Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1896-09-24

WE take the following from a
speech made by John Begg at Lima
last week. Mr.. B. is a farmer of
Allen county and is republican. but
he can talk right from the shoulder
and can tell some plain pretty
| truths:
What about free coinage?
They say it will initiate the currency
and cheaper the dollar to the labor
ing man. When you increase the
volume OF the currency, you increase
the value of everything. Everybody
pays more. You will increase the
wages and you will increase the num-
Der of hours of labor that men may
have. l am laboring man and was
brought up by laboring man. My
father was raised in one of the gold
standard countries and he left it and
came to bimetallic America that his
boys might have better chance.
Mr.. Harrison, in his recent speech,
said; 1.-THE farmer will be nominally
benefited by free coinage, but the
Byiee Of every thing else will arise
andtbe farmer may not really be
benefited" If it was not ex-presi-
dent Harrison who had said that,
would call him demagogue. Let,
us see how much in error Mr.. Harri-
son is by this bit of my personal ex-
perience In 1873 l sold my wheat
for $3.50 per bushel. and bought a
pair of boots for $500. 1t took 4s
bushels of wheat to pay for the boots.
In 1895 | sold my wheat for so cents
bushel and paid 5000 for exactly
the same kind of boots. 1t took 12
bushels of wheat to pay for them
under a single gold standard, as
against Al bushels under a double
standard.
The man who has not sense enough
to figure that has not sense enough
to feed himself and run at large.
The prices paid the lawyer, the doe
tor or the preacher for their services
are as much now as they were in
1878, and in some cases more, but
the price paid the farmer for his
labor is cut in half. And when we
demand more money and better
prices they call us ''repudiationists"
and anarchists
Let me give you another homely
illustration of how the gold bug pol
icy is operating when they interpret
the word coin" in public obligations
to mean gold, and demand that that
metal alone be rendered in payment
thereof. Suppose | borrow $25, 900
from neighbor and agree to pay
him in grain divided equally between
wheat and corn, the ratio of the two
being about to 2. | work hard on
my farm, develop it, raise large
corps of wheat and corn and with
this grain commence paying off my
Indebtedness according to agreement.
The creditor sees that I am making
money, and that I will soon be out
of debt and will perhaps have money
to loan, so that will then be a COM
petitor of his in the money loaning
business. He finally concludes to put
an arbitrary Interpretation on the
word grain and as wheat is the most
valuable says that only wheat is
grain, and corn is not, and l must
pay my entire obligation in wheat,
even if l have to go to England to
get zibf eff do not do so he calls me
a siEepudiationist" or an anarchist"
But ifI am repudiationist he is
thief. want to ask all intelligent
men in this audience if such an inter
probation of the word grain be put
upon such contract, how long
would it be before corn would decline
in price. Yet that is just the treat
ment that has been given to gold
and silver.