Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1907-12-17
Honest Money.

the nation ud With congress assembled,
IN again tackle that currency problem,
the thinking citizen may well reflect
just where he is at For tine first time
in the past thirty years, we see again
the supposed exterminated forever
wild cat money. in full swing and its
poisoned proximity, if continued, Will
rapidly drive into hiding every honest
dollar not already hid. The days OF the
sixties and seventies are revived and
Corporation scrip to be followed by
that of every Tom, Dick and Harry
who has pen and paper with which to
write it, is forced upon the toiler and
real producer in exchange for his labor.
And, strange to say, those now pay
ing labor's wage in their own scrip
were, and no doubt still are, loud
friends of protection to American
labor and ''full dinner pail as his
well earned reward"-as the late Mar
Gus Hanna so wildly put it. But We'll
hope there were republicans then, as
there are now, who meant what they
said and to whom an "honest dollar"
applies not only TO the then agitated
fifty-cent silver coinage, but equally SO
to the moonshine stock values, to up
hold the present ''stringency' in the
money market is due, and for which
the government has been called upon
to bond itself and saddle the interest of
the bonds upon the people. The truth
is that as the silver boom of the early
nineties collapsed because of the refusal
of Grover Cleveland to furnish the
credit of the government in its support,
so the recent boom, especially in 'cop-
pers," is pe.ering out and will collapse
if congress refuses to sanction the ille-
gal and entirely uncalled for bond issue
by Secretary Cortelyou to help boost
prices by lending banks, holding the
copper collaterals, these $780, 900, 600.
free of interest.
Is it not pretty late in the day for any
up-to-date manager of nations
finances to assume that values which
do not exist, except on paper certificates
of stock, can be maintained by govern
ment any more than private individuals
or corporations All the bonds Mr..
Cortelyou can issue from now till he
goes out of office, year and four
months hence, will not make paying
mine of barren hole in the ground.
we read the statement of the president
of the Pittsburg stock exchange, to the
effect that the steel trust had taken
$4,000, 900 in spot cash out of Pittsburg
banks for shipment to Wall street, to
maintain prices on the various stocks
in which its officials were interested
and when it was realized that the presi-
dent of the mining branch of the steel
trust, the Oliver Mining Co., is also the
chief promoter of this "copper"" boom,
it is easily understood just why and
how the mining manufacturing sections
of the country, subject to this steel
and must submit to the scrip substi-
tute.
There are thousands, especially in min
ing districts, who remember the panic
of 1878 and how it found them with
only this mining scrip as the currency
in circulation as mining companies
keeled over, the scrip followed suit and
many hardy miner with thousands of
dollars of it laid by, could not even buy
a meal of victuals with it.
If "honest" money has any point to
it and it should be the duty of a govern
ment to furnish it as protection to its
commerce and trade, surely labor has
the right to insist that il should not be
paid in this dishonest scrip. And it
seems strange that good business men
and bankers as well, do not realize
their mistake in binding themselves to
encourage and give currency value to
this scrip makeshift. In doing so they
help to revive that same old saw and
agitation about money which most of
us supposed was settled, for one genera
ton at least, in the verdict of go
Again the Sam Carys, Bob Schillings
and other equally cock-sure, if not
equipped statesmen on the money
question" will be to the front, and pub
lie sentiment will again get lost in
wilderness of wind.
VIM. j. Bryan, who with thousands
of others, felt the impulse of immediate
relief, stronger than the slower process
of cooling down the imitation propa-
ganda in the logic of facts and exper-
fence as seen in the past, stands out
today in far more consistent light than
the so called honest" money advocate
who raised such hands of holy horror at
Cleveland's issue of $50, DOC, 600 in bonds
to maintain the gold reserve and now
applauding this Roosevelt performance
of dumping $3.50, 900 into the Wall
street hopper to maintain inflated
stocks.
Why should not men of finance the
same as other mortals, reap as they
sow In promoting booms without
value of cash of their own to back them,
it is best for all, and honest money
as well as honest men in particular, the
sooner such booms collapse and it GER
tainly lends no credit to our nation
when its chief executive comes rushing
on with this bonding broom to keep
back the ocean of trembling public con-
fidenee.
A FRIEND OF HONEST MONEY