The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1900-08-23

was largely speculative. 1t was the
result Of abnormal conditions. Only
wars and rumors Of wars served to
prevent collapse. Immense military
expenditures and naval estimates pre-
serve the frail fabric from falling ''in
hideous ruin and combustion down."
Today we are looking over-capitaliza-
ton in the face. Whatever prosperity
there was came without single
change in the monetary laws. 1t was
business reaction aided by abnormal
and unusual factors. When the ten
ant of the White House did get the
statute making machinery into opera
ton, when gold was finally made the
standard of value by statutory enact
ment, no great good resulted. The day
the bill making gold the standard OF
value was passed stocks went off
billion Of dollars in New York City
And today the bank clearings of 1900
as well as the number and amount OF
failures for the half year just passed
compared unfavorably with the year
1899. Truly, my friends, the prodigal
promise makers who made life "stren-
uous" in the dog days of 1896 were
neither prophets nor the sons thereof
And the visions Of prosperity" that
they fondly imagined would come as
result Of republican legislation were
but the fleeing phantoms of heated
brains, the "erratic alterations of an
unsettled reason
Increase Of Money Circulation.
Placed in power ON platform that
became the theme for the denial of
the cumulative theory of money, the
republicans have relied upon that
theory in every phase Of their finan-
cial policy. Denying that an increase
in money circulation stimulates stag
nant business. they have increased
the money circulation by more than
half billion dollars since their adj
vent to power. Condemning any eff
fort to raise the price of commodities
as reputation, they have made mon
ey cheap by making it plenty. Ridi-
culing the effort to increase the VOL
ume Of money in 1896 by coming the
silver of the land, they now declare
in the Philadelphia platform that 1.-The
volume Of money in circulation was
never so great per capita as it is to-
day." If an effort to increase the
per capita circulation is the policy of
anarchy and dishonor then the policy
of the republican party is the essence
of anarchy and the elimination of
dishonor. They pledge themselvas to
promote international bimetallism in
1896, and in 1900 they announce that
pledge but cheat and fraud. And
yet the platform that Mckinley sent
to Philadelphia by the head of the
n rt, C,,h
postal frauds, contained renewal of
the pledge to favor international BIZ
metallism. The republican party has
fathered all the financial make-shifts
that it now denounces as the bastard
children of populism. The republican
party gave Jus the green backs, and
now it reptdiates them. 1t passed
the Matthews resolution and rejected
that of Teller. For generation that
party proclaimed it's adherence to BIZ
metalism and now its leaders fabri-
cate a new definition of the term in
order to disguise their desertion of
the former tenet Their votes gave
US the Bland-Allison act and they
now call it financial heresy. They
>lpsssed the Sherman act, their party
in national convention commended it,
and now they class it as a child Of
dishonor. They repeatedly declared for
bimetallism, their state conventions in
the west have stood for free coinage
at sixteen to one and now they re-
verse their former platforms and de-
cry any financial policy not controlled
by the national banks and the
gold trust. They made the civil war
obligations payable in lawful" mon
cyl" at the behest of the bondhold-
ers they betrayed their constituents
and made those obligations payable
in "coin." And now again they alter
the contract, to the peoples damage,
and make those same bonds payable
in gold" Not content with this last
betrayal Of trust, they arrange a
scheme of refunding that prevents
the payment of these obligations I'M
til the year 1925. In 1872 they boast
ed their rapid reduction of the public
debt; in 1899 they passed law that
makes that debt perpetual charge
upon the people. They have en-
couraged every monetary regulation
that they now denounce as financial
heresy and verify, their last state is
worse than their first.
New and Startling Proposition.
And now as fitting elimination OF
betrayal, after following every finan-
cial ism that they fondly imagined
would secure public favor they come
forward with a new and startling
proposition. They propose to give the
national banks power to issue notes
on their ordinary assets. Thinly hid
den under mass Of smooth verbiage.
the second paragraph of the financial
plank in their national platform pro-
claims a heresy that puts to shame all
the vagaries of monetary jugglery.
These learned masters of monetary
legerdemain scott of the scheme Of
John Law, they lament the fate
of the continental currency, they
deride the "subtreasury scheme" of
the farmers alliance; they boast
themselves the guardians of Sound
finance" but here we find them en-
dorsing the widest dream that ever
fitted through the muddled brain of
Loux or Donnelly. Notes issued
on bank assets! Why, that is the
theory that gave use the wild cat
and red dog" paper of the old days,
That is the theory that gave us a
panic in the days of our fathers;
that is the dazzling dream of every
fiatist since the time when Noah
sailed the Ark: and now, sprung to
life at the magic touch of a Hanna,
it comes forth free from it's grave
clothes disguised as sound finance"