Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1898-01-21

One unfriendly critic of Mr.. Bryan
asserts that Andrew jackson would
have been as quick to hang q repudiator
as he threatened to be quick about
hanging the budding secessionists OF
South Carolina, that for repudiators to
revere his memory and count him as
one of themselves is enough to make
him turn in his grave. And doubtless
it is true that Old Hickory would have
had little patience with any man who
proposed to repudiate the national
debt, but it is doubtless as true that he
would have had as little patience with
any man who sought to confiscate the
property of his debtors under the guise
of law. Aud it is against a policy OF
confscatiop that MIR. Bryan now pro-
tests, reputation he does not advocate
To contract debts payable in gold or
silver and then make them payable in
gold to the exclusion of silver. make
them SO a,able with tie result of
greatly increasing the value of gold of
the dollars in which such debts are
payable, certainly gavors of confscation.
To restore silver to the privileges of
free coinage, to pay our debts as we
may please either in gold or silver coin
and as we contracted to do, to dimin-
ish in soms measure the enhanced value
of gold given to it by demonetizing
silver and throwing increased demands
upon gold for use as money, is not re-
pudiation.
Gold is not the only honest measure
in which debts can be paid. In fact.
having been made the only measure it
has been made a most dishonest meas,
ure for the demands for gold were by
this act arbitrarily increased and with
increased demands came increased value
and measure that grows in size or
length is dishonest, must do injury to
those who must fulfill their contracts
in accord with it And q measure of
values is no exception To stretch the
monetary yard stick by demonetizing
silver was an act Of injustice to debtors,
an act of confscation, for such stretch
ing required debtors to pay more than
they really owed.
Exact Justice requires that debtors
pay their debts in dollars of the same
value, the same purchasing power, as
the dollars borrowed To make the
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more than the dollars in which debts
were contracted is dishonest. And it
Is this sort of dollars that our adherence
to the gold standard has enabled credit
ors to exact from their debtors. The
result has been to impoverish,' ruin
debtors. Against continuance OF
such conditions bimetallists protest. A
debt paid in dollars that will purchase
as much of the products of labor as the
dollars borrowed is honestly paid The
creditor has no right to ask payment in
dearer dollars To make dollars dearer
by tampering with the monetary stand
ard is to break contracts, break them in
the interest of creditors, force debtors
to pay more than they can justly be
called upon to pay. The law that puts
it in the power of creditors to make
such call is unjust, dishonest, in reality
law to legalize confiscation, to aid
creditors in despoiling debtors of the
fruits of their toll.
And now what do bimetallists de-
mand? Simply that such laws of con-
fiscation be repealed. and to repeal a
dishonest law is declared to be dishon-
est; he who urges repeal is villified as q
repudiator. The payment Of debts of