Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1897-05-21
THE SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
NOT FOR oREENBAoK RETIREMENT.

full statement. flOuluR ullusell quOlOu
in the house, on the authority of "new
journalism as declaring that 1t was the
policy OF the republican party, after |
securing adequate revenue, ito impound.
the greenbacks, he announced that he
had said no such thing, and hoped better ,
authority would be found In the future
for any remarks. The chairman proba-
bly, did not reflect that he exposed him
self by tins statement of facts, not
merely to the wrath of any who had
misrepresented him, but also to the
malevolence of that active and noisy
faction which is every day trying to
bully the president into some declaration
hostile to the platform of his party and
to his own assurances when candidate.
1t seems necessary to repeat, not for
the first time, that the republican party
is in no way pledged or committed to
the retirement of the legal-tender cir
culation, nor to the scheme for appoint
ment of monetary commission. Those
who are perpetually making that asser-
ton have surely but scanty care of their
reputation tor veracity. For it has been
pointed out many times that the repub-
lican national platform contains no
pledge of the sort, nor the slightest in
dication of such purpose that no In
dividual member of the party had
power to make for it pledge differing
from that of national convention, and
that President Mckinley himself showed
no disposition to favor such policy,
but on the contrary distinctly declared
it the policy of the party to maintain in
use and as good as gold all the paper in
circulation.
There has been necessarily at work
for some months a combination of men
who are profoundly interested in the
extinction of the greenbacks. Part of
them imbibe their fanatcism on the sub
iect in their overzealous worship of Mr..
Cleveland. when he was laboring to
convince mankind that the disasters of
the country during his administration
had come, not from his free trade policy,
but from republican laws which kept
legal-tender notes in use and redeemable
in gold. Having definitely proposed in
one annual message the unrestricted
issue of state bank notes, to the I'M
speakable delight of his democratic and
pOpulst friends of the West and South,
he found no step in that direction prac-
ticable without first melting war against
greenbacks. In subsequent efforts to
that end he was first supported by a
convention OF national bankers, who
appeared to have taken inspiration from
some of his immediate adherents, and
then with great enthusiasm by some other
national bankers who desire to see an
unlimited field open for the circulation
of banknotes. So their interests, and
the fanaticism of the men who knock
ClevelaLd speaks, have created in favor
of greenback retirement a volume of
sound altogether disprOportionate to
their real influence, like the croaking of
frogs in swamp.
Yet the fact stands that no more than
pitiful fraction of the democrats can
be brought to favor retirement of legal
tender notes, except as a means toward
virtually unlimited issues of irredeema-
bic paper. Because level-headed re-
publcans know that this is the practi-
cal alternative and that the retirement of
United States notes can have no other
result than the substitution of a paper
currency not restricted in volume, and
without the guarantees for redemption
which now fortify the paper circulation
they have as a body absolutely refused
to be drawn into any approval whatever
of the policy so persistently urged by
Mr.. Cleveland, his administration anG
the various gatherings of bankers who
were disposed to act in harmony with
his political aims. On the contrary
there is probably a large majority Of
republicans now, as there has been con
stantly since the war, who oppose the
retirement of the legal tenders and the
surrender to banking Institutions of {
monopoly as to the issue, expansion Of
contraction of paper currency. Thos'
who oppose these republicans have
perfect right to do so and to offer what
ever arguments they can for chang
of national policy. But they have not
right to say, or even to imply, that thu
republican party is In the least degre,
committed to such change, for it il
not true New York Tribune.
THE SUGAR TRUST WITNESSES.
The scandals that grew out of tn
adoption by the national senate of tn
sugar schedule of the Wilson bill, whlcl
put from fifty to seventy.fve million
into the treasury of the sugar trust a
the expense of consumers, have beel
swept to the rear by events since tina