Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1898 — THE PEOPLE'S MONEY [ARTICLE]

THE PEOPLE'S MONEY

Parity. It is now definitely settled that we cannot have International bimetallism, because a few dealers in money, occupying an area not exceeding half an acre in the city of London, will not allow it. In view of this fact, we must adopt independent action, as unanimously recommended by the European delegates to the international monetary conference which convened in Paris in August, 1878. Money is not an end, but a means to an end. It Is not the possession, but the employment of money in productive industries that benefits mankind. If upon opening our mints to the unrestricted coinage of both metals upon our present legal ratio of 1 to 10, silver should predominate in our currency for awhile, our monetary system would be bimetallic, as it was from the formation of the government until 1873; and it would give as great an impulse to our industries as if gold should predominate, and, as predicted by M.-Gernuschi, it would undoubtedly compel similar action by European natious: Our only alternative is to abandon definitely and finally the established policy of maintaining the parity of the metals upon a legnl ratio by making permanent the gold standard, and prolonging indefinitely the evils inaugurated by that fatal measure, and which no reformation of our banking system can in the slightest degree counteract. What the people want is, not nil opportunity to borrow money, which, by increasing in purchasing power, will absorb the property they already have, but an opportunity to buy money with their labor and the products of their industry.

“ Dishonest Money.” The power which declares the silver dollar to be worth 100 cents in debtpaying value is the supreme power of the nation. When the silver dollar which it has created is asserted to be “unsound and dishonest money,” the government of the United States is openly charged with dishonesty, fraud and dishonor— a charge little less than treasonable, that richly deserves punishment by fine and imprisonment, because it is utterly and shamelessly untrue. If the devotees of the gold standard, which is ruining the country and tends to ultimately ruin them, desire to restore the bullion value of our $000,000,000 of silver coinage to a parity with gold, the only course to pursue Is to restore free silver coinage, thus creating an equal monetary demand for silver that there now is for gold at the present ratio of all our gold and silver coinage. Their refusal to do this means that they do not desire such a parity, and that, having demonetized silver bullion, they intend if they ever possess the power to demonetize and in like manner degrade and debase all of our silver coinage to present silver bullion value, ami thereby still further enhance the relative value of gold, and also further depreciate all the other values of productive American industry.

Gold Standard Effects. It Is a fact that nearly three-fourths of the members of both houses of Congress are lawyers, many of whom are the attorneys of trusts and corporations, and of the remainder very few represent the agricultural, commercial or manufacturing, the wealth-produc-ing classes of the country. It has been stated that at one time the banking interests had 189 representatives in Congress, notwithstanding the fact that during the Presidency of Washington in December, 1793, a resolution of Congress prohibited any officer or stockholder of a bank from being a member of the House. At that time there were but three banks, now they are numbered by thousands, and are consolidated into an association to act in concert, which boasts of power even to coerce Congress. Our government is no longer a government of the people, by the people and for the people, but a government by the representatives of the money power to enact laws in their own interests, to relieve themselves from all public burdens, impose them upon the people, and enable them by legalized robbery to absorb the wealth of the nation, in the production of which tney have not participated. Aim of Dimetallists. The aim of the bimetallists is not so much to secure the concurrent circulation of the metals as to restore the bimetallic principle to our monetary system. What great benefit or advantage will result from the re-establishment of this principle in our monetary system? An eminent economist lias said: “Tha office of money is to take property to market.” Under the operation of the bimetallic principle, one of the metals keeps down the charge which the other makes for rendering this service, by itself standing ready to perform it. The operation of the two metals in our .monetary system is analogous to the operation of railway and waterway systems in the transportation of merchandise. No Longer Free. The wealth-producing classes of the United States, and, in fact, of all goldstandard countries, are no longer free. They are in a condition of economic servitude, in which coercion by starvation has succeeded the lash of the slavedriver. The remedy is in the hands of the people; they have the power, but they have been long blinded by ignorance, sophistry and falsehood. The light is now dawning, and apparently the day of emancipation draws near.