Kansas City daily journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1892-1897, 1896-09-09
FROM WHITELAW REID.
. Vigorous Letter to His
Ohio Brethren

The Veteran New York Editor Write.
. Vigorous Letter to His
Ohio Brethren.
Canton. o., Sept. S.-The following letter
OF regret from Whitelaw Reid. editor of
the New York Tribune. to Colonel r. B.
brown, president of the Ohio Republican
Oditoriai Association. which met in Cam
ton to-day, and called upon Major McKin.
ley, has been received:
r. B. Brown. Esq, President Ohio Re-
publican Editorial Association, Courier
Office, GAINESVILLE, O.:
Dear Sir:-The remembrance of nv
oirthright among You touches me and am
grateful to the Ohio Republican editors for
1t, much more grateful in fact than for
your friendly persistence in requiring a let
ter when you found I could not come to
make speech. My friend, Mr. Charles
Emory Smith. will do the latter so ac-
ceptahly that you will need neither from
me.
we have had the four years in clover
which our friends the enemy promised in
lssz- The people are quite satisfied that
they have had enough of It. On the old
lines this campaign was already won
Voters were absolutely resolved to go back
to the point where they turned off. four
years ago, and get into the path again
greatest and most widely diffused pros
perity this country ever enjoyed. Assert
ing the power of the common people, they
put forward as their candidate the man
whose very name meant to everyone of
them the policy of those four prosperous
years; and the work was practically done.
Rise of the Repudiationists.
Then burst out the Adullamites. Every
unthinkng or unscrupulous man that was
In distress and every one that was in debt.
and every one that was discontented gath
cred themselves together, not unto David,
alas. but unto Altgeld They captured the
national convention of historic party and
degraded 1t and Inundated their country
by asking the American people to vote
that they would not obey the eighth COM
mandment.
Now, when a question is submitted to a
popular vote, people must infer that there
are two sides to 1t and that they have a
right to vote on whichever side their judg-
ment or their interest inclines. But there
are no two sides to the moral law. No
man, no party has a right to put the
eighth commandment to a popular vote, to
decide through an expression of popular
desire at the polls whether this nation
shall cheat its creditors by paying its debts
at the rate of 50 cents on the dollar, and
whether every private debtor shall be at
liberty to cheat to the same extent the man
who has trusted him. To propose such a
vote and such decision is itself crime.
But having proposed it, the plain people of
the country will sustain the great COM
mandment by a vote which will surprise
those who would break it.
Call n Spade a Spade.
Il hope you Ohio editors will deal with
this matter in STRAIGHTFORWARD fashion and
q 10 IA
nents are as sincere as we are and mean
to be as honest. but they would have done
the wickedest and most immoral public
act since secession. To pay the national
debt in silver: to pay private debts in sill
yer; to nullify and declare invalid any con-
tract, however freely and honestly entered
into, for paying gold; and to turn So cents
worth of silver into dollar at our mints
as often and as long as any mine owners
at home. or any silver-burdened China
man or Hindoo from Asia. chooses to bring
II to us-the effect OF all this is simple rob-
berry. To ask intelligent and honest men
to vote for 1t is to insult them, as well as
to declare that the American people have
the right to overrule Mount Sinai at the
polls and reverse the moral law If they
want to.
Dishonesty never pays. There are a
dozen ways of proving 1t in this case. But,
first. do make the moral nature of the pro-
posals clear to the average voter and there
should De no more doubt then of the YER
dict this honest and Christian nation will
give tnan there is Of to-morrow's SUM-
rise.
A Salt Water Currency Needed.
Then. if you like. it may be well to go
further and show. for instance. that real
nation. not mere colony or Isolated prov
ince, cannot get on with what our New
York candidate for governor called cur
rency that can't stand salt water. We sell
now more than fifteen times as much Of
our products to gold countries as We do to
silver countries. Do We want to take the
corn. corr etc, not as now in gold or its equiv.
alent but in silver bullion, to be given
free coinage at our mints? This becomes
a question not SO much of paying in silver.
but Of taking silver.
rs the great American republic
to seek to hold towards all Europe such
financial relations as India now holds to-
wards England, or worse one? Surely a
fresh water currency is only fit for peo-
pie content with a fresh water commerce.
You can make free silver men see, from
the financial history of every nation that
ever tried Ii, that while making more mon
ey does initiate prices. it works both ways.
It raises prices for what they have to buy,
as well as for what they have to sell, and
is apt TO raise the former first and high
est. The grocer raises his figures long be-
fore the day laborer can have his wages
advanced, ana the ldpOFtT never really
catches up until the inevitable crash comes
and both tumble together. Cheap money
never did cheaper the necessities of life.
but il cheapens the men. Look at Mexico
and China and India
Free Coinage Not Free Distribution.
"Silver men can be made to see, too, that
making more money does not put Il in
their pockets. The bullion owner may get
a hundred times more silver than now
stamped into dollars. but he will not be
an
single one of them. without getting a
round 100 cents worth of wheat for it.
metal is stamped at the mint. he can some
how get a dollar for less than what the
open market calls 100 cents in value.
THE real authors of this movement have
further views. What they want is to find
some way of paying something with moth
ing. II Is merely the old unlimited green
back. fat money craze in a new form 1t
has been tried at one time another by
nearly every nation. and has always led
US in an Ohio campaign. led by an Ohio
soldier whom that campaign made presi-
dent This time 1t will be finally crushed
come president by the largest popular ma
tority OF this generation. Vermont points
the way.
Next to the attack on the eighth COM
mandment in enormity is the attack by our
opponents on the constitution and courts
Ss the Epted States The seT ssans
preston OF riots, the proposal to pack the
supreme court. the attempt to destroy the
validity of contracts-these are not mere
demaRogism. nor even intelligent commun-
Ism: they are the formal naturalization in
the United States OF Russian anarchy. Lit
tie better is the demand that every thrifty.
economical and prosperous citizen shall be
Disseminated against ana taxed, not mere
ly once IKE other people. but twice. first
on what he has, and then on what he
earns.
Let There BE No DisguiseA
Let US be as considerate as you please