The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1896-10-28
The Rights of Debtors.

! Witt Warner breaks out 81 know they
talk great deal about the man who con-
trsc'ed debt twenty years ago and who
now finds that 1t takes more wheat or
cotton to pay it. That is not the q ies-
ton he question is, What has he
(the debtor agreed to do; and then
whether, just because he finds it hard TO
keep his agreement, he shall be allowed
to break it ?"
But in advocating the free coinage of
| silver, debtors do not ask to be allowed
to repudiate their agreements. The
agreements they have made they will
not willingly break. So long as it lies
within their power they will fulfill all
their contracts to the letter. Where
they have agreed with their creditors to
pay gold, they will do SO and they d.
not ask that breaking Of contracts such
as won'd enable them to pay silver
where they have contracted to pay gold
shall be lega'iz d. However onerous the
payment of a debt in gold may bee me-,
however urjustly the creditor may have
taken advantage of their necessiti,s TO
force them to write the word gold in
their promises to pay, they will strive to
carry ont the agreements they have en-.
tered into and from such agreements
they do not ask to be relieved.
In advocating the free coinage of silver
those debtors who have made debts pay
able in gold do not ask that they be en-
powered to tender silver dollars to their
creditors in pay ment of such d bis
Where they have agreed to pay gold
they will pay gold, be the cost what it
may, unless indeed the cost is so great as
to exhaust their resources and drive them
into bankruptcy. But while striving to
pay all cur debts as we have agreed, and
paying gold when the contract calls for
such payment, we shall exercise our
right to cheaper gold.
In demanding the opening of our
minis to silver we do not ask that We be
permitted to repudiate all our gold debts
we ask simply that we be permitted to
exercise our power to cheaper gold and
raise prices so that the products of labor
will go further than now towards paying
debts. The coterie of money lenders
who have by almost imperceptible steps
secured control over the finances OF the
world, have stealthily used their influence
and the great power that money confers
to bring about such action, legislative
and other, by the nations of the western
world as has led to a most marked en-
hancement IN the value Of gold Hav-
ing succe ssfully carried out their plans
Of closing the mints of the wes' ern world
to silver and having brought about
syst, n attic discrimination against silver
as money and in favor of gold, in fact
RELOCATING silver to place secondary to
gold, they have 80 increased the demand
for gold while diminishing the demand
for silver as to cause gold to rise and sill
yer to fall, thereby creating a marked
disturbance in the relative values of the
two metals.
And the result OF this skilfully laid
pan has been to greatly lower the price
at which our VIII, at and cotton will be
accepted by on foreign crt dtors in set
Element Of our indebtednes In brief
having forced down the gold price of the
silver which they have NEED of to pay
for their tXcess of imports from silver
using countries, and the purchasing
power of this silver in silver using coun-
tri' not having been disturbed by the
violent and constantly downward fluctu-
atoms in the gold price of silver com
mencing with the closing OF the minis OF
the western world to free coinage they
hav been enabled to buy the wheat and
cotton of silver using countries for a
smaller gold price, just as, year after
year, they have been enabled TO buy
the silver they have need of to send in
payment for smaller price in gold. So
Just as silver has fallen, the British trader
has been enabled to fl his wants in
silver using countries at lower and
lower gold price. Conso quently he has
turned more to such countries for Lis
supplies, the demand for our pro lucts
relatively to the increasing demand for
the products OF others has shown a fall
ing off and our prices have OF course
fallen in proportionate degree with the
fall in the gold price OF silver which has
cheapened the gold cost of everything
bought from silver using countries,
SO we have been obliged, by these
successful efforts OF coterie OF money
lenders in London and their allies in
America, to give more and more OF our
produce year after year to meet the
claims OF our creditors, both at home
and abroad. Under this increasing bur
den our producing class, s-for it is the
producing classes who are the debtor
classes-have struggled on from year to
year, with the load becoming IA, avier
inst as they have struggled EDWARDS and
the creditor classes, bent on reaping to
the fullest extent the fruits OF others
labor, have been successful in further
enhancing the value OF gold.
But at last our debtor classes are pre-
pairing to assert their rights and throw
off the burdens that grind them down
A coterie Of money-lenders have for