The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1898-06-22
HONEST DOLLARS.
RY M1LLIAM j. BRYAN.

q
ceived in avarice. 1t was fastened
upon this country without the
knowledge Of the people and, as
many believe, by fraud. 1t has
been continued for fwenty-four
years by deception and never fought
an open battle in any country in
all the history of the world.
You may think the indictment
severe, but say the Indictment is
true, and you cannot answer count
in it.
Tie world does not want the gold
standard; there are people who do,
and I intend to show you now who
they are and why they want it.
When money goes up, property
goes down. A dollar cannot buy
moro unless property sells for less
When you say you wanta dollar OF
the largest purchasing power, you
say you want the lowest possible
prices. Suppose you start with
wheat at dollar bushel
If dollars rise till dollar will
buy two bushels of wheat, then
wheat has fallen until it takes two
bushels to buy dollar. Is that
difficult to understand?
If rising dollars mean falling
property, then can't you under
stand that the man who owns doll
ars will be interested in having
them rise, but that the person who
owns property will be injured by
having it fall.
Don't you understand that if a
man owes debt the man who
holds his note will profit when
dollars rise, because he gets the
same number of dollars and each
dollar will buy more?
But don't you know that the
man who must sell his property to
get the money to pay the debt must
sell more and more property to get
the same amount of property?
Is it difficult to understand? p
Let me illustrate It in another way.
Suppose we could imagine our
selves walled in with just enough
of wheat to last the year, and sup
pose the wheat was divided into
two piles, one pile owned by one
man and the other pile owned by
another man. Now suppose some
night one pile of wheat should be
burned, every bushel of it destroy
ed.
What would be the result? Why,
every bushel of wheat in the pile
that did not burn would sell for more
money. The supply of wheat cut
half in two, the demand for wheat
remaining the same, every bushel
of wheat would bring more money.
What else? Why the man who
owned the wheat would profit by
the rise, and he would say to his
wife: "How fortunate that it was
the other mans wheat burned in
stead of ours"
Let me give you an extract from
a speech made by John Sherman,
when a member of the United
States Senate. He was speaking
of contraction of the currency, and
he said that it was very serious
thing, more serious than generally
supposed.
He said the nation could not
take the voyage without the sorest
distress. He said that to every
one, except the capitalists out of
debt. the annuitant. and the salar-
led officer, the contraction of the
currency would result in the sus-
pension of all enterprises, bank
ruptcies and disaster. These things
would follow contraction, but there
were certain persons who woald be
exempt. The capitalist out of
debt, the salaried officer and the
Why capitalist out of debt ex-
empt? Because his property is
money. and as his money rose his
would buy more and there
fore he would not only be exempt
from the sufferings which would
come to others, but he would actu-
ally profit by those sufferings.-I
And how about the salaried officer?
Why, to the extent in which the
salary is fixed. he profits by a ris-
ing dollar.
If man has a position for life
at fixed salary, the more the doll
ar rises the larger the salary is
The great trouble is. SO few people
have fixed salaries. Most of the
people have salaries or incomes de-
pendent upon business conditions