Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1898 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

CAN’T PAY WITHOUT MONEY. When friends of free silver were urging Congress to expand the currency and furnlsb more money for business, as well as for way, we were ridiculed by the gold press, which declared that all the country needed to carry on the war was less money and more taxation. We told them tliat the issuance of bonds would furnish safe Investments and withdraw money from business, and that with the bonds issued to absorb the circulating medium the new taxes imposed by the Dingiey bill would not only be onerous, vexatious and burdensome, but that they would not produce the expected revenue. We poiffted out that while the United States was putting out $500,000,000 of Surplus revenue which was applied to the payment of public debt, that after the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman act with a view of reaching the gold standard the revenue fell off and the debt Increased in four years $202,000,000. We contended that it yvas necessary In order to enable people to pay taxes, there should be money in the country for that purpose. It was contended, on the other hand, that the less money there was In circulation with which to pay taxes the easier it would be to make payment and the larger would be the revenues. The war revenue bill has gone into operation. The loose money of the country, says the Silver Knight Watchman, has been absorbed by the new bond issue, and the new taxes are so vexatious and difficult to pay that it is almost imposible to do business at all. The only activity in any line of business of the war is in war supplies. In ordinary times the business of the war would create a boom, but undey the existing clreuim stances the only boomers nre the lucky ones in trade with Government officials. However rich these lucky fel- - lows may get. the country at large will not realize much benefit from their peculiar gains. The people will have a chance in the fall elections to say whether they want more taxes and less -money to continue to be the settled policy of the country,

Fteve Fouglaa’ Fon. The announcement of Stephen A. Douglas Jr. that he considers himself a member of the Democratic party is a political event of unusual significance. Mr. Douglas has always been a Republican, a hard party worker, conspicuous In Republican conventions and popular meetings and a favorite campaign orator. The democracy of Mr. Douglas, though but recently acknowledged, comes to him by distinguished descents He is the elder son of Stephen A. Douglas, the illustrious Democratic statesman aud leader, whose name and public service are among the highest honors of the State of Illinois. On Ills dying bed he bequeathed to his sons their most valuable patrimony—his parting parental counsel: “Tell them to obey the. laws aud uphold the Constitution.” words are sculptured on the base of his monument at Chicago. They constitute the foundation principle of the Democratic party. With this admonition left as his political inheidtance the younger Douglas has remained too long out of the Democratic party. He is welcome to its ranks and will become one of its most powerful and persuasive advocates before the people. In 1890 he secretly voted for Bryan. A few days ago he made his public declaration of faith. He will take the stump for free silver, the main cause of his conversion.

Hoarded Gold. As a proof of the wonderfully beneficial effects of the gold standard, the accumulation of gold in the vaults of banks and sub-treasuries is quoted. It is alleged that upward of 500 tons of gold, which is about one-twenty-fifth of all the gold in the world, lie in the treasure vaults of New York. City. For all the good that gold is doing the people of the United States it might as well be in the frozen marshes of the Klondike. Hoarded money Is dead money, and gold Is the money which bankers, brokers and mlsei’s hoard. Especially Is this the case In times of war, and it Is made the case by the demonetization of sliver, which constitutes gold the only money of ultimate redemption. If those tons of gold could be put in circulation, if the value they represent could be Injected Into the arteries of trade, then some benefit would be conferred! Indeed, great benefit would result. But as this gold Is Bimply piled up In the treasury vaults of New York it confers no more benefit than so much brick dust. Wheat In an elevator wifi not keep people from starving. Wheat must be ground into flour, made into broad, placed within the reach of the Individual before it can relieve hunger. Gold in th? vaults Is as useless as wheat in the elevator. There is. no benefit to the people In either so long as they are hoarded. Humbug and Wheat. Why have the Republican editors fallen silent on the great question of wheat? What has become of the Dingley bill? Its vast influence In booming wheat up to and beyond the dollar mark? Wherefore are the Republican orators mute on the enormous wealth gathered by the horny handed sons of toil who worked the farms while the Dingley confidence men worked the farmers? Whence have flown the turgid pages of rhetoric about the mortgage lifting power of the advance agent of prosperity? All these queries are pertinent since the famine in India has ceased; since the crops of wheat for 1898 have been estimated; since the corner in our great cereal has been broken, and since the price of wheat has tumbled down hill faster than It ever climbed up hill. If anybody was ever fooled by the unblushing effrontery of the claim that the Republican party has anything to do witli raising the prjee of wheat, now is the time to repent, confess and receive absolution. Wheat has tumbled, though the Dingley bill Ims not been repealed, and In spite of the fact that the Republican administration at Washington still lives.

Work Inefficient. Since the days of the fighting in front of Santiago, there has been cumulative evidence of the inefficiency of the work of the War Department in the matter of transportation, supplies and medical attendance. In the haste of a campaign carried on under circumstances so unusual, a certain amount of unpreparedness and of unavoidable drawbacks was to be expected; bnt the shocking condition writer which the sick! soldiers on the Seneca and the* Concha made the'voyage to New York, together with the terrible privations

suffered In the camps, which Inspector General Breckinridge has reported, seem certainly to pass far beyond the line of excusable shortcomings.—Baltimore S’ews. Robbed bjr Trusts. Direct taxation Is not borne with equanimity by the people of the United States. But when such taxes are imposed as a means of raising revenne to on war, objections are silenced. There is a form of taxation, however, which is more heavy than any imposed by the Government, and that Is the tax levied on all consumers by the trusts. Almost every day the announcement Is made of the formation of a new trust or of the Increase in the price of articles manufactured by some trust.- Today it Is tho whisky trust. Yesterday It was the plate-glass trust. To-mor-row It will be some other trust. Every one of these trusts is protected by the Republican administration. Every one of these trusts helped to elect McKinley. If the people are tired of paying tribute to the trusts they should cease to vote for the candidates of the Republican party. So long as Mark Hanna, Steve Elkins and McKinley are kept in power, just so long will the trusts multiply aud flourish. Just so long will the people be taxed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. In the light of every-day experience the people ought to see the result of Republican success aud should take measmeasures to destroy the party which creates the trusts.

Popular War Loan. Selling the bonds at par to the people of the United States and giving the takers of small sums the preference was a new departure In national financiering. When the.money dealers urged a bond Issue they expected to buy the bonds at par and to sell them to individual at a premium. Now, alas, for the syn j dlcates, the Individual purchasers, having bought the bonds at par, have the opportunity to sell them to the bond dealers at a premium, consequently there Is much grief in the hearts Of money dealers and much joy in the hearts of the common people. If bonds are to be Issued at all, they should be sold to the men and women who pay the taxes and do the work. They should never be offered to syndicates. Grover Cleveland made J. Pierpont Morgan and his combines of American and European bankers a present of $1,000,000 on what should be the last public loan sold by private contract. In making that gift to Morgan the President robbed the people. Similar robbery was contemplated when the war bonds were under discussion, but, thanks to Democratic efforts, the steal was defeated.