The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-09-17

ratio at l to l, make the silver dollar more
convenient 2II size and sixteen times more
plentiful! Ii free coinage makes 45 cents
worth of silver really worth 100 cents, how
Will that raise the price of anything but
but the silver mine owner? And if free
coinage will not make % cents of silver
really worth 100 cents, if that piece of silver
still remaits worth only Is cents, is that the
kind of a dollar You want your wages paid
in? Is that the kind of dollar you want
to sell your crops for? And if it is not the
value but the demand which free coinage
creates, why has the value of silver gone
down at a time when more silver is coined
by the government than ever before? And
If the people want more silver, why do they
refuse to. use what we already have? And
II free silver makes money more plentiful,
how will you get any of it? VIII the sill
yer mine owner give it to you? Will the
government give or loan it to you? Where
do you or come in on this free silver prop
oSition?
Apply the principle to yourself as well as
to the government If you are to be paid
in dollar worth two-fifths of it's face, why
not slip a false bottom into your bushel
measure and sell two-ffths of a bushel for
hours and call it a day if they give you
As cents worth of silver and call it a dol
lar? And If the government lies two-fifths
IN declaring that 40 cents is 100 cents, why
not lie three-thirds and declare that moth
ing at all is 100 cents? Why not make a
fiat dollar? And if they pay you fiat dol
or fiat day of labor? Why not just quit
altogether; make money, like helPs pave
ments, out of good resolutions; stamp our
selves rich; pitch silver and gold into the
sea; abolish hunger Dy statute and solve
the money question by the imaginat alton and
the will?
Do you think it safe to trust the precious
business prosperity of this counIr; to men
who believe that this Nation should go to
the silver standard of the Aztec republic?
Is 1T safe to tamper with the standard to
which the vast and delicate mac hinery of
our commercial civilization is adjusted? Is
fCf1 fFh fl1n y.
ence to which every contract is made ev-
cry policy of insurance issued, every value
estimated? is 1t safe to again experiment
with our returning prosperity? nave we not
learned our lesson well enough in the ter
rlble school of a peoples woes.
And yet | thank God for the financial
baptism of fire the American people passed
through in 1926. Why? Because it started
them TO thinking and the American people
never start to thinking and stop half way
through the syllogsm. And the American
people are going 20 think this money ques-
ton clear through and settle it forever If
the American laborer wants his wages paid
and the farmer The price of his products
paid IN the best money he wants that fact
fixed in the laws of the Nation No man
wants any mistake about the kind of stand
ara we have. Therefore we want 1t written
in the laws of the Republic that dollar
of gold is this Nations standard of value
Which nothing but the sovereign people can
change. To-day we have nothing but a reso-
luton that all our money shall be kept as
good as gold-a resolution no President is
dent, Stevenson was Vice President, and
Olney was secretary of state Our whole
financial system rested on the life of Grover
Cleveland. If he had died, Stevenson a free
silver man, would have become President
and would have hurled us to a silver basis
in day. If Stevenson had died, Olney,
and would have lifted us to gold stand
ard in the dip of pen. No people on earth
could endure that. And now the American
people are aroused to their danger, and
they will fix their standard by law where
no conspiracy of mine owners and dema-
gogues will ever be tempted to dislodge If
by the election of President: they will
fix their standard by law where no power
can alter 1t but the people themselves And
whoever is opposed to that proposition is
opposed TO government of the people, for
the people and by the people,"
BASIS OF OUR FINANCES.
The heart of our financial system, to-day.
is the Nations resolution to keep all our
money just as good as gold Back of that
resolution stands the governments reserve
of gold, ready to make that resolution good.
just as the reserve of cash in your bank
makes good its promise to pay your check.
That gold reserve and the Nations pledge
to maintain it, gives the whole world conf
dence in all the variegated money of the
Republic, just as your banks reserve gives
you confidence in its present solvency.
When you can no longer get gold for YOUR
greenbacks or treasury notes, they are no
longer good as gold. To-day, practically.
a gold dollar ultimately stands back of
every dollar of the Republics money And
so, upon that gold reserVe-upon the gov
ernments ability TO pay out gold upon de-
mand-restS the honor of the Nation and
the safety of every dollar i'm the land.
And yet that gold reserve is. to-day in
danger from every buccaneer of finance in
the world. For when ereenbacks are re-
deemed in gold at the treasury, they must
be issued again in payment of the gov
ernmentS expenses, and they go back
hrally, TO the hands of the man who drew
gold out OF the treasury with them. And
when the gold reserve goes down by re-
deeming those greenbacks, the government
must sell bonds to get gold to replace that
which the greebacks have drawn out, I'M
less the tariff puts enough gold into the
treasury to keep the reserve intact. And
so, when the financial spiders of the world
see our revenue so reduced that ii cannot
keep our gold reserve full if attacked, they
gather the greenbacks into their hands, get
gold for them at the treasury. force the
government to borrow gold on the Nations
bonds TO replace the gold they have just
drawn out with those greenbacks, then buy
those bonds with that very gold. and so Sc
cure the best investment known TO man.
And then those greenbacks once more go
into circulation, once more get into the pi-
rates hands, and once more serve as the
tools of financial villiany William McKin-
ley says that condition shall not continue;
that II any man gets gold out Of the treas
ury. by paying in grenhack, he shall not
get that greenback out again, until he pays
gold back into the treasury for it. William