The Meridional. (Abbeville, La.) 1856-1906, 1896-11-14
The Mask Thrown off.

tors warned the people that the cry
of Sound money uttered so contin-
uously and vociferously by the Re-
~publicans and gold bug Democrats
was a rank delusion. That it really
meant gold and the utter destruction
of the legal tender qualities Of silver
coin. Mckinley has been elected
and before the full extent of his ma
jority is known the gold Sbugs have
boldly thrown off the mask and pro-
claim that that they must have their
pound of flesh. In the Chicago
Record of the 7th appears an article
headed Bankers Talk money" In
this article the policy advocated is
thus outlined:
Congress should provide for re-.
firing all government paper currency
by issuing p per cent fifty year
gold bonds that could be used as a
basis for national bank circulation
at 80 per cent Of their face value,
which circulation should be issued
as fast as the government paper eur.
rency was retired. This done, all
the silver bullion and silver dollars
in the treasury should be sold at the
market price for silver, at the same
time repeating the law that provides
for making silver dollars legal ten
der. If all bank notes below $1O
were withdrawn. | believe the coun-
try could use at least $350.00O,0 600
of silver as subsidiary coin. After
this operation was completed we
would have three kinds of money:
Gold, which would be the only legal
tender; national bank notes and
subsidiary silver. The banks should
be compelled to issue notes under
such restrictions as would make the
business merely pay the cost of do
ing it. In other words, as the price
of their charters, they should be
compelled to issue currency against
bonds deposited, and against which
they should be compelled to keep a
reserve of at least Is per cent in
gold coin. Then provide that the
legal reserve held by all banks
against deposits should be cash in
their own vaults, which cash should
consist either of gold or the notes
of national banks, that under this
plan, would always be redeemahle
in gold"
Here you have it then in all its
undraped brutality What will be
the result of such q financial policy 2.
Every thing will lie ON a gold basis,
Every note. every lease, every obi.
cation will be made payable in
Merely as a Formally" of
course. No one will ever see a gold
coin, any more than be does now.
It is all that the United States gov
eminent can do nov to maintain the
gold reserve. Whenever the. shy~
locks conclude they are hungry
enough to eat a square meal OF suck
ers they will quietly withdraw their
from the banks, lock 1T no in
their strong boxes, sit back and wait
for it to 60 to premium. True they
may not be as greedy az Jim Fiske
and his pals on Black Friday when
gold went to $50, 10 New York, but
will merely be q question of how
much it will take to satisfy these
skinfints. Like the horse Leech's
daughter there is apparently no limit
to the demands Of the money power.
ln their frenzied lust they would de.
stroy the people upon whose pros
perity their own must depend. They
might well pause 10 their madness
long enough to contemplate the rise
and downfall Of the slave power in
the United States. They would
concede nothing, aud their policy of
rule or ruin utterly destroyed slav-|
cry and well nigh wrecked the Re-
r.nhEn