Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1893 — COPYING FROM THE MONON. [ARTICLE]

COPYING FROM THE MONON.

Frank J. Reed, general passenger agen of the Monon, reports that the Increase in passenger earnings for the last week in September was $33,000, being 150 ptr cent, increase over the same week last year. The t otal incaease for the month of September was $116,339 The manner the Monon h’s handled its immense traffic h e last few weeks is exciting favorable comment in r ilroad circles. Thevolume of business it has carried with its passenger equipment is unprecedented. The Monon accomplished this by an elaboiate system of “doubling back." A train, for instance, leaves Chicago loaded to its full capacity. By the time it has gone a hundred miles enough passenger?have disembarked so that the remainder require one or two fewer oaches. These coaches are then dropped and hauled back full on the next train for Chicago. This system has been in force on the Monon for some time, and has since been extensively adopted bv all Chicago roads. That it worked well is shown by tne corresponding earnings of the Monon for the entire month of September The total passenger earniugs were $194,851, against $78,512 the corresponding week last year, an increase of I $115,339. That it works economically is shown by the fact the Monon has used the ■ same cars four times a day, each time bringing in full loads of passengers.

As a specimen of the way the republicans are starting in to conduct the campai n in Ohio, one speaker dilating on the pension question at a Soldiers’ reunion, stated a fact that 32,600 pensioners of the state had been dropped during the month of August. The records in the pension agency in Columbus show that only sixteen pensions had been suspended in the state during the month of August, and that 4,563 new names have been added. The large addition, however, was caused by the transfers of the inmates of the Bayton’s Soldiers’ home to that agency. During the <ncnth of J uly. according to the pensioi records, 13 pensions were suspended in the state and 100 new names added to the list. The total loss to the rolls in July, from all causes! was 213, «nd 154 of these were death. In August the total loss was 102 from the following causes: Death 182, remarriage 11, legal limitation 11. transfer to other agencies 37, suspension 16. This is the truth concerning the quees tion, as shown by the records, and it is all the basis there is for the statement that 82,000 pensions had been dropped in Ohio during the month of August.

Extract from a speech of Sena tor Turpie, delivered in the Senate, in advocacy of the repeal of the silver purchase clause; “Many allusions have been made to the declaration of principles adopted by the lasi national Democratic convention at C' icago. One of the chief clauses of that declaration demands the repeal of the Sherman act. Such was our pledge made and given tno pledge must not be broken. Another ot these clauses in that declaration laid down the doctrine that the parity of the two metals, silver and gold, as money should be maintained—that there should be no discrimination against either. Such was the pro j. ise—the i romise must be kept. The title of the act we are now considering is “An act to repeal pait of an act of July 14, 1890, directing the purchase of silver bullion.” The title of the act of 1890 is “An act directing the purchase ot silver bullion.” Now it is verv clear that the very title of the Sherman act establishes disparity between the two metals —and that upon its face it makes a discrimination against sUver. Repeal remove s that disparagement. Let me call the attention of Senators to the very expressive languagt of our old comage laws: □Act of 1792 It shall be lawful for any person to bring to the mint gold and silver Lullion * * * Bn( j th e bullion so brought shall be there coined—and that free of expense to the person by whom the same shall have been brought. And again: The ballion which ..hall be brought as aforesaid to the mint to be coined * • * in the order in which the said bullion shall have been brought and deliveud. Heavy penalties are denounced for the violation of this order, for any preference therwwe. It is later on provided that copper shall be purchased as alloy for both silver and go’d coin—and still later that more copper snail be purchased for the coinage of cents and half cents; and yet later, it is di rected that nickel shall be purchased for the minting f the minor coins.

It will be seen from these enactments that only base metal is purs chased; neither of the two preeious metals was to be (purchased for coinage under any of tnese enact* ments. Under the operation of the acts of 1878 and .1890 providing for its purchase, silver, for the first time, was degraded to the level of the alloy metels. Under the law to-day gold is brought to the mint, silver is f ought for it. The act of purchase is itself a -discrimination agai st silver,wtrtch we declared should not be made; it is a discrimination acrid, sharp, andtrencha t The pest of purchase is the vic- in this sch w; it is the stone in the wound; it is the morsel of canrien in the dish which taints the whole plat* ter. It places upon silver and upon silver coin the mark and brand of bondage, like the graven collar around the neck ot the swineherd m Ivanhoe, “Gurth, born thrall of Odricof Bother wood.”

It destroys that parity of the two metals and of the two moneys which we promised should be main. tained. The promise must be kept. I never could understand why the Bland act provided for the purchase of silver. Why the act ot 1890 did so is plain enough The act of 1890 was the result of a parliamentary compact in this body. The silver-producing States wished a market for their product. They found one in the purchasing clause of the Sherman act. They closed with that proffer, throwing free coinage into the bargain.

They thought and said with all sincerity in this Chamber, that the ac‘ of 1890 was a step in the direction of free coinage. At every station of the journey hither to attend th.s extraordinary session of Congress we were startled by flash alter flash accompanying the report of financial failure and disaster. Our way to the capital was blazoned by a carnival of ban kruptcy. Are these the consequences of a single step toward free coinage? No; they are the wellknown signs and tokens of a step toward the sole standard of gold—toward the basis of a single money metai; toward a second resumption in gold alone, another Enormous shrinkage in values and the establishment of a monopoly in money. But in the case of the Bland act there were no such conditions.Why then was silver purchased?

Did the friends of silver fear al that time that it would not be bro’t to tLe l int for coinage, and so thought best to make sure of a supply by buying it? This is hardly credible. Was the silver purchased at eo many ounces per month in order to 1 mit the am’t to be coined? Certainly it is well understood that the act was ths result of a compromise, but why co'd not the number of ounces be limited and coinage be left free to those first offering silver bullion up to the limit in each month to be coined? And above all, why was the coinage of silver dollars not made equal as well as free up to the amount restricted? Equal to that of gold in monetary prerogative—a full legal tender—so that when standard silver dollars were offered anywheie the debt died?

Coinage of the silver dollar free, without mini charges, coinage of the same equal—that is, with no exception to its legal tender fuuc - tion, and j et limited as to amount —is a propotition which it may stand us well in stead to consider. For myself, after we have redeemed the outstanding pledges of repeal and of maintenance of the existing parity, I am prepareu to support, as I always have supported, free coinage, or further coi - age with equal monetary functions, and to ac‘ foi such consummation.

The national circulating mediu m of this country ought to he, aid will be in the end, silver and gold coin with their paper su stitutes all of co-ordinate full monetary character, springing from precise parity as to the coins struck, and from the umfica’i >n of our different kinds of paper merged into the form of the Treasury note. What may be the aliquot respectively, of silver, gold, and notes in the volume of money, seems.to me a secondary question, one wholly of expediency. It is a question necessarily transient, temporary. It can not be accounted as among great fundamental policies or principles, and has occupied a place in public attention wholly out of proportion to its real importance.

For this reason I earnastly hope that the eloquent appeal made yes terday by the Senator from Mississippi who sits next me [Mr. Walthall], for some adjustment of thejdifferences among xs, may find a response—an answer in full accord therewith. The subject upon which we differ is infinitely less than the great aims and purposes which otherwise we would attain. Political unity is the first law of safety. That unity of action is a duty incomparably greater than division on the matter which di*, vides us. It is a duty—a thing now due. It is that which we owe, and we shall he greatly debtors if we fail to discharge it. We owe this, all this, to the past, wh'erein we have wrought together to the present, pressing upon the edge of further conflict, t? the future with its high hopes and aspirations kindled in all hearts and by the victory of 1832. 1 recall a time when we had no metallic money in circulation at all - even subsidiary silver disappeared. We had fractional paper of 5, 10.15, 25, and 50 cents it denomination; yet we had no scarcity of funds. The vacuum made by the absence of silver, bv the desertion of gold, was promptly filled by other agencies. It was the period oi the great civil war. Although it was a time of much sorrow and suffering, there