The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1896-08-21
OTR N4TION4L CREDIT.


1t was said of Alexander Hami ton,
"He touched the dead corpse of public
credit, and it spraug upon its feet. ="
A Hamiltonian rejuvenator of tiuan-
ciaI corpses could do brisk business
at the present day.
Our Republican friends say that it
is only by the maintenance of our
national credit, ut home and abroad
and By keeping up the faith of our
people in the finances of the country,
that we can hope to BE- prosperous.
This proposition is no doubt true,
but when they go on further, and say
that the present financial policy and
the single gold standard is the only
logical and proper way to obtain and
maintain the national credit, it is then
that we fail to see the logic or sense
in their reasoning.
How can we hope, by borrowing
every year hundred millions or more
to keep this dead corpse. the gold
standard on its feet, to be able much
longer to have credit and maintain
confidence either at home or in foreign
countries? No individual or set of
men could long maintain their credit
by annually borrowing a sum equal
to the aggregate of their running eX-
penses. Yet Mckinley and his party
are pledged to the maintenance of the
present bond-issuing policy, mortgag
ing posterity in order TO maintain arti-
fetal prosperity at the present time.
National bankruptcy and inevitable
financial crisis is the only possible
result which will follow such policy.
If an individual had pursued the same
plan as is being pursued by our gov
eminent, and which Mckinley is
pledged to continue, he would have
gone into insolvency before now. 1t
is only the high standing of our
government and the faith in its in
tegrity that has permitted this bond
issuing and gold draining policy to
go on as long as it has without more
serious results. But the present hard
times is simply the forerunner of what
must follow il the disastrous policy is
persisted in.
President f. B. Andrews, of Brown
University, one of the leading politi-
Cal economists of the present day.and
until recently bimetalist who favored
universal binetalisrn, says in II re-
cent article that inevitable ruin will
follow the present policy. That
never, since the days of slavery
has the press displayed such
utter disregard of truth. That
the money power, seated in London,
cities, has the bankers and press al
most entirely under its influence
President Andrews stands high as
financial writer, and approaches this
question, not from Il standpoint of
politics, but from that of student of
finance,
Ask any of your Republican friends
whom you happen to meet. if they
are not for free coinage OF silver, what
does Mr.. Mckinley and his party
propose to give the country as the
solution of our financial depression
Even the most optimistic will admit
that the times are hard, and that
something ought to be done to remedy
matters. Believing us he does in the
principles of his party, and standing
on the st. Louis platform, he has
nothing to say and nothing to offer
other than the policy that has been
leading the farmer down the toboggan
slide which ends in Il mortgages
sale and insolvency.
And yet some supposed Democrats
have the hardihood to say to other
Democrats, "You must vote for Ne
kinley, if you would be prosperous"
In the face of recent experience with
socalled Republican reformation in
Maryland, ii is very hard to be be
lieve that Democrats who advise this
are not merely joking. And who are
the persons that are heraldiug this
gratuItOuS advice Lar ana near are
they the men who think and work for
the average American citizen, for the
men who earn their bread by the
sweat of their brow. or are these Re
pnblco- Mckinley Democrats gener
ally, Il MOI almost without exception,
men who are of IA creditor class ana
who are identified with large trusts,
monopoies, or corporations:
Our national credit and faith in our
ability to meet all obligations Shout
and must be maintained, not only in
America, but among foreign nations.
We have no sympathy with those, no
matter of what party, who rGue tntt
we do not care what foreign n,tions