San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1896-08-14
ARE YOU INsuREo7
II So. You should Vote with Caution This
Year.

ticut Mutual Life Insurance company,
has addressed a letter to the 250,0C0 pol
icy holders of the company, in which he
says:
I'VE never supposed it 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-
aness made during the civil war and
while geld 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 political party and
avows its distinct purpose to make
dollar mean three distinct and widely
different things: (D A gold dollar,
worth as bullion 100 cents anywhere in
the world; (2) silver dollar, worth as
bullion only 50 cents at the present
time; (3) all the paper promises of dol
lars to be hereafter issued by the gov
eminent 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.
SHOULD this party 50 led come to
power upon this platform, the govern
mept dues, instead of being paid, as now,
in gold at 100 cents, or in paper, which it
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-
deemable in 52-cent greenbacks and the
gold gone from domestic circulation in
to international trade, we shall be on
the single Scent silver dollar basis.
observation-disclosures gold dollars do not
swap even for 52-oent 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 a silver basis would in
tensely stimulate again the production
of silver. The ores are now easily access
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 80 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 III some mines is said to be al
ready less than % 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 rs to 35 cents.
|. 1t is therefore our duty to warn } GU
Sthat by so much as it was your duty to
Snake this provision for the protection
n your families, by so much is it your
iAesent duty to see, so far as your action
CT prevent it, that no part of that pro-
visixp is lost to them by being paid in
"dollers' which are worth anything
less sNan the 100 cents in which you
have fo7en paying your premiums and
in whJua, therefore, you and we sup
posed ecu were making that provision,
trusting Ito the personal and political
integritsS of the American people to
keep Their honor bright and their money
good. we eave never supposed-and do
not yet suit kose-that the money stand
ard of this Ieat country, producing for
and trading with all the countries Of
the earth, Mat the mercy of lot of
people who fave lot of cheapenirg
metal to sellaR US to use for a new
standard and 4 10 have long been care
fully and at gtit expense organizing
this scheme polscaally by bringing into
one camp all tlen1iscontent, the jeal-
ousy, envy, and ,skred which the. un-
wise, unthrifty, fnprovident, idle and
self-induIgent are opposed to harbor
toward the self-restc ned, industrious,
careful. saving, tt y and wisely
Drovidenf Hltra...t