The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1896-10-24

| American who thinks as we do would
| dream OF making Il; but Mr.. Bryan and
| his kind have shown US that there are I'M
fortunately some Americans who need to
| be taught the baseness and folly of the at
| tack on those who have won success In
| letters or science or business.
Bryan's Position Defined.
"The American whose good fortune II
has been to have q college training would
never dream for a moment OF claiming
any superiority on that account; but he
IL bound to demand that neither shall
II he held against him. Mr.. Bryan SEEM
lngly thinks II should be. He stands on
his own feet as other Americans stand.
II in spite of his advantages he goes
wrong let him be unsparlngly Judged, but
II because of bis college training he can
do better In his profession, or can do more
good TO his fellows, then he has a right
10 the credit of such success or such
achievement He has a right 20 demand
that exactly as he Is given no advantage
so shall he be put at no disadvantage.
II the best men among us are men wholly
without training we demand that they
shall be given the places OF highest honor
IL. on the other hand, they have had that
training, we again demand that they shall
he given the places for which their ability
fits them. The two greatest of all Ameri-
cans, the two Americans who left the
indelible Impress of their individuality
upon the history OF the world for all time
to come, were Washington, who founded
the republic, and Lincoln, who saved and
perpetuated II. What man, In dealing
with those, the mightiest of our country
men, is himself so small as to Judge them
by aught save those high abilities and
virtues which have made not only our
nation but all mankind forever their
debtors? Who cares which of them It
was that trained himself while splitting
rails and handling a f,atboat and which
one got his training while managing his
inherited estate? In passing final judg-
ment on their services what Is either fact
TO us, who rever and honor and take pride
I'm them and who strive, however feeble
to follow I'm the path where these giants
OF our people first painfully trod the way?
Instead Of government of the people,
for the people, and by the people, which
we now have, Mr.. Bryan would substitute
government OF mob, by the demagogue.
for the shittless and dsorderly and the
criminal and the semi-criminal. The fight
for free sllyer-that is, the fight FOR that
species of dishonest money which its adj
Tocates euphoniously call cheap money
is, after all, only one phase of the fight
against civilization which is being waged
by the opponents of decent government
In this campaign. There are, of course,
many sincere and honest men who follow
Mr. Bryans standard because they believe
that the coinage OF free silver would
help the economic situation and consider
this the overshadowing issue of the cam
paign. But these men by themselves
would no: be formidable foes. They do not
MAKE mp the bulk even of those who fol-
low Mr. Bryan on the financial issue alone.
siIverites Are Fiatists.
with the majority OF the men who want
cheap money the silver dollar is desired.
nos because of any abstruse theories about
the benefits OF bimetallism, but because
1t is the first step toward fiat money. Mr.,
Bland. Mr.. Weaver and all the old-time
greenba ckers, or soft-money men, whose
motto was TO wipe out the national uebt
as with sponge form the backbone
of those supporters of MIR, Bryan who are
drawn to him by his financial theories.
These men champion silver dollar be-
cause t. Is cheaper than the gold dollar.
just al they would champion a copper
dollar rather than one of silver II copper
could be made an issue at the moment.
What they reaIy want is iIredeemabie
paper money. In other words these cuiI-
OTIS beings who sometimes possess good
hearts and sometimes not, but who always
possess foggy brains think that the money
is OF value precisely at the rasio of its
being valueless. Gold and it's equivalents
possessing the greatest value, and form
ing. therefore the currency of all prosper
Gus civilized communities, seem to them
undesirable. They want money that is
cheap: that Is not so valuable. They like
silver dollar, as compared to gold dol
lar. because it is worth only half as much:
out they like paper dollar even more be-
cause Il is not worth anything. They
seem 20 have n curious inverted idea that
the minute we can get money that Is not
worth anything 1t will turn out to be able
to purchase everything.
IF there was anything in their theory
one OF the most prosperous communities
that ever existed should have been the con-
federate states lust before the collaps OF
the confederacy. There was any amount of
money, such as il was, in the confederacy
then and prices We're on n scale which
should surely have satisfied all who wished
10 see them high. A pair of boots cost SO 600
and a carpenters wife who went market
ing had to I'LL her basket entirely full of
fiat money If she expected to bring 1t home
half full of anything else. Nevertheless,
ire people were in a condition of wretched-
ness and starvation such as we now can
hardly conceive. 1t really does not mat
ter much as to the quantity of the money
In country |. is the quality of the money
that is of Importance and the circum-
stances of the people. The real point is that
the credit of the country should be good
and that Il should contain those things
'f which money is merely the measure of
value.
Want IN Debased judiciary.
But the Bryanites do not depend and
cannot depend only upon the cry for cheap
money. Dishonest finance Is only one of
their rallying cries: they wish also de-
based judiciary and an executive pledge
not to interfere with Violent mobs. WHAT
they appeal to is the spirit OF social I'M
rest, the spirit of discomfort. They nave
invoked the aid OF the mean and somber
vices of envy, Of hatred for the weil-to-do,
and of class and OF sectional jealousy Mr.
Bryan and the men who stand at his right
and his left hands-Altged, Tillman,
Coxey, Debs, and the rest OF the crew--are
tit representatives OF those forces which
simmer beneath the surface of every
civilized community, and which, IL they
could break out, would destroy not only
property and civilzatio but finally even
themselves, leaving after them a mere
burnt-out waste, as cooled lava over
flow becomes mere Stag and cinders They
seek to rally to their banners all the forces
that make for social disorder and national
destruction. They hold out lures to the
honest man who. through no fault of his
own, has met with crushing disaster, and
who strikes at what ne calls the conditions
of society with the same unreasonable
anger that makes a child strike at the
table or door against which IL mas hurt
itself. They dazzle the eye OF the visionary
social reformer (wel known IN every man