cordial invitation to all to pro 1 duce it at our hints and accept for it a 1 full silver legal tender dollar of one l hundred cents rated value, to be coined | free of charge and unlimited In quan- 1 tity for private account.
 | But vastly more than mere asser- tion of a purpose to reconstruct the na- l tional currency is suggested by the I Chicago platform. It assumes, in fact, | the form of a revolutionary propagan- disintegration and destruction. This 1 spirit manifested itself in deliberate | proposition to repudiate the plighted public faith, to impair the sanctity of I the obligation of private contracts, to | cripple the credit of the nation by | stripping the government of the power ! to borrow money as the urgent exigen- l cies of the treasury may require, and, 1 in word to overthrow all the founda- l tions of financial and industrial stabil- lity.
 l Nor is this all Not content with a. l proposition to thus debauch the cur l rency and unsettle all conditions of | trade and commerce, the party respOn- l sible for this platform denies the com potency of the government to protect the lives and property of it's citizens against internal disorder and violence. It assails the Judicial muniments
 reared by. the constitution for the de- fense of individual rights and the pub lie welfare, and it even threatens to de-
 stroy the integrity and Independence of | the Supreme court, which has been considered the last refuge of the citizen | against every form of outrage and in | justice
 l In the face of the serious peril which I these propositions embody, it would 1 seem that there could be but one senti- ment among right-thinking citizens, as to the duty of the hour. All men, of whatever party, who believe in law, and have some regard for the sacred- ness of individual and institutional | rights, must unite in defence of the en- l dangered interests of the nation.
 While the financial issue which has been thus considered, and which has come, as the result of the agitation Of 1 recent years, to occupy a peculiar con- ] spieuousness is admittedly of primary l importance there is another question
 which must command careful and seri- ous attention Our financial and busi- i ness condition is at this moment one of 1 almost unprecedented depression. Our
 great industrial system is seriously l paralyzed. Production in many in-
 portant branches of manufaeture has 1 altogether ceased. Capital is without
 remunerative employment Labor is l idle. The revenues of the government
 are insufficient to meet it's ordinary
 and necessary expenses. These condi- I tions are not the result of accident. | They are the outcome of a mistaken
 economic policy deliberately enacted l and applied. It would not be difficult,
 and would not involve any violent dis l turbance of our existing commercial
 system to enact necessary tariff mpdi- l fications along the lines of experience. 1 For the first two fiscal years of the so- | called Mckinley tariff, the receipts
 from customs were $3S0, ,807 ,9S0 At this l writing the Wilson tariff act has been in force for nearly two full fiscal years; l but the. total receipts, actual and esti- mated, cannot exceed $212, Al ,9F A
 steady deficit constantly depicting the
 resources of the government and trenching even upon it's gold reserve,
 has brought about public distrust and business disaster It has, too, necessi-
 tated the sale of $262, ,0Oo, GOO of bonds,
 therelv increasing to that extent the
 national debt. It will be remembered that in no year of the more than a quarter of a century of continuous re-
 publican administration succeeding the | Civil war, when our industries were 1 disintegrated and all the conditions of | business were more or less disturbed,
 was the national debt increased by a
 single dollar; it was, on the contrary,
 steadily and rapidly diminished In