The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-10-03

Mr.. Bryan has kept up the pretense
pretty well. but at last the mask is
off. Few Of those who are on his side
Of the financial issue have deferred as
long as he the admission that below
all their twaddle about double stand
ards and bimetallism and the rest of
it, there exists, as the only foundation
of their faith, the straight fiat money
theory. When any one of them is
driven into a corner and compelled to
assert the belief that is in him in plain
terms, he comes at last to an avowal
Of the power of legislatures to create
values, and thus lowers himself to the
plane of the greenbacker pure and
simple. Mr.. Bryan has skirted the edge
of this precipice with great care DUR
ing some hundreds of speeches that he
has delivered, but at last, If the news
reports do him justice, as we believe,
he has come out fiat-footed for uncon-
ditional fiatism. He prepared the way
for this in his speech at Wheeling. He
said there that the money question is
not complicated question. He made
this amazing statement; amazing, even
when it comes from a hoy orator."
This money question is not complicated
question: 1t requires no extended study to
understand the principles that underIie
money 1t is so simple that not one person
IN all this audience need go away without
clear understanding of what the question is
dollar Is question of law, and if you
nave more dollars than are necessary to keep
pace with the demand for money then the
dollars VIII fall in purchasing power.
OF course, when a man has gone as
far as this down the toboggan chute
he is going to reach the bottom sooner
or later, and the sooner the better.
We confess that, with all Mr. Bryans
Vagaries, we do not understand how.
a man with his average Of intelligence
how any man who can read and write.
can make the wonderful announce
ment that 1t does not require any ex
tended study to understand the princi-
pies which underlie finance. This is
not matter Of opinion, but Of fact.
one might just as well say that it does
not require any particular knowledge
or astronomy or mathematics to CAL
culate the orbit of a comet or the time
OF Its return; might just as well say
that the mastery of the Hebrew Ian
guage or the binomial theorem or the
inscriptions on Assyrian monuments
are all mere trif1es which an ordinary
laboring man can master for himself
any morning before breakfast, Know
ing as we do how nations have Ia
bored through fhn cir orb, 81
on this financial question; how many
centuries of experience it has taken to
establish few fundamental princi-
pies, and to how large an extent these
are still ignored or defied, any one
with the least acquaintance with hu-
man history will be ready to say that
the question of money, as written in
the history Of it's evolution, and the
problem of money, as presented by its
future, are among the most abstruse
scientific questions that puzzle man
kind
OF course, 1t Is simple enough If you
accept Mr. Bryan's next statement
which is that "a dollar is question of
law" Certainly, if you can settle any
thing by passing a law about
1t, that is easy. And the Populist
candidate for the presidency does not
leave US to infer his meaning, for the
next day at Parkersburg he said: 1.-THE
value of dollar may be increased by
legislation" These two statements
contain the last step forward which we
have been waiting for Mr. Bryan to
take. His shrewder supporters, who
have been trying to fool the people.
were wise enough not to go to that
extreme. They only tell us that legis-
lation can create opportunities" and
conditions" They say that we may.
by passing law, set up a new condi-
ton of affairs. and put in operation
certain forces that will affect values.
Mr.. Bryan leaves the shelter of that
qualified statement and says outright,
first, that the value of a dollar may be
increased by legislation. and, second.
that a dollar is q question of law This