Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1900-04-19
JAY COOKIES MAXIM
Mckinley Prosperity Built ON tina
Theory That a National Debt In
National Blessing.

"a national debt, national bless
ing" This was Jay Cookies familiar
saying, and its acceptance as trulsm
is the parent of our financial degrade
ton, dishonesty and corruption to-day.
Moreover, it's offspring is the perni-
cious money power which is grasping
our entire circulating medium and dol
ing out to deluded people, at cent
per cent. rate. as much as it thinks
the said people ought to be allowed to
have.
Now comes the perpetuation of the
Jay Cooke maxim through the refund
ing scheme which the senate has just
passed. If the bill becomes a law it will
compel the country to carry the entire
present national debt for at least an
other 80 years. 1t will saddle our in
EQUITIES upon our descendants.
But the increasing surplus in the
United States treasury gives every in
dication of being sufficient to pay of
the present bonded indebtedness OF
Ss50, 100000 inside of the nine years
they have yet to run, and there will be
no interest to pay after 1909. These
bonds it is proposed to refund in new
ones having 80 years to run, and turn
them over to the national banks as a
basis for their circulation notes, and In
this way future congresses will find it
impossible to bring about the with
drawal of the latter and replace them
with the governments own notes or
greenbacks. 1t is destroying the power
of the government to create money
and vesting that power in private indi-
viduals.
AS the bonds which it is proposed to
refund into others to run for 80 years
are not yet due they will have to be
bought in the market at the current
premium if the senate bill goes
through. This will offer Wall street
splendid chance to send up the price
and make a complaisant secretary of
the treasury pay it. This is another
reason why the scheme meets with so
much favor from the money trust. AS
the bonds to be bought are quoted to.
day, their purchase will cost the gov
eminent almost 500, 100000 above their
face value, and when the law under
takes to provide for their retirement
the price will of course go still higher,
The plausible republican argument
is that by the refunding there will be
a saving of interest. That 33-year
bonds bearing two per cent. will be in
better demand for investment purposes
than bonds having only eight years -
run, bearing three per cent. But if tia
money for the payment of the debt IL
in the treasury, earning no interest, it
is the height of absurdity to pay two
per cent, or any interest.
It is a manifold robbery of the peo-
pie. 1t robs them of 30 years inter-
est at two per cent, or go per cent. on
$s50,000,Oo0, or $51O,0o0,000; it robs
them of over 500, 000,0 for premiums
on the present bonds; it robs them of
the interest on the money which the
banks create on the basis of the re-
funding bonds, and it puts a mortgage
upon every dollar that sweating labor
earns to it's full equal amount.
If this thieving scheme is accepted
by the house, then the republican party
will be confronted during the coming
campaign with wave of Indignation
that will almost end in revolution.
The people do not yet fully grasp the
true inwardness of the outrage, but
they will be made to understand that
Jay Cookies maxim is the equivalent of
the Mckinley prosperity--a repudia-
tion of honesty and the providing of
the rich with safe and profitable in
vestments at the expense Of all the
people and their reduction to slavish
dependence upon merciless money
power.-Illinois State Register.