Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1896-09-10
Democratic Northwest.
AND HENRY COUNTY NEWS.
SILVER REPLY
OR 4 81 YEAR POLICY-HOLDER,
To the Gold Circular of the Con-
necticut Mutual Life Insur-
apce Company.

DENVER, Col, Aug. 10, '96.
To THE PUBLIC:
The writer recently received from
the Connecticut Mutual Life Insur-
ance Company, circular which sa-
vored SO strongly of injustice to the
cause of bimetallism that he is con-
strained to reply. That the public
may understand fully the matter in
controversy l publish the *circular
and my reply in the following pages.
T. J. COLLARS.
I*The. cirular is omitted for want of space
DENVER, Colo, Aug. 10th, '96.
JACOB L. GREENE, ESQ.,,
President Connecticut Mutual LTt
Insurance Company, Hartford, Conn
SIR
am in receipt of notice of the 3 ST
annual payment of premium on my
policy No. 6O,o59, due August 10th
which payment have made to your
general agent at Chicago. In the
same envelope | found a copy of your
remarkable circular of July 18th, last.
| have read 1t over and over with
much care, and for the purpose of
comprahending as clearly as possible
not only the purport of its contents,
but the motive which prompted its
preparation.
My first impression upon its perusal
was that you hoped, by arousing the
apprehensions OF those who had in
sured their lives in your company as
to its course in the event of Demo-
cratic success in the present campaign,
to control ther votes. This was grave
enough in itself. Ny settled convic-
ton, after third and fourth reading,
is that your purpose was to coerce
them under the covert threat that if
they do not vote as you desire, your
company. as far as it can, will visit
its disrleasure upon their surviving
wives and children. You veil your
threat under covert expressions ap-
parently intended to convey sincere
regard for their welfare; but the in.
tensity of your opposition to any
change in the present financial con-
ditions is so clearly manifest that it
requires but little examination of your
words to reveal your purpose. II a
taxpayer should indite similar epis-
tie to the holder of government Sc
curity payable in coin, you would de-
nounce him as lunatic, an anarchist
and thief.
At the outset, you remind me that
your contract with me binds you to
pay my family SO many dollars, and
that there never was any dou bt what
was intended thereby. That is true.
During the war, when you say gold
at one time commanded a premium
of 1876 per cent. and made so because
those of you who owned and CONTROL.
ed that metal Rugged and buried it,
deaf alike to the appeals of the nation
and the cause of humanity, you
paid your policies in the deprecated
greenback; in which deprecated cur
rency 1 paid your premium for l3
years. from 1866 to 1879. Did it
then occur to you to write your policy.
holders and warn them unless they
made peace with the South, abandoned
the Union and it's defenders, and for
got the heritage of cur fathers in the
interest of "sound money" you would
pay their bene6ciaries in deprecated
greenbacks7 If you had done SO, you
would have been as consistent and as
honest as you now pretend to be. You
then paid Canadian policies in gold,
because you had to. It'll safe to as
sert that you have never paid any
other in that sort of money before or
since the war; and if | were to die to-
morrow. or had died last year my
widow would take silver certificates,
silver dollars, greenbacks, treasury
notes. or she would get nothing.
Your assertion that the Democratic
party intends to make dollar mean
three distinct and widely different
things is a basless one. To say that
YOU do not know this would give you
credit TOR sincerity at the expense of