Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-11-01
JUDGE BRANN0N'S VIEWS
On the Financial Question, ms Set
Forth In Paper Written by Him
self.


Forth in Paper Written by Him
self.
Special to the Register
WESTON, w. Va, October 30.-Fol-
lowing is verbatim copy of letter
written by Judge Henry Brannon, now
q nominee on the Republican ticket for
Judge OF the Supreme Court, published
in the Weston Democrat July 20, 1893.
Judge Brannon was then a Democrat
and a free silver man. He still claims
to be a Democrat, and has solicited
Democratic votes. He is parading I'M
der false eolors for the sake OF an office:
Weston Democrat, July 49, 1893
cat the earnest request OF the Demo-
crat, Judge Henry Brannon has given
his views on the pressing question of
finance for publication. He says:
Il am opposed to the decentralization
OF silver, actual or virtual, and in favor
of the use of both gold and silver as
money If the theory acted upon by
the entire world from the earliest date
that these precious metals are In them
selves money and not merely the rep
resentatives of mony, and that all paper
money must be based on them and re-
deemable in them, be not fallacy,
then the United States should not de-
part from what has been for ages the
policy of mankind and Of this nation
from its birth, the use Of both gold and
silver. When the trainers of the Unit
ed States Constitution provided that
State should make nothing but gold
and silver a legal tender in payment OF
debts. it recognized and intended to
adopt both as money. Reversing the
usage of the world for ages, reversing
the policy of our own constitution and
practice from the foundation of the
government. Congress for the first time
in 1873 demonetized silver, made 1t
no longer money by taking from 1t the
quality and power of legal tender in
payment of debts beyond five dollars,
branded it's own silver coin as mere
commodity, but still made its mere
paper notes legal tenders. 1t remains
to-day under this brand, except that
standard dollars are legal tender, and
vet it has been found in our day, as in
all past days, so useful and suitable for
money, that all over this republic it
is gladly received as money and is the
most useful medium of payment to the
masses. 1t purchases as much as gold
dollar in any store. Take from our
people the silver coin, how great the
inconvenience Of late a special effort
is made to disuse silver by stopping its
coinage and by the stoppage of the
issue of paper as its representative.
This would establish the single stand
ard of gold and make silver only COM
modify, like iron, zinc or other COM
modities., shorn of all efficacy as
money. This would frightfully con-
tract the circulating medium, the
money of the country, and bring wide
spread ruin. 1t would greatly benefit
the few. those who receive fixed sal
aries or incomes and those who are
wealthy, because it would lower the
price of all articles which they con-
sumo, and lower the value of land and
other property and labor, and enable
owners of wealth to command greater
reward for the use of their money. 1t
would concentrate the property in their
hands They buy in times Of depres-
NnAnd hold or sell in times of eleva-
ton. Eventually, the few would own
the land. Talk of millionaires! What
policy could be more potent to multiply
them indefinitely This programme
would be blight upon the masses, and
they being the great majority it is i'm
polite, because legislation should be
for the many rather than the few. |
have said this policy would make gold
the only money. This is so, unless we
supplement it with paper money. Why
do this when we produce silver? Why
give preference to paper over silver?
If silver were not obtainable, paper
issue might be a necessity; but as sill
yer is at hand, why strike it down?
Is silver money inconvenient in large
transactions? 1t is. So is gold. Let
us have paper; but let it be not redeem
able only in gold. If redeemable only
in gold, the volume of circulation
would either be too small, or if very
large, it would have that bane of a
paper circulation not redeemable in
coin which wrought such widespread
ruin after the Revolution, irredeem-
ably. Let us also have paper money,
based on and convertible into gold and
silver. We will thus have a circulation
large enough to answer the wants of
vast population and business, and it
will not be paper merely, worthless in
case of national disaster and loss of
credit, but redeemable in the metals in
trinsically valuable the world over.
This immense country requires a large
amount of money The money is in
business what blood is in the animal
system. A scarcity cramps and de-
stroys business and produces bank
ruptcy as surely as scarcity of blood