The representative., 1896-09-23

WELL ARGUED.
Judge Brown Of Colorado. Presents Some Un-
answerable Points.
Editor Representative.
Republican speakers and writer's are
urging labOring people to vote against
free silver coinage on the ground that,
having no silver bullion to coin them
selves, free coinage will not help them.
This argument proves too much or
proves nothing. II men must vote
against every policy from which there is
no immediate advantage accruing to
them, no national policy, good or bad,
would ever carry at the polls, for in re-
spect to no question are majority of
the people ever directly interested.
Farmers are often appealed to to vote
for higher tariff, though not being en-
gagged in selling manufactured goods
they cannot hope to derive direct profit
from the protective tariff policy. Fol-
lowing the same rule of action. no ap-
preparation for river and AarbOr i'm
prOvement would ever be sanctioned by
the people, because not one in ten can
ever hope to be benefited directly or in
directly thereby. No steel battleships
would ever be built at public expense,
no agricultural experiment stations
would be maintained by the govern
ment; no public protests against mis-
rule in Armenia, Ireland and Cuba
would be made; treaty relations with
foreign powers could not be entered in
to; pensions could not be provided for
our surviving soldiers and sailors, and
the widows and orphans of our heroic
dead; the encouragement of labor un-
ions by law would be impossible; aims
houses would be unknown; our jails,
penitentiaries. asylums, and refOrma-
tories would tumble into ruins; no court
houses or other public buildings would
be built; courts could not be maintained
or the public records preserved; the
government itself could not be support
ed in any of it's departments: public
highways would not be provided; an
ocean cable would never have been
laid; no slave would ever have been
freed; no crime would ever have been
prosecuted; no private contract could
ever be enforced; no union of states
could ever have existed; no corporations
could secure franchise; life insurance
would be unheard of, missionary sOcie-
ties would disband, the gospel would not
be preached, and last, and worst of all,
no Christ would have come. The test
of direct benefits, applied to any gov
ernmental policy would be destructive
of that policy. Governments could not
exist, because taxes could not be collect
ed; society would be an organized riot,
and even the marital relation and fam
lily ties would be abrogated. To these
sacrifices gold bugs invite the laboring
classes. Brutishness is enlisted against
civilization. BY their fruits ye shall
know them.
We are next told that the PROPOSE
tion to restore free coinage of silver is
vate contract AS announced by Mr..
Mckinley himself, it is the duty of our
government to preserve the purchasing
and debt paying power Of all our dollars
at perfect parity. All the silver dollars
that ever have been coined, and all the
greenbacks that have ever been issued,
are a complete legal tender in the pay
ment Of all debts, so made in obedience
to the public policy of the government
to maintain their equal purchasing and
debt paying power. 1t follows then that
all contracts, the consideration whereof
is payment in gold, are void as being in
contravention of public policy, because
such contract stipulation tends to de-
strOy the parity of the money which it
is the settled policy of government to
maintain. Where the consideration of
a contract is void. the contract itself is
void, because lawful consideration is the
sole requisite of legal contract; hence,
mortgage Or other Indebtedness, con-
tracted to be paid in gold is not obliga-
tory upon the ObligOr for the reason
that such a contract controversies the
public policy to maintain the equal pur-
chasing and debt paying power of all
money issued by the government. When
the courts of this country come to real
ize that their notion is to expound and
apply the law, and not to grant favors,
there will never be another gold Obli-
cation collected in this country. This
is not reputation of legal debts, but re-
pudiation of Illegal debts; reputation
of the doctrine that a money loaner may
violate law in making contract with
out risk of loss. No man can barter
away his right to pay his debts in legal
tender money, for this would be to SUBJ
stitute contract for law. The suprem-
acy of the law must be maintained, and
farmers and other debtors should COM
bine to defeat the collection of any and
every debt not payable by the terms of
the contract in lawful money. Such
contracts are against public policy; are
outrages upon the law guarded rights of
debtors, and no citizen may resist the
collection of such debts without becom-
ing a party to a violation of law.
-Quitman Brown.
Yuma, Colo.