The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-10-26
A DOUBLE WRONG.

A DOUBLE WRONG.
A correspondent, whose letter appears
elsewhere. calls attention to what
strikes every one as the central in
justice and crime of the free silver
proposition; namely, that it proposes to
cut in two the, holdings of those who
have earned and saved. In this coun-
try. as the slightest investigation
shows this includes a large share of
the most helpless as we'll as the
most deserving class in the COM
munity. To put theedilemma in the ia
vorite form adopted by Mr. Bryan, If
free coinage willsraise the price of sill
Yer to $1.29 per ounce, it will neither
help nor hurt any one The silver dol
lar, being precisely as valuable as the
gold dollar. will be equally difficult to
get, and will be equally what Mr.. Bry-
an and Mr.. Altgeld and the rest of
them call a '20O-cent dollar" Certainly
1t is not worth while to try such a gil
gantie experiment for a. result that
would be nil. If, on the contrary, the
price of silver does not rise to $129
per ounce, then the silver dollar will
De cheap one, worth something be-
tween 30 cents and 100 cents; just what,
nobody can possibly tell In that event
all investments which would be paya-
BILE in such deprecated coins would be
scaled down by the difference between
Its face value and it's bullion value
This loss would affect nearly all our
people. The creditors in this country
outnumber the debtors ten to one.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to
say one thousand to one; since almost
every man is worker in some capacity
or other, and, as such, a creditor I'M
til his labor is paid for
In addition to what our correspondent
points out, there is another aspect
about this wrong proposed to be per-
petrated upon our people, which,, even
from the Bryan point of view, is sin
gularly atrocious. These people say
that the gold dollar is an approaching
coin; that its purchasing power has
oeen increasing slowly but steadily in
the markets, and that the amount OF
this rise has been taken from the debt
or and bestowed upon the creditor.
Now, if we were to assume, for the
sake OF argument, that this is true, al
though it is most strenuously denied
ment, yet, even in such event. the ap-
plication of the, proposed remedy would
be as Illogical as to shoot one man be-
cause some other man had committed
murder. 1t is admitted by the free
silver people that if their hopes are
realized another injustice will be done;
only this time it will be the creditor
who suffers. IF we go to the standard
of cheap dollar, the man who must
take payment for a debt in these CHEAP
dollars loses a portion of his DUE Now
he is, in very few cases, the same man
who was gamer by the alleged rise in
the purchasing power of the gold dol
lar. Debts, except those owed by mu-
inequalities and great corporations, are
not stable quantities. Debtor and cred
itor change places with amazing rapid
ity in this country, and the debtor of
today is the creditor Of tomorrow.
Therefore, even if the Bryan recipe
were all that it claims to be, the most
that it could do would be to balance
one injustice by another It answers
what it claims to be a wrong upon
past debtors by advising an
other wrong upon Il present. and
future creditors. The debtors
since 1878 have nothing to complain
of if they have not discharged their
debts, but still owe them. If they
have discharged them, they have paid
the alleged increase in money value
and nothing now can help them. In
the tumble. Of fallacies which passes
with the Bryanites for finance the
most prominent feature is the assertion
that assumed wrong already consur1-
mated can be redressed by committing
another wrong that, will affect set of
entirely innocent people without MAX
ing restitution7fto anybody who has
suffered. Measured by the standards
of sound finance, the whole free coin
age scheme is preposterous: but, meas
ured even by its own propositions and
pretenses, it fares little better.