Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1896-10-24

American who thinks as we do would
dream OF making IL; but Mr.. Bryan and
his kind have shown us that there are un-
fortunately some Americans who need to
be taught the baseness and folly of the at
tack on those who have won success in
letters or science or business.
Bryan's Position Defined.
"The American whose good fortune 1t
has been to have q college training would
never dream for a moment of claiming
any superiority on that account; but he
is bound to demand that neither shall
1t he held against him. Mr.. Bryan seem
ingly thinks 1t should be. He stands on
his own feet as other Americans stand,
If in spite of his advantages he goes
wrong let him be unsparingly Judged, but
IL because of his college training he can
do better in his profession, or can do more
good to his fellows, then he has right
to the credit of such success or such
achievement. He has a right to demand
that exactly as he is given no advantage
so shall he be put at no disadvantage.
If the best men among us are men wholly
without training we demand that they
shall be given the places of highest honor,
IL on the other hand, they have had that
training, we again demand that they shall
lie given the places for which their ability
fits them. The two greatest of all Amerl-
cans, the two Americans who left the
indelible impress of their individuality
upon the history of the world for all time
to come, were Washington, who founded
the republic, and Lincoln, who saved and
perpetuated it. What man, in dealing
with those, the mightiest of our country
men, Is himself so small as to judge them
by aught save those high abilities and
virtues which have made not only our
nation but all mankind forever their
debtors? Who cares which of them II
was that trained himself while splitting
rails and handling flatboat and which
one got his training while managing his
inherited estate? In passing final judg
ment on their services, what is either fact
to us, who rever and honor and take pride
in them and who strive, however feeble,
to follow in the path where these giants
of our people first painfully trod the way?
Instead of a government of the people,
for the people, and by the people, which
we now have, Mr.. Bryan would substitute
a government of mob, by the demagogue,
for the shiftless and dtSorderly and the
criminal and the semi-crminal. The fight
for free silver-that is, the fight for that
species of dishonest money which its ad-
Tocates euphoniously call cheap money
is, after all, only one phase of the fight
against civilization which is being waged
by the opponents of decent government
in this campaign. There are, of course
many sincere and honest men who follow
Mr. Bryan's standard because they believe
that the coinage of free silver would
help the economic situation and consider
this the overshadowing issue of the cam
paign. But these men by themselves
would not be formidable foes. They do not
make up the bulk even of those who fol-
low Mr.. Bryan on the financial Issue alone.
Silverites Are Fiatists.
with the majority OF the men who want
cheap money the silver dollar is desired
not because of any abstruse theories about
the benefits of bimetalism, but because
ic thn nt.-t or I'D faf AIr
Bland, Mr. Weaver, and all the old-time
g..eerbackers, or soft-money men, whose
motto was to wipe out the national debt
&c with a sponge, form the backbone
OF those supporters of Mr.. Bryan who are
drawn to him by his financial theories
These men champion a silver dollar be-
cause it is cheaper than the gold dollar,
just as they would champion copper
dollar rather than one of silver If copper
could be made an issue at the moment.
What they really want is irredeemable
paper money. In other words these curl
Gus beings who sometimes possess good
hearts and sometimes not, but who always
possess foggy brains, think that the money
is of value precisely at the ratio of its
being Valueless. Gold and it's equivalents
possessing the greatest value, and form
ing, therefore, the currency of all prosper
Gus civilized communities. seem to them
undesirable. They want money that is
cheap; that is not so valuable. They like
silver dollar, as compared to gold dol
lar because 1t is worth only half a. much /;
but they like paper dollar even more be-
cause it is not worth anything. They
seem to have curious inverted idea that
the minute We can get money that is not
worth anything 1t will turn out to be able
to purchase everything.
IF there was anything in their theory
one of the most prosperous communities
| that ever existed should have been the con-
falE. A..
the confederacy. There was any amount of
money, such as it was, in the coufederacy
then and prices were on a scale which
should surely have satisfied all who wished
to see them high. A pair of boots cost s., 900
and a carpenters wife who went market
ing had to fill her basket entirely full of
fiat money if she expected to bring it home
half fun of anything else. Nevertheless,
the people were in a condition of wretched-
ness and starvation such as we now can
hardly conceive. 1t really does not mat
ter much to the quantity of the money
in country. II is the quality of the money
that is of Importance and the circum-
| stances of the people. The real point is that
the credit of the country should be good
and that 1t should contain those things
of which money is merely the measure of
value.
Want Debased Judiciary.
But the Bryanites do not depend and
I cannot depend only upon the cry for cheap
money Dishonest finance is only one of
their rallyng cries; they wish also de-
| based judiciary and an executive pledge
| not to interfere with violent mobs. What
| they appeal to is the spirit of social uil-
rest, the spirit of discomfort. They nave
invoked the aid of the mean and somber
| vices of envy, Of hatred for the well-to-do,
and of class and of sectional jealousy. Mr..
| Bryan and the men who stand at his right
and his left hands-Altgeld, Tiilman,
Coxey, Debs. and the rest of the crew--arc
| fit representatives of those forces which
simmer beneath the surface of every
civilized community, and which, If they
| could break out, would destroy not only
property and civilization, but finally even
| themselves. leaving after them a mere
burnt-out waste. as cooled lava over
| flow becomes mere Stag and cinders. ThaS
| seek to rally to their banners all the forces
| that make for social disorder and national
| destruction. They hold out lures to the
| honest man who, through no fault of his
own, has met with crushing disaster, and
| who strikes at what he calls the conditions
of society with the same unreasonable
anger that makes child strike at the