The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1900-11-02
Dick Blue and
Phil Campbell will
speak in Chanute,
Saturday afternoon
and night. Come!
IF BRYAN IS ELECTED--WHAT--?
Overflow from First Page.)

home constituents Gust as we saw a
majority of twenty of the Senate
opposed to the repeal of the
Sherman Silver Law in March of
1898, changed by August of that
year, under a much less severe
panic, to majority in favor of re-
peaD so that there is not only a
possibility, but even probability,
that with a free silver majority in
the Senate in 1903, the 1902 elect
ions TO the House of Representa-
tives held in the midst of the panic,
may have rendered the House itself
in favor of sound money, and thus
the panic itself might defeat the
passage of the bill altogether, and
in that case the farmer and the
country would be left houndering in
the panic, and fail to reap the
hoped for profit. And if the Sen
ate were Immediately for free silver,
on Bryan's election, and an extra
session were called, the law could
not be passed till September 1901.
Then to coin $40, 900, 900 silver
dollars to replace that number of
gold dollars driven out of circula-
tion would require, at the present
speed, over s years. If the print
ing press was resorted to, as the
populists suggest, it would require,
at the present rate for treasury
notes, on the special paper therefor,
of SI,25o, 900 day, over year,
which would put relief off till 1905
Tor Sept. 1902 as the case might bel
or either a years and half, Tor
about 2 years. after Mr.. Bryan's
election.
Now as the gold would have been
driven out of circulation, it is evil
dent that until the coinage bill be
came law, or until April, 1904, or
Sept. 1901, or either for several
years, or else for 10 months after
Mr.. Bryan's election, we would
have only three ffths as much mon
ey as now, and at the end of the
one or five years additional, no
more than now.
During all of these terrible years
Tor year. we would be suffering from
such srngency, panic and depre-
citation of values, us we have never
seen before, and the prostration and
dry rot following the panic would
continne for years afterwards. Bus
mess activity would not return al
once with restored currency, as
credit is a creature of slow growth.
1t took six years to recover from
the panic of 1873, and would prob
ably require ten years or more to
recover from this one.
With new corn at 80 cents bu
shell in Illinois lin 1896 it was 49,
and IS in Kansas and Nebraska lin 4
1896 about l. s. and with those prices
to be reduced by the panic, the en-
forced idleness of the laboring
classes, and the consequently di-
minished demand, from S to Iol
cents bushel, after the laborer has
been paid and the farmers store
bills settled, how much would he
left for taxes and interest and prin
cipal on his mortgage? And if his
mortgage falls due, or if he defaults
in either interest or taxes, will moi
the mortgage want his 100 cents
instead of 81 and foreclose? AL
though foreclosure takes from one
to two years, and would take till
November 1901 or 1902, yet as the
effects of the panic would still con
! tinue, and with Practically no mon |
ey to be borrowed, there could be
but one result, the farmer must lose
his farm and become a renter. The
outcome therefore for farmers in
debt must inevitably prove disas-
trous,
BRYAN'S JUSTIFICATION FOR
THE PANIC.
What justification does Mr..
Bryan offer for the inhiction upon
the community of this conceded
panic? That as the laboring man
is not hog, he wants something
more than a full dinner pail. But
why not have the something more,
and the full dinner pail alsoa What
is the objection to that3 If imper-
ialism and trusts are, as he says, the