The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-08-18
FUNDAMENTAL REGULATION.

TFrom the Daily Financial News, New
York;
In these opening days of our presi-
Dental campaign we hear a great deal
about Reputation. 1.-THE word is used as
glibIy as if it We're as harmless as any
of the epithets employed for campaign
purposes. One would think from the
frequent use of the term by those who
advocate the single gold standard, that
the people who are favoring the full
reconciliation of silver by restoring
it to the free coinage rights which it
always had until they were surrepti-
tiously destroyed in 1873 were work
ing to bring about reputation. The
United States has not a dollar of paper
money that is not redeemabIe in sill
yer, nor has It ever had a dollar of
bonded debt not lawfully payable by
its express terms in coin of the weight
and fneness of 1870 when our unit Of
money was the silver dollar and sill
yer, not gold, was the legal standard
Of measure. When we consider the
vastness of our debt and the fact that
it must be paid out of the profit of
earnings on production. those who talk
so freely of reputation are playing
with fire in place crowded with COM
bustibles.
There is a real reputation, a funda-
mental reputation, the reputation Of
the divine law that ''the laborer is
worthy Of his hire which the people
are now fighting against by trying to
give to the exchange of products the
help of silver which will allow some
profit out of which debt can be paid.
There is no other way to pay it. 1t
must be paid that way or not at all.
The people who are trying to continue
the gold policy, which has already re-
duced prices of products to or below
cost line and which, if kept up, must
inevitably destroy our ability to pay
our debts, are working for reputation
for fundamental reputation, for I'M
dermining the foundation of sound and
solvent conditions. If that is done then
the superstructure of debt built on
the earnings Of the people must crum-
BILE and fall
If we were like England, country
sustain our people, if we are just a
bank and work shop having to go all
over the world for food to supply our
population, for material which their
skill could fashion for mans uses and
which our ships could then distribute
and peddle out; if we owed no debts,
but were the creditor nation of the
world, then, as a cold blooded, bust
ness proposition, irrespective of fair
ness or moral rights. it might be ''busi-
ness to work the people of other coun-
tries and live and get rich off the
sweat of the brows of other people,
and in a cold blooded, business way we
might push that advantage to the linz
it which still permitted our debtors
to earn enough over living expense to
meet interest and principal on credits
we had granted them. If we went fur
Their we should be destroying the goose
that laid the golden egg. The gold
standard people are now choking their
goose mighty tight.
But we are a great continent, with
over seventy millions of people, with
our whole land interlaced by rivers,
checked over by crossing railway lines,
surrounded by seas. Our natural
wealth is only scratched on the out
crop. If we can have fair prices for
our domestic products in our domestic
market, we can carry our debts and
win out. If our increase of production
and exchange is done at constantly
lowering Drices which leave no mar
gin of profit, we must inevitably fail.
Twenty-three years of gold has
brought US to rock bottom conditions.
Under silver we made money. With its
help we shall make money again. Our
people cannot afford to fail. They are,
therefore, determined on a change of
financial policy, on a policy suited to
our needs as a surplus and selling
country which will make solvency
possible. This calls for the help of sill
yer. with full rights of free coinage at
our minis at its existing ratio of 16 to
1. There is nothing dishonest in that
when the rest of the world uses it at
1919 to L That Wall street still talks
about "53 cent dollars" only proves
that Wall street has not yet got out of
the elementary class. Bitter expert
ence, a hard school, has given the pro-
ducers a more advanced education.
|
THE MEASHRE OF Waite