People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1893 — NAMED IN THE BONDS. [ARTICLE]

NAMED IN THE BONDS.

!>• Law Says AU Government Obligations Are Payable in Cola-BUrer as Well as Gold. All the bonds and other obligations of the United States are made payable in silver as well as gold, notwithstanding the oft repeated affirmations to the contrary. The original law is on all the bonds and all renewals A resolution passed the United States senate January 25_1878, by a vote of 42 to 20, and passed the house January 28, 1878, by a vote of 189 to 79, declaring: “That all the bonds of the United States issued as authorized to be issued under the said acts of congress hereinbefore recited, are payable, principal and interest, at the option of the government of the United States in silver dollars of the coinage of the United States containing grains each of silver, and that to restore to its coinage such silver coins as a legal tender In payment of such bonds, principal and interest, is not in violation of the public faith nor in derogation of the rights of the public creditor.” There is no question but what under the existing laws every obligation of the government can be lawfully and honorably paid in silver dollars of grains, and this does not mean silver dollars over-valued by gold, or made redeemable in gold, but in silver dollars made equal by law to the gold dollar, as is plainly stated in the law under which all government bonds and other obligations were issued. The contract made by the government with the people that the bonds should be paid in “lawful money of the United States” was first repudiated by making all bonds and government obligations payable in coin. Not satisfied with this act of confiscation of the people’s property in their favor, the bondholders are now trying to force the government to adopt a gold basis system of finance to still farther increase the value and give their bonds a still greater grasp upon the property and labor of the people. Those who think these changes in the solemn contracts entered into by the government with her citizens are made necessary by any sound principle of finance, must be laboring under a big dose of gold cure.

This scheme of changing the money standard, or debt-paying measure, by which all stipulations in contracts are adjusted, is not of recent origin. It was adopted centuries ago and its baneful effects upon the people in all nations are matters of history. In the earlier English editions of the Encyclopedia Britanica the following quotation may be found: “Directly to alter the terms of contract between individuals, would be too barefaced and tyrannical an interference with the rights of property to be tolerated. Those, therefore, who endeavor to enrich one part of society at the expense of the other, find it necessary to act with caution and reserve. Instead of changing the stipulations in contracts, they have resorted to the ingenious device of changing the standard by which these stipulations are adjusted. They have not said in so many words that ten or twenty per cent, should be added to, or deducted from the debts and obligations of society, but they have, nevertheless, effected this by making a proportional change in the value of money.” Why was this quotation eliminated from the latter, especially from the American editions of this work? The great common people were the victims to be fleeced, and it would not do to tell them how neatly and adroitly they were to be skinned and their property taken from them by the cunning, greedy few, who now control legislation.

In all history, no bolder scheme was ever concocted to rob the people than the gold-bugs are now trying to fasten upon us by changing the debt-paying standard from one of silver and gold under free coinage to that of a single gold standard. It is a scheme in the interest of the creditor classes, and it is evident that they are working in concert with the president of the Bank of England, who some years ago stated his position on the silver question in these terse words, that are just now full of meaning to the American people: “It is not expected that England, as a creditor nation, will throw away the advantages of measuring values by a metal (gold) that is constantly growing scarcer.” Foreign, as well as our American creditors, have united to force a change in our money standard to that of scarce gold, the object being to give their bonds, mortgages, notes, all forms of indebtedness a double grasp upon the property and labor of those who produce all wealth. —Shelbyville (HL) People’s Paper.