Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1898-12-29

told that there is plenty of food, told to |
look at Dives table, hear it groan under
its load of sumptuous food. Too well is
the fate of that monarch known, who
when the people were crying for bread
IRONICALLY told them to eat cake. It is
tiresome to hear of prosperity and never
see it, to be told as little cbilden are told
that there is bag of gold at the end of
the rainbow, to have unprecedented
prosperity pictured ON the horizon
which when sought recedes from us as
does the horizon. 1t may be that we
look through the eyes of the stomach.
Ii well fed, and surroundings are COM
Portable, if our larder is supplied and
our lot easy, we may be more disposed
to think this good world, and times
prosperous, than if we are haunted by
poverty and hunger. But a newspaper
article is too narrow a space in which to
present such question as it deserves,
and we must leave many evidences of
depression uncited, lest we weary our
readers. There may be plenty of pros
pesity, but it has not struck Augusta
or Staunton. We hope it will come
and if it does we will welcome it as
gladly as our optimistic friend.
The Party That Understand" Currency
Reform"
A most impressive exhibition of in
capacity and discord. is now being given
by the Republican administration, in
Its clumsy efforts to deal with the cur
rency question. The party having
gotten into power on that question,
shows disposition to drop the whole
matter, and leave the President and his
cabinet to be the scapegoats. When a
Republican member of Congress, of any
prominence, is approached his answer
is, why, we are on a gold basis now,
what more do you want p Which,
being translated, means simply that
We've gotten into office and got the
offices, what more do you want p The
scapegoats, however, are making COM
ical show of urging some currency ire
FORM legislation. Mr.. Gage, the Sec
rotary of the Treasury, is struggling in
the depths. Last year he recommended
in his report that the general assets of
banks should be substituted for bonds
as security for bank currency. This
year, his subordinate, Comptroller
Dawes, devotes large portion of his
report to showing that the substitution
advocated by the Secretary is very dan
gerous and should not be adopted. This
year, also, Mr.. Gage has retreated from
his position of last year, and now pro-
poses that the banks shall secure thei1
notes by neither assets nor bonds, but
by general safety fund. That is tC
say that Tom, Dick and Harry, none Of
the three being trustworthy, may all be
trusted by endorsing each other. The
Secretary has also dropped into the fiat
system in his despair; he thinks oul
government should, at its own expense
make the pesedo, now worth forty
cents in Porto Rico, to be worth sixty
cents. This, in the interest of ''stable
currency" President Mckinley seeing
so much discord among those standing
around the financial cord of wood, as te
how it should he split and sawed, has
picked up his stick of it and walked off
He proposes to retire the greenbacks
and as to the rest, let Gage, Dawes
Wall Street and the Republican MAORI
ty in Congress, arrange it to suit them
selves.
This is the party that in 1896 knew
it all. and told the country that with
the Republican party returned to power
the currency question would be settled
at once. In the mean time the men Of
the Indianapolis currency convention
the boiling and buucoed Democrats. are
sailing Gage, Dawes and the Republi
cans in Congress, and they would salt
Mckinley himself if the "old man" die
not still have his hand on the lid of q
soup pot far from empty, and of whose
contents the boilers have now and then
had palatable bone thrown them.
This is the administration. this is the
party, and these are its allies, that were
to give the country an Aladdin's lamp
lightning change. currency reform.
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