Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1898 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

VALUE OF GOLD AND SILVER COIN& It is interesting to note that while our forefathers succeeded in giving legal tender equality, they also made the attempt to give commercial equality to our two kinds of coin by statute law; it was soon found to be a failure. From the very nature of things this kind of equality in value, that is, in the exchangeable of commercial value, never can be and never has been maintained with precision by ourselves or any other nation of the world, for any reasonable length of time. Truly this kind of equality In value, which is exceedingly desirable, can be maintained with approximate precision for many years, as we can cite the experience of the French nation using a coinage ratio of 15.5 to 1 from 1803 to 1874. But let us remember that the legal tender value was at the same time maintained with absolute precision. Let us manfully face the well-authenticated historical fact thai the commercial value of gold and silver coins, at any given ratio, was always liable to vary from month to month, from year to year, and from decade to decade. However, when Congress is in session it has the legal right to follow these variations every day, and make the childish effort by constant changes in the weight of our coins to have them conform to this daily variation. This attempt was not made by our nation, as we have reduced the weight of gold coins but once (1834) during our national existence toward this equalization, while we increased the gold (1837) by a mere trifle solely for ease In mint circulations, while the quantity of pure silver in our standard silver dollar has remained unchanged since the first organization of our mints. On the other hand, Congress can and did regulate and maintain the debt-paying value of both coins, under our flag, with absolute precision from 1792 to 1873! While this was an act of precision, the other was merely an attempt at precision. Please note this as a very important and vital distinction. The lawful debt-paying value of coined money always has and always will have a powerful effect in tending to maintain the approximate equality, but never can maintain the precise equality in the exchangeable value of money, made of gold or silver, when put under the hammer test or in the melting pot. As an advocate of the restoration of silver, at the existing coinage ratio of 16 to 1, I firmly hold to the opinion that when we restore the full legal tender power to our silvei dollar, its value as bullion will rise

and gold will fall. Many of the commercial nations of the world would, in all probability, soon follow our example*, and the wide and mischievous chasm now separating the two metals would be bridged by our financial leadership. Some difference will always exist, as the history of coinage always has shown, but it will not be so mischievous as to cause a disastrous fall In prices as our present system has done. The existing commercial value of these two metals is now very far from being a fair test to the proper coinage ratio, while in 1792 it was a fair test. This is mainly on account of silver having been so extensively outlawed by so large a portion of the commercial world for the last twenty-five years. The assertion so frequently made that silver has fallen in exchangeable value, when compared with gold, on account of the relative annual over-production of silver, is false, as can be readily seen by a reference to the official and universally accepted statistics of the relative production of these metals in the world during the past 100 years. It is a mathematical question concerning which there can be no fair dispute. The comparatively great stability in the relative exchangeable value of our coined money from 1792 to 1874, was secured simply because the United States permitted this legal tender value to remain as a sacred and potent regulator, given to us by our forefathers, and happily we also had the co-operation of almost the entire commercial world, as our mints, as well as theirs, was open to the coinage of both metals on equal terms. When Congress commenced to tamper with-this full legal tender function of silver In 1873, by making the gold dollar alone “the unit of value,” and stopped the further coinage of full legal tender silver, and on June 22,1874, demonetized all our existing full-weight silver coins as debt payers, except to the extent of $5, the mischief was then commenced and has never been entirely corrected, and most unfortunately the commercial world has followed our vicious example. As a leading nation let us always remember the world spells our name in large type!—John A. Grier.

Work that Counts. Every workman ought to say to himself every day of his life: “I'll never east a vote for a man, big or little, unless he has proved himself honest and a friend of labor." He ought to live up to that on election day. The men who do the work of this country can run it if they will. They can be rulers. It is all in their own hands. If they will kill jealousy, show faith in their own class, reward in their union principles, intelligence and a good record always—bombast never—they will soon change the complexion df the country. When we say a frend of labor we do not mean merely the advocate of union with an O. K. label in his hat and on his loaf. We mean especially the friend of the man who works as opposed to the do-nothing. We mean the man who cares as much for Samuel Gompers as for George Gould, and as much for the humblest shoveler as for Gompers. The first is easy to find. The second is not so easy—New York Journal. An Evil of Protection. If the natural law of free trade were restored there would be less drift from the farms to the cities arid less loafers in the cities. All honeet, able-bodied people would become bread-winners and bread consumers. Idle people eat, and ultimately it is the farmer who feeds them. Obliterate class legislation and there would be a movement to the farms, for the unemployed urban laborers would find plenty to do and Would earn plenty to eat and wea*. If t»e shackles are ever struck from American agriculture the economic problems of America would not be difficult of solution.—Dallas News. The Republican Way. Captain Robley D. Evans' has been relieved of the command of the battleship lowa. He thas been assigned to duty as a member of the naval iuspec-

tion board, and he will assume his new duties after a brief vacation. The next commander of the lowa will be Captain Silas Terry, now in command of the receiving ship Franklin at the Norfolk navy yard. *He will take the ship around South America and over to Honolulu in company with the Oregon and some colliers. Captain Evans is a Democrat and made a brilliant record at Santiago, but he offended the Republican prize-money grabber, Sampson, by saying that he would not accept plunder. Captain Terry is a Republican.—Chicago Dispatch. Rothschild and Hanna. The Interstate Commerce Commission, In advance sheets of its annual report, just issued, places the outstanding debt of American railroads at $1.0,639,074,000, says the Journal of Agriculture. After Wall street secured the panic proclamation against silver from President Cleveland, a majority of the roads representing this enormous inflation of over ten thousand million dollars, were thrown into the hands of receivers. While their stocks and bonds were thus forced down to the lowest point by the President’s attack on silver, they were bought heavily by English capitalists operating through the New York syndicate of which J. Pierpont Morgan is the leading representative. Morgan has since been actively at work reorganizing, with English money, the railroads which were so skillfully bankrupted by the foreign speculators whose influence secured the panic proclamation against silver. As the agent of the Rothschild syndicate and other foreign investors, Morgan now represents a greater power in America than the Goulds and Vanderbilts combined. With Hanna of the Steel Trust, Havemeyer of the Sugar Trust, and Whitney of the Standard Oil Trust, he is the supreme power in shaping the policies of the McKinley administration. The amount of the stock and bonded debt of the “reoi’ganized” railroads of America now held by English speculators, runs into the thousands of millions. It stands for an inflation of from 'two to five dollars on every dollar of actual cash originally Invested, but the foreign speculators who force us into panic to “bear” our markets, not only demand payment of dividends and interest on the full face value, but they demand it la sold. When we attempt to remonetize silver, so that we can have money to do business with at home, while our gold is being drained to England to meet their exactions, they call us “cranks,” “anarchists” and “repudlationists.” And finding that these epithets lose thqjr potency, they employ agents to lure us with promises of military glory and of opportunities to join English Tories in schemes of oppressing and robbing the helpless of the earth.

Under Hanna’a Thumb. Many people who entertain no great admiration for President McKinley will nevertheless regret that the return of peace has apparently subjected him once more to the domination of the man Hanna. Since he emerged from his cyclone cellar upon the signing of the protocol Hanna has gradually assumed his former attitude of boss to the administration. He talks of the president’s views in regard to all sorts of matters as if he were the authorized spokesman of the White House. The old firm of “Me and Mack” has resumed business to the disgust of everybody, including the president’s friends. If the president can put a stop to it he ought to do so. It is a painful and humiliating spectacle to all Americans —Republicans and Democrats alike—this of a heavy-jowled, fat-witted vulgarian posing as the master of the president of the United States without a protest or disclaimer from the president himself. Major McKinley owes it to the nation and to himself to assert his manhood and the dignity of his office. Let him turn Hanna down. Money Is Made by the Law. The same law that made 25.8 grains of gold a dollar could have made a dollar of half that amount, and under the law making this a standard dollar, If there were only one ounce of gold in the world it would not be worth more than $20.67. The gold standard, wherever It existed, was a creature of law and nothing else. Gold had no particular intrinsic value. Its value as a money metal was altogether extrinsic, depending upon its relation to other things, and its exchange value was altogether dependent upon the law of supply and demand. The difference between the supporters of Bryan and those of McKinley in the last campaign was only a difference of method. One element believed in the free coinage of silver independently and the other in waiting for an international concurrence. The statement has been made that In the lagt election practically 13,500,000 voters had gone on record for the free coinage of silver at some time, only 134,000 voting unequivocally for the perpetuation of the gold standard,

Paymasters as Bsd as the Rest. It becomes more evident every day that in many instances the regular and volunteer soldiers of the United States army have not been paid for their services. During the glamour of the campaigns in Cuba and Porto Rico the soldier cared little, or nothing for the sight of Uncle Sam’s gold, but since his return to “God’s own country,” where the full pocket makes the stomach easy, -the lack of well-earned cash becomes a sore grievance. It is sad indeed to have to hold the paymaster’s department up to the same opprobrium as attaches to the quartermaster’s and commissariat’s, but that is precisely what it is proper to do—New York Herald.

The Fnrprlaet in Vermtfnt, The election in Vermont has set all the Republican organs at work to find an explanation of the phenomenal results reached by the popular vote. It is a surprise party, and no mistake. The Democrats increase their poll for governor by a very respectable figure. The Republicans lose to a degree which in a less sure state would mean defeat; while in the Legislature the Democracy makes what is a stupendous gain in representation, comparatively considered,—Boston Post. Cheap Men or Cheap Dollars? Shall we have cheap men and dear dollars, or shall we have dear men and cheap dollars? Shall the man go up and the dollar go down, or shall the dollar go up and the man go down? Shall manhood triumph over money and labor over loans, or shall money invoke misery and the dollars of Shylock triumph over the souls of God's

deserving poor? These are question* we should ask and answer before we think of voting for a single gold standard.—Nonconform Ist, The Maine Election. Closely following Vermont, the result of the State and Congressional elections in Maine show enormous Democratic gains. The Republican political sharps, as usual, attribute their reduced majorities to the old fiction and excuse of an “off year” and “light vote.” This is folly. The same causes which produce a light Republican vote produce a light Democratic vote. The inofficial, but probably correct, reports from Maine indicate a Republican plurality on Governor of 20,000, against a Republican plurality of 48,377 two years ago. Speaker Reed loses 4,000 of his majority in 1896 and has his smallest vote since 1892. Silver was the only question discussed In his district. The other Republican candidates for Congress suffer a similar proportion. The Democrats have made marked gains in the legislature. Silver at 16 to 1 has won a glorious victory by the gains. Samuel L. Lord, the Democratic candidate for Governor—who reduced the Republican majority in the State 60 per cent.—is 'Mayor of Saco and was a Republican until 1872, when he joined the Greeley movement. As the fall elections of 1898 come nearer the marked change in the political sentments of the country become more apparent. At the spring election in Rhode Island and the June election in Oregon the Republicans held their own as compared with the i elections of 1896. Though few speechles were made, Maine was flooded with silver literature and the Democratic papers discussed nothing else. Nothing at all was said about the war or the abuse of the soldiers. No definite charges could be made and the Democrats did not lower their cause by trumping lies. Thurston’s Discovery. With his usual perspicacity, Mr. John M. Thurston of the Union Pacific Railread—and incidentally of the United States Senate —has discovered that “most of this hubbub about Alger has been created by the space writers.” Mr. Thurston probably doesn’t know what a space writer is, but that makes no particular difference. If the space writers are responsible for the “hubbub about Alger” they ought to be choked- off. In order to do so it will' be necessary, from all appearances to silence about three-fourths of the newspapers, nine-tenths of the soldiers and pretty much all the civilian population of the United States, for the “hubbub” arises from all those sources. It will doubtless be a surprise to a great many of these people to learn that they are space writers, but Mr. Thurston himself Is not a space writer, but a spacious, if somewhat aerated, talker. Honest Investigation Demanded. For the sake of the good name of the nation, for the consolation of those who have lost loved ones in the war, for the instruction of the war department and army, for the sake sf the reputation of those who have been bitterly assailed, it should be determined whether politics, incompetency, neglect, conspiracy or rascality has madethe brief war with Spain needlessly sacrificial. An investigation for political effect will not do. An investigation for whitewashing purposes will not do v Whichever Wine the Public Lout. The sugar trust, alias Havemeyer, and the coffee trust, alias Arhuckle, have begun a duel to the death. Havemeyer Is going to sell sugar and coffee at less than cost, and Arbuckle is going to undersell Havemeyer. When the duel is over, when Havemeyer or Arbuckle is financially dead, or, what Is more probable, when peace is patched up, who will repay to Havemeyer or to Arbuckle, or—dreadful thought—to the allied octopi the millions spent in the fight?—New York World. Plutocracy Abroad. Last week the Ilanuacrats suppressed a Porto Rican paper for denouncing Spanish cruelty. Tuesday’s dispatches to the Glabe-Demoerat report that finding the government of the Cuban town of San Luis was In the hands of the Cubans themselves, Shatter had the Cuban flag pulled down. This is Imperialism, The Globe-Democrat wants a hundred thousand men to maintain it. It will take five hundred thousand. —Mississippi Valley Democrat. Contemptible Electioneering. < Hanna’jj and Bu&bneH’s chasing around on special trains to the various' hospital camps; yanking sick soldiers out of them and seuding them into the different districts of Ohio with the respective badges of these rival politicians pinned on thedr breasts, Is the sickliest electioneering dodge ever perpetuated. Ohio is not only the foster mother of presidents, but the breeding ground for unscrupulous political tricksters as veil.—st Louis Republic. Spanish and American Blunders. “The mistakes made In Cuba,” said a speaker reported in yesterday’s papers, “are not to he blamed on the army, but on the politicians at the head of the government.” The remark sounds a« if it might have been made in Washington, but it was.not. It is a part of Gen. Weyler’s speech In the Senate at Madrid- It merely goes to show that the mistakes in the Cuban campaign were not all on one side.—Philadelphia Ledger;

Algerian! Merely an Effect. The brethren who are now crying aloud for emancipation from .Algerism simply have the wrong sow by the ear. They are mistaking effeet for a cause. Algerian] is merely one of the miserable outputs of Hannalsm. It is a little more disgraceful than usual, but this is mainly because its performances have been of a public nature.—Atlanta Constitution. Tired of an Old Hnmbng. The grand old party racket has been worked to the point of exhaustion. It has served often to confirm the machine in power of diverting attention fro® the present to past history. It will not work this time. The people have caught on to the sham and can no long-j er be deceived by It.—Philadelphia Press,

Rottenness at Home and Abroad. The slater republics of France and tbs' United States are both profoundly stirred by government scandals that mean revolution if they are not Investigated and revolution if they are. In both cases, too, the same official rottenness. Republican government will have to put some raw beef on this black eye.—, Houston (Tex.) Post. The Three Greatest Crimea. The three greatest modern crimes against humanity are the monopolization of natural bounties, the forced Increase of debts, and the periodical shrinkage of values.—Nonconformist. One Suffering Frenchman. French justice may not overtake Paty Du Clam, but he is in the clutches of the editorial punsters. Let us pity Paty.—Kansas City Journal,