People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1894 — STILL AT THE FRONT. [ARTICLE]

STILL AT THE FRONT.

The Money Question of Paramount Importance—All Other Issues of Secondary Interest. With the tariff question practically disposed of by congress, the financial question will continue to grow in importance until it is settled in the interest of justice and equity. While congress has been discussing the tariff the people have been discussing the money question. The result is that, to-day, the remonetization of silver has become the paramount issue in the mind of the public. Selfish interests have tried in Vain to ignore it, and ignorance has done its best to muddle it, but all to no purpose. It overlaps and overreaches party lines. The republicans are trying hard to put themselves in line with the people on this great issue. The populists hav* adopted it. And even the prohibition* ists, who have heretofore dealt only in questions of morals, have taken it up, and in two states of the northwest they have declared for the free coinage of silver.

In a great many states the politicians have succeeded in smothering the money question with other issues, and in momentarily diverting attention from it, but it has grown and is still growing and by the time the next congress meets it will have complete possession of the country. All other issues will be subordinate to it. and for the best of reasons. The people will discover as the days roll by that no tariff measure, no matter how radical, can afford any relief so long as the standard money of tde country—which is gold —continues to increase in value as compared with the products of human labor. People will discover that there can be no relief in tariff measures so long as falling prices compel those who own money to keep it out of business.

The cheapening of products by means of tariff reduction is a healthy and wholesome process so far as the people are concerned, hut the cheapening of products by means of the constantly increasing value of standard money is a process that kills all enterprise and depresses all business. There has been a little flurry in the stock market as the result of the passage of the tariff bill, but this is purely speculative, being based wholly on the expectations of those who are waiting for a turn in the tide that the settlement of the tariff question will restore good times. The Constitution has never led its readers to believe that any measure of tariff reform would at this time tend to restore prices and business to the old level of prosperity. That result can only be* brought about by the settlement of the financial question—the restoration of silver to its old place as a part of the standard money of the country. In this direction only will producers find good prices, laboring men good wages, and merchants good business. The single gold standard means European wages, European prices, European conditions, and the enslavement of the people by the money kings.—Atlanta Constitution.