The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1896-08-13
ARE YOU iNlsUReps
II 30. You sAssia vote wisA oausisa This

Year.
Col. Greene, president Of the Connec-
ticut Mutual Life Insurance company.
has addressed letter to the CSC, 600 pol
icy holders of the company, In which he
says:
1--WE never supposed II necessary to
provide that you should pay your pre-
miums or that we should promise to
pay your policies In any particular kind
or quality of dollars; both-with the
exception of certain Canadian insur-
ances made during the civil war and
while gold was at premium-are pay
able in lawful money" only on the
confident assumption that the American
people are sufficiently honest to keep its
dollars meaning what they were meant
to mean and always had meant
But now comes a political party and
,avows its distinct purpose to make
dollar mean three distinct and widely
different things: "a A gold dollar,
worth as bullion 100 cents anywhere in
the world: (2) silver dollar, worth as
bullion only SO cents at the present
time; (3) all the paper promises of dol
lars to be hereafter issued by the gov
ernment only, redeemable in either 100
cent gold dollars. SO cent Tor less) silver
dollars or in new promises to pay, at
the option of the debtor or redeemer.
You do not need to be told that only one
least valuable of these dollars would re-
main in use. The invariable experience
of all the ages fixes that fact before
hand. sM-
SHOULD this party so led come to
power upon this platform, the govern
ment dues. instead of being paid. as now,
in gold at 100 cents, or in paper, which 1t
now redeems with such gold and never
with silver. would be paid in silver or
the paper redeemed in silver, which sill.
YER we could use in trade at only its
bullion value of SO cents on the dollar.
The greenbacks then being redeemed in
so cent dollars, the government bonds
and their interest being paid in 80 cent
dollars, our national bank currency,
which rests on government bonds, re-
dee1nable in 52-cent greenbacks and the
gold gone from domestic circulation in
to international trade, we shall be OH
the single 52-cent silver dollar basis.
One-hundred-cent gold dollars do not
swap even for Scent dollars of silver.
iron or copper. Fifty-two cents worth
of anything can never buy more than
SO cents worth of anything else. Then
the purchasing power of your policies
will be cut in two.
Coming upon silver basis would in
tensely stimulate again the production
of silver. The ores are now easily acces-
sible, in inexhaustible quantity, from
which silver can be put upon the mar
ket at profit of 40 to so cents an ounce,
at which price "silver dollar" would
be worth 80 to 3s cents, or less than
greenback was during the darkest days
of 1864. Under that stimulus and under
such conditions there can be no possible
doubt that the price of silver world
steadily decline on the average toward
the point at which it can be produced,
which in some mines is said to be al
ready less than 25 cents an ounce, and
inventions and Improvements have not
ceased. Should we come upon silver
basis your policies would for the
present be paid in dollars" worth to
your families only about so cents; and
the great bulk of them would probably
be paid in dollars" worth not more
than from 25 to 35 cents.
1t is therefore our duty to warn You
that by SO much as it was your duty to
make this provision for the protection
Of your families, by. so much is it your
present duty to see, so far as your action
con prevent it, that no part of that pro-
vision is lost to them by being paid in
dollars" which are worth anything
less than the 100 cents in which you
have been paying your premiums and
in which, therefore, you and we sup
posed you were making that provision,
trusting to the personal and political
integrity of the American people to
keep their honor bright and their money
good. We have never supposed--and do
not yet suppose--that the money stand
ard of this great country, producing for
and trading with all the countries Of
the earth, is. at the mercy of a lot Of
people who have lot of cheapening
metal to sell to us to use for new
standard and who have long been care
fully and at great expense organizing
this scheme politically by bringing into
one camp all the discomfort, the jeal-
ousy. envy. nnd hatred which the un-
wise, unthrifty, improvident idle and
self-indulgent are supposed to harbor
toward the self-restrained, industrious,
careful, saving, thrifty and wisely
provident.