The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-09-10

and issued 1870 millions of dollars in silver
certificates, and the price of the metal has
steadily declined from $115 per ounce to 6S
cents per ounce. What win be the decline
when the supply is augmented by the offer
ings OF all the world? The loss upon these
silver purchases to the people Of THIS country
mas now been nearly $50 millions of dollars.
The dollar OF our fathers. about which so
mucn Is said. was an honest dollar, silver
maintaining full parity of intrinsic value
with gold. The fathers would have spurned
and ridculed proposition to make silver
dollar worth only 53 cents stand of equal
value with gold one worth hundred cents.
Ihe experience of all nations proves that any
depreciation, however slight, of another stan
dard, from the parity with gold, has driven
the more valuable one out OF circulation, and
sucn experience In a matter of this kind is
worth much more than mere interested spec
ulative opinion. The fact that few gold coins
are seen in ordinary circulation for domes-
tic uses Is no proof at all that the metal Is
not performing most important function in
business affairs. The foundation of the
house is not always in sight, but the house
would not stand an hour il there were no
foundation. The great enginery that moves
the ocean steamship is not always in view
OF the passenger, but 1t is, all the same, the
propeliing force OF the vessel. without which
1t would soon become a worthless derelict.
1t may be instructive to consider moment
how the free and unlimited coinage of silver
would affect few great interests, and men
ton only enough to demonstrate what a
calamity may lie before us If the platform
formulated at Chicago is permitted to be
carried out.
There are now on deposit in the savings
banks OF thirty-three states and territories Of
this Union the vast sum Of $4,000, ,000, 600.
These are the savings Of almost 5000, 600 de-
posltors. In many cases they represent the
labor and economies of years. Any depreci-
alton in the value of the dollar would de-
fraud every man. woman and child to whom
these savings belong. Every dollar of their
earnings when deposited was worth one hun
dred cents in gold of the present standard of
weight and fineness. Are they not entitled
Afxyn In frIII
so deposited? Any legislation that would
reduce 1t by the value of a single dime
would be an intolerable wrong to each de-
positor Every bank or banker who has
accepted the earnings of these millions of
dollars to the credit of our citizens must be
required to pay them back in money not one
whit less valuable than that which these
banks and bankers received in trust.
There are In this country nearly 5000 build
ing and loan associations, with shareholders
to the number Of 1900 O00 and with assets
amounting to more than $500, 900, 000 Their
average of holdings is nearly $500 per capita,
and in many cases they represent the savings
OF men and women who have denied them
selves the comforts Of life in the hope of
being able to accumulate enough to buy or
build homes of their own. They have aided
in the erection of over million of houses,
which are now affording comfort and shelter
for 5000 600 of our thrifty people.
Free coinage at the arbitrary rate Of 16
ounces Of silver to 1 of gold would be eauiva-
lent to the confiscation Of nearly half the
would be tantamount to upon Anleri-
can home-makers. 1t would be an invasion
OF the homes Of the provident," and tend
directly to destroy the stimulus to endeavor
and the compensation of honest toll" Every
one of the shareholders of these associations
Is entitled to be repaid in money of the same
value which he deposited by weekly payments
or otherwise in these companies. No one
Of them should be made homeless because a
political party demands change in the money
standard of our country as an experiment or
as concession to selfshness or greed
DISASTER THREATENED.
The magnitude of the disaster which would
overtake these and cognate interests becomes
the more strikingly apparent when considered
in the aggregate. Stated broadly the savings
banks, life insurance and assessment com
panies, and building and loan associations of
the country hold in trust SIS, ,309 III 1881. The
debaSement of the currency to a silver basis
as proposed by the Chicago platform, would
wipe out at one blow, approximately, 81, $685.
5O4 S56 Of this aggregate. According to the
report of the department Of agriculture, the
total value of the main cereal crops in this
country in 1894 was 1895, ,43S, 107. So that the
total sum belonging to the people, and held
in trust in these institutions which would
be obliterated by the triumphs of free and
unlimited silver coinage would be seven
and one-half times the total value of the
annual cereal crop of the United States.
The total value of the manufactured products
of the country for the census year Of 1890
was s9.372, ,537, ,283. The establishment of sill
yer basis of value, now proposed. would
entail loss to these three interests alone
equal to S5 per cent of this enormous output Of
all the manufacturing industries of the Union
and would affect directly nearly one-third of
its whole population.
One hundred and forty millions of dol
lars per annum are due to pensioners of the
late war. That sum represents blood spilled
and sufferings endured in order to preserve
this nation from disintegration. In many
ceedingly SMALL in few. if any, are they ex-
cessive The spirit that would deplete these
to the extent of farthing is the same that
would organize sedition. destroy the peace
and security of the country. punish. rather
than reward our veteran soldiers, and is un-
worthy Of the countenance. by thought or
vote, of any patriotic citizen of whatever po-
litical faith. No party, until that which met
in convention at Chicago, has ever ventured
to insult the honored survivors of our struggle
for the national life by proposing to scale
their pensions horizontally and to pay them
hereafter in deprecated dollars worth only
ffty-three cents each.
The amounts due. in addition to the inter
ests already named. to depositors and trust
companies in national, state and private
banks, to holders of fire and accident insur-
ance policies, to holders of industrial insur-
ance where the money deposited the prem
iums have been paid in gold or its equiv
alent are so enormous, together with the
sums due for state, municipal, county or
other corporate debts, that If paid in depre-
ciated silver or its equivalent 1t would not
only entail upon our fellow-countrymen loss
In money which has not been equalled in
similar experience since the world began. but
it would, at the same time. bring a disgrace 20
country such as has never befallen any
other nation which had the ability to pay it's
honest debts. In our condition, and consider
ing our magnificent capacity for raising rev.
enue, such wholesale reputation is without
necessity or excuse. No political expediency
or party exigency, however pressing, could
Justify monstrous an act.
All these deposits and debts must under
the platform Of the Republican party, be
met and adjusted in the best currency the
world knows, and measured by the same
standard in which the debts have been con-
tracted or the deposits or payments have been
made.
Still dealing sparingly with figures, Of
which there is an enormous mass to sustain
the position of the advocates of the gold
standard of value, cite one more fact, which
is officially established promised by the tru-
ism that there is no better test of the growth
of country's prosperity than its increase in
the decade between 1880 and $780, during
which we had our existing gold standard,
and were under the conditions that
supervened from the act of 1873, the per cap
ita ownings of this country increased from
$50 to 1,036. In those ten years the aggre-
gate increase of the wealth of our country
was $21 1876, ,000, 900, being so per cent In excess
of the increase for any previous ten years
since 1850, and at the amazing rate of over
two thousand millions Of dollars year. The
trainers Of the Chicago platform in the face
of this fact, and of the enormous increase
over Great Britain, during this same gold
standard decade of our country's foreign
trade and its production of iron, coal and
other great symbols of national strength and
progress, assert that our monetary standard
Is mot only un-American but anti-Ameri-
can" and that 1t has brought us Unto hnan-
cial servitude to London It is impossible
to imagine an assertion more reckless and in
defensible.
LOGICAL CONCLUSION.
The proposition for free and unlimited sill
yer coinage, carried to its logical conclusion
and but one is possible. means. as before in
| timated, legislative warrant for the repudia-