Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1896-10-08
GOTTSCHALK BROS, PFOpr'S.
Business Men and Silver.
New York Journal,l

One of the current assumptions of
the Hanna calculators is that busi-
ness man is necessarily good man.
1t remains to be seen how much jus.
tice there is in this claim. Business
men are no more disposed, we should
say, to run in herds like sheep than
are other citizens 1t is commonly
taken for granted that business men
have more than the average share of
intelligence. That being SO, many of
them may be expected to resent the
notion that they get their opinions
on the money question from their
environment and not by Independent
examination of the arguments for
and against the democratic proposal
to reopen the mints to silver and
give the country again the constitu-
tional currency whichis possessed up
to 1878.
No man, whether he be in business
or politics, journalism or hod-carry-
ing, can have opinions entitled to
respect unless he founds them in
knowledge and reason. The business
man who is for the gold standard
merely because he is q business man
and follows the fashion, is not So 5e
citizen, and he is not a good business
man either.
! Why should the ordinary merchant,
or manufactures conceive that his in
terest lies with the very rich few,
with the corporations and multi-mill
ionaries-the small tribe of monopo-
lists who are the leaders in and the
\ l,n
crushing movement for the concen-
tration of the oountry's wealth? No
business man can make money unless
he has customers, and a financial
system which renders his customers
so poor that they can afford to buy
only the necessaries of life is as bad
for him as for them. His pecuniary
interest in promoting the genera
prosperity is as great as theirs.
The business man is not endowed
with magical means of being right on
the money question. To understand
| it he must study it, and those who
adopt the idea that they will not err
ii they echo and act on the opinions
OF the money magnates are no wiser
than other persons who let their
nelghbors or newspaper organs do
their thinking for them.
1t is natural that Mr.. J. Pierpont
Morgan, for example, should uphold
the gold standard. 1t has caused the
issuance of bonds, and put millions in
Mr.. Morgan's pocket. But does the
business community profit by a
money system which increases the
public debt in time of peace, leaves
the Federal treasury defenceless
against speculative buccaneers,
chokes industry, throws armies of
consumers out of work, depreciates
the value of every species of property
except the gold dollar, and brings
paralysis upon the industrial and
commercial energies of the nationi
And if the existing money system
does this why should business men
be counted on to vote for it's prepetua-
ton? Do they become fools when
they leave their factories and stores
and offer to take hand in politics?
Regard for the country's good and
their own pockets should make OF
business men students of finance in
this campaign. Let them give an in
telligent hearing to the advocates of
free silver and ascertain just what it
is that those advocates propose to do
if given power. To take the misrep-
reservations of the Mckinley press
as the basis for building a Judgment
on the right or wrong, good or evil,
OF free silver coinage is as sensible as
would have been a perusal of south
ern newspaper in the SOS to learn
the truth about the northern aboliti
tionists.
The overthrow Of the gold standard
is as vital to the welfare of business
men as it is to that of the wage
workers.