The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1898-01-15
REPUTATION AND oIsHoNoR.
a Part of Henry Ward Beecher's Best


A@AS Vi A4cnGy otCShcA ~
Sermons.
During the fiat money and unlimited
paper currency excitement of 1877 Nh
Beecher delivered a famous sermon on
Thanksgiving of that year on the perils
of the day. In it he used this language:
whenever in any nation there is
such an attempt to tamper with stand
ards that the moral sense of man IS be-
wildered and liberty is given 20 unprin-
cipled nen at large to cheat, to be uu-
faithful to obligations, to refuse the
payment of honest debts-whenever
that takes place, it is all the worse if
done with the permission of the law.
1 hate the devil riding on a law worse
than 1 do the devil riding without a
law under him. Whoever hampers with
established standards hampers with the
very marrow and vitality of public
faith. y : = The danger into which
we are running is hidden under the
mystery of finance and the currency.
All money is but a representative of
property. As now, by facility of inter-
course, all the world is cne open mar
ket, the need of one and the same stand
ard of money, uniform, universal and
unalterably becomes imperious.
Gold is the worlds standard. Gold
is the universal measur of value. Other
kinds of money there are-silver, cop
per, paPer-but they all must conform
to gold and be measured by it and be
interchangeable with it, in fixed and
definite proportions. Cold is king in
commerce. All other money must rep
resent gold. No vote of Legislature can
change the nature of commerce., the
nature of property, the nature of its
representative in money or the relative
superiority or inferiority of different
currencicS. Gold came to its supremacy
as a representative of property by the
long-establishcd consent of mankind.
Congress cannct change it for the
world, nor even for this nation. except
upon r2st transactions. 1t may give
impUnity 10 men to cheat con!iding
creditors. bat il cannot rule the value nc
currency in all future transactions.
The crime OF paving 4 debt in a cu?.
rency inferior in value 10 that in which
It WAS contracted. hase ar all times and
anywhere, has Z deeper guilt and a
baser inf2my in our cas2. When in our
mortal struggle CAPITALISTS were solicit
ed TO lcrd their money to us on the faith
of the nation. we were too glad. most
grateful, for their aid. Then they were
not grasping and swollen usurers. Oh.
no! They were benefactors. We re-
ioiced in their bounty and gave thanks
for their confiding faith in our national
honesty. Now, our dangers past. we
revile them. finding no cpithets too vio-
lent, and strive TO pay them, not gold
for the gold they lent our miserT, but
in a dishonest measure of an inferior
metal.
"In the court of the commercial
worlds conscience we shall be convict
cd of endCavoring to cheat the men who
came to orr rescue in the dark Gay.
This congress would not have existed,
nor any government of the United
States, but for the strength given TO our
armies by foreign capitalists, and now
10 return their aid by 4 base treachery
is TO deserve TN infaIny as deep as the
lowest depths of hell. But woe to those
men. huli-headcd. without eyes. who are
attempting to undermine the integrity
and simplicity of the nation"