The independent., 1904-12-22
Decrease In
Legal Tender

- WIZ bAAo RhbJS1L ot IA IoNAt~ AMO
has opened the eyes of some people,
and events have revealed the purposes
OF the financial grnnn" What Is the
duty OF those whose eyes are open,
and who now understand the purpose
of the financial group?" 1t is not ex-
pected that their purposes will be "an-
nounced" on the bill boards or in tae
columns Of newspapers, but it has
been proclaimed for thirty years and
more, by legislation they have induced
an uninformed congress to enact, and
by proposed legislation now on the
files Of both houses Of congress. Is
the question of less importance because
some people do not understand it? Are
the consequences less serious and less
injurious because some people do not
connect them with the proper causes
Is the danger less because some peo-
pie do not foresee the effects taat will
follow proposed legislation? Shall
those who do understand conditions
and fOresee results make the plea of
Cain?
BY what right does any man assert
that "the people can not be brought at
this time to consider the money ques-
tion?" By what right does any man
assume that the people can not UNDER
stand tie question, sufficiently at least
to see their danger, but that they can
understand other economic questions
of equal complexity but of less import
ance? Every possible effort that in
genuity can suggest and devise has
been made to keep them from under
standing what is going on; to keep
them in ignorance and confusion: to
mislead and deceive. The democratic
organization has now made itself
party to t1is effort, and the leaders Of
1896 now tell us ''it is useless to press
the subject at present.
Wall street has had no doubt about
the people being able to understand
enough of the question to understand
its purposes. The discussions of the
period of 1876, led by party few IN
numbers, were sufficiently understood
by the people to force the undoing, in
part, of what the financial group" had
accomplished. To this discussion was
due the restoration Of the silver dol
lar.
The food of information the people
got in 1896 filed the financial group"
with terror. It cost them millions OF
dollars to prevent that information
from bearing it's legitimate fruit. Bad
faith, plutocratic selfishness and parti-
san blindness lost the people the VIC
tory. In 1900 the people were eager
for information, and were beginning TO
know too much about it to suit the IN
terests of the financial group" Their
interests demanded that the discussion
Of the qeustion be stopped. Partisan
stupidity permitted the insertion in the
democratic platform of the foolish dec
laration that an imperialistic effect
was paramount to plutOcratic cause.
Under this device of the financial
group the discussion of the question
was discouraged and almost discon-
tinued, and the people disappointed.
When you get past he committees of
the parties into the parlors of the
group" there is no division into par
ties; no difference in policy or pur-
pose. 1t was determined to take pos
session of the democratic organization
and, by platform and nominations, stop
the discussion. Months in advance
plans were made and traps" set No
one saw this more clearly than did the
editor of the Commoner. Nc one strug-
gled more energetically to keep the
question within the range of discus
sion. No one has submitted more COM
pletely or more abieetly to the decree
of the financial group" that it should
not be discussed at all.
Those Of us who had been induced
by the Chicago platform to assist the
party in 1896; those of us who con-
tinued that assistance in 1900 because
of the confidence we had learned to
have in the "constancy" of it's candi-
date, have been surprised, disappointed
and chagrined, but we had not expect
ed that, through the columns of The
Comoner, the claim would now be set
up that it is the fault Of the people
that the question was dropped out IF
the discussion. and that it still "is
useless to press the subject at present
because the people are too needless
to regard it or too ignorant to UNDER
-foud r.