The Monitor-register., 1896-09-04
Insulting the Farmers.

From the Lancaster (Pa.) Morning News.l
There is nothing in the whole free silver
movement quite so exasperating az the
insolent assumption of its managers that
the farmers are with them in their reck-
less attack upon the public credit. Their
constant boast is that the agricultural
classes are united in support of Bryan and
cheap money, and their orators and ews
paper organs put forth the claim, day by
day, that the farmers of the country every.
where indorse the Chicago platform and
will cast their vote as a body for the
Chicago ticket.
There is nowhere the slightest possible
evidence to uphold these boastful claims.
There is, on the contrary, a world of proof
to refute them. Mr.. Bryan's managers
are either foolishly deceived themselves
or making an equally foolish attempt to
deceive the country.
The Chicago platform is a deliberate
and desperate assault upon property
values. IL aims a blow at the security of
OVOLJ luNoSOulOHb, ot tuo oOiNohOJ UVOhy
debtor and at the safety of every creditor.
The enforcement of the principles which
Mr.. Bryan represents would unsettle
values in property of every description.
Personal estate, including stocks, bonds,
| life insurance policies and the shares of
building and loan associations, would be
| the first to suffer, but the distress would
not end there. In a very little while real
estate would feel the depressing influence,
and the greater part of the burden OF
business demoraliz ltion would fall upon
the owners of homes and lands. Taxes,
no longer collectable from deprecated
personal property, would be assessed upon
real property, and the heaviest cost OF
financial disorder and hard times would
be charged up to the men whose earnings
are invested in land.
There is no class or set of our citizens
who are more vitality interested in the
maintenance of sound credits and honest
money than the farmers. A permanent
value in the money which the farmer has
to receive in payment for his products is
as necessary to his success as rain and
sunshine are to his corn fields. A
~huctuatipg currency, with one form OF
money commanding a premium over
another, is more ruinous to his business
interests than weevil in his wheat or foot
rot among bis sheep. 1t renders him
powerless to compute the value of his
grain until be hauls it to market; it pre-
vents anything like an accurate, practical
calculation as to the acreage cost OF his
crops, and it makes him the helpless VIC
tim of spectators in the products of agri-
culture.
The farmer is naturally conservative.
His habits, his associations and bis
position as the representative OF that form
of property which serves as the basis of
all values, naturally incline him to
caution and conservatism. To his inter-
ests sound money means safety while
debased and uncertain money means
depression and loss. The Populist
assumption that he can be tricked into
voting for free silver and the inevitable
Generalization of his own affairs is a
wanton insult to his Intelligence from
d~emagogues who are u~nacquainted with
it's range and clearness. II is prompted
by a ridiculously mistaken notion that
| he can be wheedled into indOrsinga policy
which would inevitably lessen the market
value of his crops and increase the taxes
on his land.