Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1899-10-07
CHEAP MONEY AGAIN.
The Repudiated Plank in De-
mocracy's Platform.
PROSPERITY FLOORS DEMOCRACY.

For the Fifty-Cent Dollar That Would
Rob Them of Half Their Earnings aud
B.ast the Unprecedented Prosperity
They Now Enjoy.
Notwithstanding the fact that the
free silver fallacy has been repudiated
by the American nation, the voters of
Ohio will be called upon at the fall
election to again register their con-
demnation of the Democratic efforts
to change our financial policy and in
troduce a reign of widespread indus
trial depression and financial disaster.
The Mclean convention at Zanes-
vile had the temerity to insert in their
platform radical and emphatic de-
mand for Bryan and 5O-cent dollar.
1t says: I'VE especially emphasize
the financial plank therein (Chicago
platform) and we continue to demand
the free and unlimited coinage of silver
and gold as equal primary money at
the ratio of 16 to 1, independent of all
other nations in the world"
In the face. of the present uaprece-
dented national prosperity this is a
strange declaration. Apart from the
undeniable fact that John r. Mclean
will be Indignantly repudiated by all
lovers of a state government free from
"bosses and DOODLE" there is the addi-
tional fact that the indispensable
stock -in-trade of free silver advocates
has met with disaster at the hands of
General Prosperity, who today rules
with beneficent hand the American
people.
The un-Jeffersonian, unphilosophical
and dishonest 50-cent-dollar movement
would not have met with the degree of
approval it did in 1896 had it not been
for the deplorable condition of the
country then. The Democratic tariff
had shut down our industries Hun
dreds of thousands of workingmen were
out of employment; weeks passed into
months without these honest sons OF
toll receiving any wages. They were
eking olt bare existence on the credit
extended to them by the storekeepers,
or on charity, and despair stared them
in the face.
Then came the desperate Democratic
demagogues in new guise, Knowing
that they deserved the eXecration OF
the people for their disastrous tariff
measure, which allowed foreign prod
ucts and manufactured articles to come
into this country from cheap-labor
countries in Europe, and drive our
products of the field and workshop
from the market, they relegated free
trade to the background and brought
free silver to the front Instead of tell
| ing the truth about the matter, they
impudently said that the cause of all
the poverty and distress in this land
at that time was attributable to an al
legged monetary crime committed 2S
years before-in 1S73-and that a con-
tinuance of the gold standard would
increase the general distress and dis
aster. Many of the unemployed de-
spalringly accepted the strange vaga-
ries of the silverltes as the panacea for
national ills. They thought:
God knows, the country can't be
much worse than it is"
They felt like a man in the last stage
OF consumption, with death staring
him in the face, and willing to try any
thing that promised relief.
But the wisdom of the American peo-
pie prevailed, They repudiated the
free silver dope as the prescription of
political quacks whose theories were
totally subverslve of the interests and
welfare of the farmers, wage earners,
merchants and all classes alike.
They now see they were right in do
ing so. Since William Mckinley was
elected to the presidency of the United
States, and the administration of ma
tional affairs passed into Republican
hands; since the Democratic Wilson
German ff-for-revenue-onlyb bill was
replaced by the Republican Dingley
tariff for the protection of American
farmers and wage earners, without
tampering with the sound financial pol
icy of the nation, they have seen a
Eave of unparalleled prosperity sweep
over the country, driving before it the
withering curse of Democratic incom-
potency, misrule and disaster Men
now have all the work they can do and
are receiving good wages for their la
Dor in 100-cent dollars. They have
been enabled to pay off theil
debIs, accumulated under the Demo
cratic regime, and are laying aside
money against sickness and infirmity
This happy state OF affairs has de-
prived the Democrats of their dema
gogic arguments for a free silver cam
paign. There is now no industria
stagnation, no money stringency, to bC
ascribed to the crime of 1878. On tht
contrary, there is every reason why the
laboring classes and the public gener
ally should keep themselves free from
the strangling clutches of the Demo
cratic party with its free silver anC
free trade panic-creating, distress-pro
ducing, charity-compelling fallacies
Now that the country's industrial ILL
have been cured by the Republican pol
icy Of protection for American indus
tries, the people are not willing to b.
again placed on the operating table 70
the benefit Of Democratic political sur
geons. They are not willing to b.
again cursed with industrial paralysi
in order that the Democrats may b