People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1893 — DEBTOR AND CREDITOR. [ARTICLE]

DEBTOR AND CREDITOR.

Give Us a l egal Tender Currency Maintained In Circulation at a Given Amount Per Capita. Some one speaking of the financial problems now before the American people, and, indeed, before the people of the world, sayß: “In adjusting by law the relations of gold and silver as money metals in America care must be taken that the present creditor does not receive for his dues a cheaper money under a new system, and likewise that the debtor does not havo to pay his debt in a currency more valuable than the currency in which he contracted to pay.” In the above is the gist of the financial question. So long as there Is debt and credit, the creditor will be constantly striving to make the debt paying medium more costly, that his debt may be more valuablo; and always being more powerful than the debtor, he will generally succeed The financial legislation since the war has all tended in this direction. It is more than twice as hard to pay debts now as it was from 18(15 to 1878, and even later, and those who had contracted debts previous to that time find themselves loaded down with a more than double burden. All the schemes of contraction, including tho demonetization of silver, have thus been in the interest of the creditor and against tho interest of the debtor. During all the time of referred to the debtor scarcely uttered a complaint, because he was taken unawares; ho did not know wha<t was to be tho effect of tho legislation that was to crush him. His protest was heard only when tho weight became more than ho could bear, and then every bondholder, every mortgage holder, every note holder, every pap sucker, at once rose up to shout him down as a calamity howler. All the debtor now utters is a feeble demand for justice. He simply asks to be permitted to pay his debt in the inon'ey of the contract. To deny him that privilege is robbery. What is needed more than all else in money is a stable currency, one whose volume and power cannot be changed by speculators and creditors, but which, by the strong hand of government is held the same for all, of like value this year and next, so that when a debt is contracted the creditor may know what he is to receive and the creditor what he is to pay. A legal tender currency issued by the government and maintained in circulation at a given amount per capita is the only system of money that will ever meet this requirement.—Mt. Vernon (Ills.) Progressive Farmer.