Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1900-09-27
The Financial Plank.

transportation rates.
The Financial Plank.
/ The platform reiterates the demand
contained in the Chicago platform for
an American financial system made
by the American people for them
| selves. The purpose of such system
is to restore and maintain a bimetallic
level of prices, and in order that there
may be no uncertainty as to the meth
cd of restoring bimetallism, the specif-
ic declaration in favor of free and un-
| limited coinage at the existing ratio
, of 16 to 1, independent of the action
! of other nations, is repeated. In 1896
| the Republican party recognized the
| necessity for bimetallism by pledging
| the party to an earnest effort to Sc
cure an international agreement for
| the free coinage of silver, and the
president, Immediately after his in
auguration, by authority of congress.
! appointed a commission composed of
| distinguished citizens to visit Europe
and solicit foreign aid. Secretary Hay,
| in a letter written to Lord Alderman
| in November, 1898, and afterwards pub
| lished in England, declared that at
that time the president and majority
OF his cabinet still believed in the great
desirability of an international agree
ment for the restoration of the double
standard, but that it did not seem
opportune to reopen the negotiations
! just then. The financial law enacated
! 1ncc 90,
Guiding section declaring that the
measure was not intended to stand in
| the way of the restoration of bimetal-
lism, whenever it could be done by
cooperation with other nations The
| platform submitted to the last Repub-
| lican convention with the Endorsement
of the administration again suggested
| the possibility of securing foreign aid
in restoring silver.
| Now the Republican party, for the
! first time, openly abandons it's ad-
vocacy of the double standard, and in
dorses the monetary system which it
has SO often and so emphatically con-
demned. The Democratic party, on the
contrary, remains the steadfast advo-
cate of the gold and silver coinage of
| the constitution, and is not willing
| that other nations shall determine for
| us the time and manner OF restoring
silver to its ancient place as a stand
/ ard money. The ratio of 16 to 1 is
not only the ratio now existing be-
| tween all the gold and silver dollars in
circulation in this country, ratio
which even the Republican admins
tration has not attempted to change,
but it is the only ratio advocated by
those who are seeking to reopen the
| minis. Whether the senate, now hos
tile to bimetallism, can be changed
! during this campaign or the campaign
| of 1902 can only be determined after
the votes are counted, but neither the
present nor the future political COM
plexion of congress has prevented or
should prevent an announcement of
the party's position upon this subject
in unequivocal terms.
| The currency bill, which received the
sanction of the Executive and the Re
publican members of the House and
Senate, justifies the warning given by
the Democratic party in 1896. 1t was
then predicted that the Republican
party would attempt to retire the
greenbacks although the party and its
leaders studiously concealed their in
tentions. That purpose is now plain
and the people must choose between
the retention of the greenbacks, issued
and controlled in volume by the gov
eminent, and a national bank note cur
rency issued by banks and controlled
in their own interests. If the ma
bonds, the currency system now sup
ported by the Republican party in
wolves a permanent and increasing
debt, and, so long as this system
stands, the financial classes will be
tempted to throw their powerful infiu-
ence upon the side of any measure
which will contribute to the size and
permanency of a national debt. 1t is
hardly conceivable that the American
people will deliberately turn from the
debt-paying policy of the past, to the
dangerous doctrine of perpetual bonds.
Election of Senators by She People.
The demand for a constitutional
amendment providing for the election
of Senators by direct vote of the peo-
! pie, appears for the first time in a
Democratic National platform, but a
resolution proposing such an amend
ment. has three times passed the