Birmingham state herald., 1896-08-21
II.K ONLY ARo1rr THE cfaEnrroR.


 The single gold standard advocates,
 their employed-and in some instances
 well paid-speakers and newspapers nev-
 CT fail to attempt to show the possible
 effect that free coinage would have on
 the creditor class; but not one of them
 is ever heard calling attention to the ef-
 feet that characterization and constant
 contraction has had and will continue to
 have on the debtor class. They use all
 kinds of illustrations to show how the man who has a claim on some other man
 will be unfairly treated unless his claim Is paid in constantly appreciatlng dollars.
 We never hear or read of them making any effort to show what policy the gov ernment should pursue in order that the
 debtor may be guaranteed the right and
 the privilege of discharging his debt in a money of equal-and only of equal-pur-
 chasing power with the money obtained
 when the debt was contracted.
 As a sample we reproduce the following
 from the first of a series of speeches that
 Mark Hanna has employed w Bourke Cochran, an ex-democrat, to deliver in the
 interest of Mckinley:
 MT. Bryan leads the van in saying that it is the creditor he is after In or y change in the standard of values ena- bles men to cheat their creditors you have to consider the function which mon- ey plays in measuring debts If l had paid $10 for ten yards of cloth to be de- livered to me next week, and in the in- term the government should pass law
 declaring that hereafter the yard meas
 ure should consist of IS inches ana that
 all existing contracts should be settled
 in that system of measure, 1 would be
 oh cd oIft Of half Of the cloth for which
 I had paid"
 It would have been just as easy for Mr.
 Cochran to explain just how change
 in the standard of values enables men to
 cheat" their debtors as it was for him to explain how a change in the standard or values enables men to cheat their cred itors. He could have put his proposition this way: "If had paid $10 for ten yards of cloth to be delivered to me next week,
 and in tho interim the government should
 pass a law declaring that hereafter the
 yard measure should consist of 72 inches
 and that all existing contracts should be
 settled in that system of measure, the
 man from whom bought the cloth would
 be cheated out of as many yards of goods as had paid him for"
 But MT. Cochran, the paid orator by | Hanna for Mckinley, preferred to state | his proposition as he did. He preferred | to show the injustice of a species of leg | islatlon that Is not proposed by MT. Bry- an. desired by his supporters or promised | in tho platform upon which he seeks cleo l tiou. rather than talk about legislative crime that has actually been committed. The yard stick has been heightened as against debtors. This was done when e;I,ro. ,yoS 5ananpatizpd and a financial system which results in constant contraction was entered upon, and
 as the contraction continues the
 yard stick gets longer and longer as against the debtor, but about that side of the question WIT. Bourke Cochran is not employed to talk, hence | he puts his proposition on the other slae' | He talks about how creditors might be wronged but not about how debtors l have been robbed. All of his sort talk l the same way. If to admit silver to our l hints free is to enable debtors to cheat | their creditors, then the striking of silver l down and closing the hints to it enabled
 creditors to cheat their debtors.
 l According to the arguments of all the l single gold standard advocates the peo- l ple represented by MT Bryan are not l asking that an injustice be done, but 1 that a wrong be righted. Every dollar l withdrawn from circulation and every l dollar demanded by the increase of pop ulatlon and the volume of business that l is not promptly forthcoming adds to the l burden of the debtor class just in the same proportion that the dollars With | drawn and the dollars demanded by the | increase in the volume of business and population but not forthcoming, bear to the whole number of dollars in existence when the debt was contracted.
 If MT. Hanna's hired orator should contract, a debt today 1t would require more toll and more of the products of labor to buy the money a year hence under the system he
 is advocating to pay the debt than it would require to obtain that money to- | day. That is simply adding inches to l the ward stick and requiring the debtor | to deliver more cloth than he bargained | to deliver. The yard stick argument so often used by goldbugs is really an ar 1 gument in favor of free coinage.
 | The financial system MT. Cochran is | speaking for has resulted in contrac- | tion of the circulation about $100000,0 900 l | continue at about the same rate. and | every dollar so taken from circulation l adds a little more to the length of the | yard stick by which the debtors labor | and products are to be measured out to
 the creditor. The honest democracy of l the country is contending for system l fair and just to both debtor and creditor | alike, while those who charge them with l being anarchistic and dishonest are con- 1 tending for a system that is constantly adding inches to the yard stick by which
 the labor and products of the debtor are 1 to be measured out to the creditor. The
 lack of honesty is clearly on the side
 that w. Bourke Cochran is speaking for | under contract.
 TUB TO THE LABOR WHALE. It is reliably reported that a certain
 great corpora ton doing business in many
 counties in Alabama has given assurance l +o ire annIovas that in rhe event of Mir.