Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1896-10-24

blame so much for hardness of heart a
for softness OF head. They mean well
usually, but they find life a difficult and
disheartenlng problem, and instead of
standing to their work like men, winning If
they must. they whine about the Social
forces being unjust and listen eagerly both
10 the designing scoundrel who exercises
his passions for his own profit and thu
well-meaning enthusiast, who thinks ha
has some patent cure-all to make every ore
happy, These amiable enthusiasts like to
assure the masses of struggling mankind
that their specific will cure all misery and
do away with unequal distribution OF
wealth and secure business success alike
to the deserving and undeserving, just as
quack doctors are willing to guarantee
that their drugs will make all men equally
healthy, equally strong, and equally clear
sighted. If each of them can be allowed
TO try his own patent remedy he is will
Ing to combine with II the remedies Of
others. Mr.. Bryan's own favorite motto
Is reputation, but he is willing to join with
Mr. Altgeld's receipt of free riot and free
pardon of those foulest of criminals, tn I,
men whose crimes take the form of assas-
sination, and even Mr. Tillman's nostrums
which, so far as they can be understood,
include a general attack on everything
that Is decent, whether the abhorred spirit
of decency takes the form of speech or
action. All of them believe, or affect to
believe, that people generally must be
benefited by giving them something which
they have not got: and as of course this
something must be taken from somebody
else, their plan ultimately resolves itself
into rather complicated system of roll
berry by which every class excepting al
ways that which by hard work and thrift
has accumulated a competency is to be BEN
Gifted by the plunder of every other class.
1t is both amusing and melancholy to see
the straits to which the apostles of this
tNsfrn thn mir rttfn thnIy In
any degree endeavor to put it into practice
The present movement was started large
ly in agricultural communities, and in or
der to appeal to those among the farm
ers who were discontented ii was proposed
to allow them to pay all their debts in
money worth half what it is at present.
Wage Farmers Are Creditors.
1.-THE largest creditor class in the
United States is the class of wage -earnerS
and now the populist and popocrat leaders
find themselves awkwardly placed when
they endeavor to explain to the working
man just how he is going to be benefited
10y having his wages cut one-half. They
rarely try to explain 1t at ALL but ATTEMPT
to distract his attention by bowling tat
inasmuch as all well-to-do men and en-
ployers of labor don't like the prospect of
ruin, the less well-to-do and the working
men generally should grasp at ruin with
enthusiasm. 1t is highly typical and char
acteristic of the whole class of maEe-be-
leve social reformers, who want to over
turn our existing civilization so as to
benefit the poor man, that the very first
practical step which they propose to taFe
Is one which would entail more misery aid
suffering on the poor man than all the oD-
preston of the most evil-minded capital
lists could intlct on him in a century. 1t
Is a grim and striking example of what
we have to expect from the men who be-
lieve they can benefit one class by harming
another, and who affect to think that by a
general overthrow of the existing order
of things they may be able to help some de-
serving people upward through the brutal
chaos of pain and hatred which they will
cause. 1t would be difficult to wish bet
Ter object lesson of the truth that these
men are the worst possible foes of the very
people whom they would profess to be-
friend. There are many of us who can
swim in troubled waters; but the poorest,
the most helpless, the men who now fipl
1t most difficult to live, are the very people
who would go down soonest in the storm.
In the hideous welter of social revolll-
rion it is the brutal, reckless and the
criminal who prosper, not the hard-work-
ing, sober and thrifty. Life is often hard
enough at best; it is sometimes quite as
hard for the rich as for the poor, and too
often the good man, the honest and pa
triotic citizen, suffers many blows from
fate and sees some rascalS and some idlers
to increase his misery tenfold is for him
to play into the hands of the scoundrelly
demagogues, to abandon that stern moral
ity without which no man and no nation
can ever permanently succeed, and to
seek a temporary relief for his own real
or imaginary sufferings by plunging others
into misery.
Savings to Be Cut in Two.
MIR. Bryan is very apt to rail at the
nrn nl Ja hnf hn 10 act
class of creditors i'll this country is the
class of wage-earners. Very rich men are
by no means of necessity creditors. The
people who have their little all in savings
banks or in trust companies or who have
life Insurance policies-all of those would
suffer much more than the very rich men
If Mr.. Bryan had his way. But those who
would suffer most would be the wage
earners. Every Saturday night, or at
least one Saturday of each month the
wage-earners, the creditors of the epi-
ployers for the work they have done, a's
paid the wages that are due them. Under
free silver those wages would be worf n
half what they are now. If there wsre
great imitation of the currency the prices
would go up rapidly; wages might atter
awhile go up a little, but they would go UP
very slowly, and never as high as prices,
/ want to call your attention to these sill
| yer coins which L mold in my band. You
will notice that there are four and that
all are nearly the same size. one OF them
is French fiye-franc piece, one of them
is an American dollar, the other two are
| Mexican dollars. In actual worth as bull
| lion these two Mexican dollars are each
| little more valuable than either of the
other two; yet when 1 bought these three
coins the other day l paid, not counting a
commission of ten cents, one of these
| American silver dollars for the five-franc
| piece, and another of the same silver dol
| lars for both these two Mexican dollars
Now, what is the difference between the
American and French coins on the one
| IL nd, and The Mexican on the other? Sup
| ply the fact that in Mexico there Is free
coinage of silver, whereas in France and
| America silver coinage is limited and the
whole currency rests on a gold basis
That is ALL 1t Is not because Mexico is q
weak power England and Russia are
very strong powers; yet Russia cannot
| keep the silver ruble above its market
value. and England could not keep tbs
Indian rupees above theirs any more thar
| Mexico could keep up the value of her
| dollars. Under free coinage our dollar
would be worth about half what 1t is now
1 say about half, because the value of sill
YER fluctuates cOntinually with IN this