The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1897-03-17
LIES OR THE TRUTH? ?
WHICH SHALL THE PEOPLE
KNOW?
Glmpses at the Disaster Record-What the
Gold-bug Newspapers Would Have Done
if Bryan Had Been Elected.
Editor REPRESENTATIVE.

Editor Representative.
There are those in the community
who want to encourage lying, and
such complain if the silver men make
the slightest reference to business
conditions. 1t is we'll to consider what
would have been the results if the
shoe had been on the other foot and
we won and they lost.
"Can any man of ordinary comm on
sense doubt for moment that if Mr.
Bryan had been elected in Novem Der,
and if business and industrial condi.
tions since had exactly duplicated
those experienced since Mckinley S
election they would have been herald
other, as realizations of the predic-
tions OF disaster that would follow the
election Of Bryan? Can any one for a
moment believe that the reports Of
failures, Of discharged men, OF re-
duced wages, Of destitution and mis-
cry without parallel would have been
printed in the gold worshiping press
in small type, in obscure corners Of
the sheets, and without editorial COM
ment? Would there have been the
same 'whis tling to keep up courage,
or confidence, the same 'it-isn' t. m uch-
of-a-shower-anyway' sort of talk by
that press If such conditions had fol-
lowed by Mr.. Bryan's election? We all
know better; that one result would
have been made respon ,ible for every
disaster that has made the past three
months the blackest and most devast-
ating period Of similar length in our
history.
1t is we'll to briefly summarize the
events, the disasters, the desolation,
the repudiation, the wreck Of indus try
and crash Of business that followed
the election of Mckinley and the res
toration of confidence" that phantom
panacea for the most substantial ills
of people ever suffered. Business
failures showed regular weekly in
crease, until the second week OF the
present month witnessed the unprece-
dented number Of 4SS. A wholesale
reputation of debt that would have
satisfied the most extravagant ante
election gOld-bug prophet OF repudia-
tion that his prediction had been full
filled; for whether one can pay his
debts or will not is equally repudia-
tion so far as his creditors are con-
cerned. There was recently published
list of the gigantic failures in Chica-
60 between Dec. q and 20, including
no failure with liabilities less than
$4,000 and only one less than $500, 00O,
the whole st aggregating the cnorm-
Gus total of 1929 0,O0O! Another list
OF bank failures alone in the North
west, II out of 20 in the list being in
Minneapolis and ST. Paul, between
Dec. % and Jan. 4, aggregated the aw-
tul total Of IS. 600, 900 liabilities. Think
Of the enormous demand for printers $
ink these figures would have forced
from the gold-bug press to print gi-
gantic headline announcements Of
these terrific ''I-told-you-So's if Bry
an had been elected. II to the figures
given were added the thousands Of
named, and to them the large and
small ones all over the country, the
showing would make men despair and
angels weep.
No man can tell the price paid in
destitution and suffering by myriads
of poor people to these failures, but
ii to the mum ber the failures have re-
duced to want aud enforced idleness
are added the ountless thousands of
factory hands. railroad men, lumber
men, miners, laborerS of all kinds.
small dealers and profess ional men de-
pendent upon them, including the
helpless dependents upon all, that
have been thrown out of employ me q t.,
had wages reduced, deprived Of neces-
sary incomes and made to feel the
pinching power Of poverty, picture
is presented that would have bat1ied
the imagination Of a DOre to con-
ceive.
No unprejuticed person can read the
papers published in our great cities
during the past few days and assert
that this picture is overdrawn, nor
can he assert that all the story is now
told. The silent. unknown sufferers.
Alas! What doleful, pathetic army
they constitute! Those who have
been wcll-tO-do. the value of whose
property has Shrunken until there is
nothing left; whose equities have dis
appeared like a morning mist: whose
lost In the blighting blizzard OF "un-
sound banking" that scourges the
country; those whose patrimony is
gone; who are unable to work, or get
it to do if they could work; too proud
to beg. too precious to starve, too
young to die! Think of all these
things and then say, ii you can, that
they do not realize all the predictions
of disaster and horror that was to fol-
low Mr.. Bryan's election.
Read the story Of Mr.. Dawson, presi-
dent of the Bank OF Minnesota, who in
six years has seen a fortune of $3,000,-
OUO, invested in real estate and other
and scattered to the tour winds, 1eav-
ing its owner worse than penniless,
and then say if you can, that multi
tudes of other smaller fortunes have
not gone the same way, and imagine if
you can, how things could have been