People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1895 — Page 4

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The People’s Pilot. BY F.D. CRAIG, (Lessee.) PHOT PUBLISHING 00., (Limited,) Proprietors. David H. Yeoman. President. Wm. Washburn. Vice President. Lee E. Glazebrook, Sec’y. .L A. McFarland. Treas The People’s Pilot is the official organ of the Jasper and Newton County Alliances,and Is published every Saturday at ONE DOLLAR PER ANNUM Entered as second class matter at the post office in Rensselaer. Ind, ttens»elaer, Saturday, May 4.

People’s Parly Platform.

FOUNDATION PRINCIPLES. First.—That the union of the labor forceof the United States this day consummated 6hall be permanent and perpetual f may its spirit enter into all hearts for the salvation of the republic and the uplifting of mankind. Second.—Wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollartaken from industry without an equivalent is robbery. ”If any will not work, neither shall he eat.” The interests of eivie and rural labor ate the same; their interests are identical. Third—We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations w ill either own the people or the people must own the railroads, and should the government enter upon the work of owning and managing any or all railroads, we should favor an amendment to the constitution by which all persons engaged in the government service shall be placed under a civil service regulation of the most rigid character, so as to prevent an increase of the powerof the national administration by the use of such additional government employes.

FINANCE Fißsr We demand a national currency, safe, sound and flexible, issued by the general government only, a lull legal tender for all debts public and private, and that without the use of banking corporations, a just, equitable and efficient means of distribution direct to the people at a tax not to exceed 2 per cent, per annum to be provided as set forth in the sub-treasury plan of the Farmers’ Alliance or a better system; also by payments in discharge of its obligations for public improvements. We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver at the present legal ratio of 16 to I. We demand that the amount of circulating medium be speedily increased to not less than *6O per capita. We demand a graduated income tax. We believe that the money of the country should be kept as much as possible in the hands of the people, and hence we demand that all state and national revenues shall be limited to the necessary expenses of the government, economically and honestly administered. We demand that postal savings bank be established by the government for the safe deposit of the earnings of the people and to facilitate exchange. TRANSPORTATION. being a .means of exchange and a public necessity, the government should own and operate the railroads In the interests of the people. The telegraph and telephone, like the postoffice system, being a necessity for the transmission of news, should be owned and operated by the Government in the interest of the people. LANDS. Third—The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the heritage of the people, and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and alien ownership of land should be prohibited. All lands now held by railroads aDd other corporations in excess of their actual needs and all la nds now owned by aliens should be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers only. SUPPLEMENTARY RESOLUTIONS. Whereas. Other questions have been presented for our consideration, we hereby submit the following, net as a part of the platform of the People’s Party, but as resolutions expressive of the convention. Resolved, That we demand a free ballot and a fair count in all elections and pledge ourselves to secure it to every legal voter without federal Intervention through the adoption by the States of the unperverted Australian or secret ballot system. Resolved, That the revenue derived from a graduated income tax should be applied to the reduction of the burden of taxation, now levied upon the domestic industries of this country. Resolved, That we pledge our support to fair and liberal pensions to ex-Union soldiers and sailors. Resolved, That we condemn the fallacy of protecting American labor under the present system. which opens our ports to the pauper and criminal classes of the world and crowds out our wage earners; and we denounce the present ineffective laws against contract labor and demand the further restriction of undesirable immigration. Resolved, That we cordially sympathize with the efforts of organized workmen to shorten the hours of labor and demand a rigid enforcement of the existing eight hour law on government work and ask that a penalty clause be added to the said law. Resolved. That we regard the maintenance of a large standing army of mercenaries, known as the Pinkerton system, asa menace to our liberties, and we demand its abolition and we condemn the recent invasion of the Territory of Wyoming by the llired assassins of plutocracy, assisted by federal officers. Resolved. That we commend to the thoughtful consideration of the people and the reform press the legislative system known as the initiative and referendum. Resolved. That we favor a Constitutional provision limiting the office of President and Vice President to one term and providing for the election of senators of the United States by a direct vote of the people. Resolved. That we oppose any subsidy or national aid to any private corporation for any puroose.

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COIN NOT IGNORANT.

Charges of Gold Bog Editorial Writers Refuted. The following letter has been addressed to the editor of the Times-Herald in reply to an editorial published in that paper yesterday morning; “Chicago, April 24.—1 n this morning’s Times-Herald appears an editorial attack on the first chapter in ' ‘Coin's Financial School,’ in which the impression is intended to be conveyed that the financial law adopted in 1792 by the United States Congress did not fix the unit on silver, but did fix it on gold. The TimesHerald is wrong and the book is right. My quarrel with the Times-Herald is that it does not state the proposition or the authorities fairly, and draws conclusions ■which will not bear investigation for a moment. The substance of the discussion that led up to the fixing the UDit may be found in the state papers of that period, the principal ones of which may be found in the report of the international monetary conference of 1678, and consists of the following documents: “1. Mr. Jefferson's notes on the establishment of a money unit and of a coinage for the United States. “2. Report of a grand committee on the money unit. “3, The coinage system proposed to Congress April 18, 1786, by Samuel Osgood and Walter Livingston, who constituted the Board of Treasury. “4. The resolutions on coinage of Aug. 8, 1786. •*5, Report of Alexander Hamilton on the establishment of a unit. “6. Miscellaneous documents “From these you will see that Mr. Jefferson on page 438 advises the following coins: “1. A golden piece equal in value to 110. “2. The unit or dollar itself of silver. “3. The tenth of a dollar of silver also. “4. The hundredth of a dollar of copper. “The above is his exact language. Further on Mr. Jefferson says: “The unit or dollar is a known coin and the most familiar of all to the mind of the people. It is already adopted from South to North, has identified our currency, and therefore happily offers itself as a unit already introduced. Our public debt, our requisitions and their apportionments, have given it actual and. long possession of the place of unit. The course of our commerce, too, will bring us more of this than any other foreign coin, and therefore renders it more worthy of attention. “Furthur on he says: “If we determine that a dollar shall be our unit we must then say with precision what a dollar is.

“And then again, on page 442, he says: “The quantity of fine silver which shall constitute the unit being settled, and the proportion of the value of gold to that of silver, a table should be formed from the assay before suggested, classing the several coins according to their fineness. “And again on page 443 he recommends that a committee be appointed: “To prepare an ordinance for establishing the unit of money within these States; for subdividing it and for striking coins of gold, silver and copper on the following principles: “That the money unit of these States shall be equal in value to the Spanish milled dollar, containing so much fine silver as the assay before directed shall show to be contained on an average in dollars of the several dates circulating with us. • “That this unit shall be divided into tenths and hundredths. “In the report of the grand committee cn the money unit that fixed the silver dollar as the uqit we find on page 447 the following: “The quantity of pure silver being fixed that is to be in the unit or dohar and the relation between silver and gold being fixed, all the other weights must follow. “On page 449 we find the following: “On the Bth of April. 1786 ‘the Board of Treasury directed to the President of Congress their report on certain principles for establishing a mint, accompanied by a letter to the President of Congresp. The report was in triplicate and contained, as wul be seen below three distinct schemes, each of which was set! forth in the report with great l

THE PEOPLE’S PILOT, RENSSELAER, IND., SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1895.

particularity. * * * Each 0 f these reports proposed a silver dollar as a unit. “The opposite view of the question was presented by Alex-, ander Hamilton, and his report is in the book referred to and now before me with the other documents above referred to. On page 456 he says. “But, if the dollar should, notwithstanding, be supposed to have the best title to being considered as the present unit in the coins, it would remain to determine .what kind of dollar ought to be understood; or, in other words, what precise quantity of fine silver “On page 458 he again says: “The next inquiry toward a right determination of what ought to be the future money unit of the United States turns upon these questions: Whether it ought to be peculiarly attached to either of the metals in preference to the other or not; and if to either, to which of them. “On page 479 Mr. Hamilton recapitulates and advises as follows: “One gold piece equal in weight and value to ten units or dollars. “One gold piece equal to a tenth part of the former and which shall be a unit or dollar. “One silver piece which shall be in weight and value a tenth part of the silver unit or dollar. “Mr. Jefferson at one time came very near yielding to the arguments of Mr. Hamilton, but the whole matter went into the American Congress at its first session, and out of the recommendation and discussions that had been had, the result was + he enactment of the law of 1792, and section 9 of that act is the one that settled this question. It is as follows: “And be it further enacted. That there shall be from time to time struck and coined at the said mint, coins of gold, silver, and copper of the following denominations, values, and descriptions. viz: 1 “Eagles—Each to be of the value of ten dollars or units, and to contain 247 j grains of pure or 270 grains of standard gold. “Half Eagles—Each to be of the value of 15, and to contain 123 f grains of pure or 135 grains of standard gold. “Quarter Eagles—Each to be of the value of $2.50 and to contain sixty-one and seven-eights grains of pure, or sixty-seven and four-eights grains of standard gold. “Dollars or Units—Each to be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar, as the same is now current, and to contain 371-16 grains of pure or 416 grains of standard silver. “Half Dollars—Each to be of half the value of the dollar or unit and to contain 185 10-16 grains of pure, or 208 grains of standard silver.

“Quarter Dollars —Each to be of one-fourth the value of the dollar or unit and to contain nine-ty-two and thirteen-sixteenths grains of pure or 104 grains of standard silver. “The section closes by fixing the size of the minor coins. “It will thus be seen that the unit was settled on silver and remained the law until 1873, when it was changed to read p.s follows: “That the gold coins of the United States shall be a one-dol-lar piece, which, at the standard weight of 25 8-10 grains shall be the unit of value. “The mints were then closed to the free and unlimited coinage of silver, and a fierce and hostile attitude has been assumed toward it since that time. Thus, it will be seen that in fixing the unit originally the advice of Hamilton was rejected and tljat of Jefferson adopted, and while that was the law it was as impossible for the silver in a silver dollar to be worth less than a dollar as a bushel of wheat to be less than a bushel. It will be observed that Hamilton’s suggestion of two units, a gold and a silver unit was not adopted, and Jefferson’s position was adopted of a fixed unit on silver only. Jefferson’s plan contemplated a change in the commercial ratio of the metal in the two coins with.the intention of changing the size of gold coins if it should occur, .’and this change did occur twice afterward, and each time the change was made in the gold coins. “While the old law was in existence—l 792 to 1873—the mints were open to the free and unlimited coinage of both metals, but with the act of 1873 abolishing the silver unit and substituting the gold unit the mints were closed to silver and left open to gold alone. Sincerely, “W. H. Harvey, Author Coin’s Financial School.”

SILVER FREE AS GOLD.

The Author of Coin’* Financial School on the Single Gold Standard. No newspaper article can treat conclusively the question of silver. So much doubt exists as to the basic facts and so many misrepresentations have been made, resulting in a cloud of dust thrown over the whole subject, that one to convince must write in extended form, protecting himself with facts and statistics at each step, with the common sense of the Airterican people as his shield of safety from deluded writers and false logicians. There never was so much misunderstanding and ignorance among the- American people—the better classes—on any public question as there is and has been on this subject. For instance: Six months ago the general impression among the people was that silver was demonetized because it was so plentiful. Last summer the statement was made in more than one metropolitan papier in this city that silver “has become so plentiful it has ceased to be a precious metal.” The facts were that the world’s production of gold in 1873 (the year silver was demonetized) was $96,200,000, and the world’s production of silver was $81,800,000 (less silver than gold); 1874, gold *90.700,000. silver $71,500 - 000 (again less silver than gold), with the same result so , ‘ many years following, viz., an under production of silver as compared with gold. In the last few years by “statistics produced at Washington” the world’s production of silver has been greater than that of gold, and yet there has only been all told f%r the last twenty-one years 8 per cent overproduction of silver over gold in coinage prices. Those believing in the restoration of silver (the people’s money) recently assumed the aggressive and have since then been driving the gold-standard men from one false position to another.

In the meantime, however, much prejudice has been aroused among otherwise patriotic men against the advocates of a sound bimetallic currency. This prejudice is to be accounted for by reason of such men having been led astray by misinformation and supposed facts that they ac cepted as truths. It would be amusing were it not fraught with peril to the country to see how the other side straddles, prevaricates and jumps from one side to another. All this is made possible by reason of the question having been regarded by the people as obscure. But the United States is now a big school-room; the people are studying this subject and they are going to get at the facts and they are going to hold responsible the men who they find have deceived them. They are going to find out another thing; It is, that we are financially independent of Europe. Our forefathers sought to erect a government here that would be free from the class legislation of governments that we justly term plutocracies. Over there the many are slaves of the few who rob them by legislation. We had expected to be free of that here. It is now claimed that we are preforce compelled to adopt and maintain the financial legislation of Europe, the worst form of class legislation that was ever intended to enslave a free people. There is no such a thing as an international money. The biggest business we ever did with Europe was at a time when they had one thing for money and we had another —1862 to 1870. Balances with foreign countries are settled in the metals by weight at their commercial value. Bars of the metal are principally used. Four per cent of the business of the United States is foreign and 96 per cent domestic. What we want is a money adapted to the 96 per cent. What the people need now is education. Partisanism must be thrown aside. Let it be country first, with a desire for intelligent and patriotic solution. What we want is a sufficient quantity of primary or redemption money on which to transact the business of this country, and we want to free it as nearly as possible from all influences that tend to its being hoarded and embarrassed as a measure of values and a medium of exchange. The campaign is now on and we are driving these men who have wrecked this country to the position they have intended to occupy—the English goldstandard policy. They have for

twenty-one years cheated and deceived the people by stating things to be facts which were not facts; by controlling and wording the platforms of political parties that promised the restoration of silver, and by asking the people to wait for an international agreement. Now comes Mr. William C. Cornwell, president of the New York State Bankers'association, who, speaking for his side of this question, in an address to the bankers of Chicago Saturday night, says: “It is time to tear off disguise. International bimetallism is a traitor in the camp. It is a false fraud. It can never be accomp lished. It is a ‘will o’ the wisp’ dancing above the deadly marsh. It is as illusive as a dream of magic, as idle as the pursuit of perpetual motion, as dangerous as the delirium of fiat money,” He admits, what the Wise have all along knowm, that they were masquerading in disguise. That they have leading the people for the last twenty-one years by fraudulent practices. That they have been won by disguise. He now thinks it is time to throw that “disguise” off and stand out in the open and fight for a single gold standard, what they have intended to do through all these years of shambling and miserable deception. His speech was loudly applauded. And again he says: “If, in 1875,1876,' 1877 and 1878, the bankers and sound-money men had been organized as they are organized bow, and had spoken out as they are speaking out now. had started on a campaign of education as they are starting out now, the greenback would long ago have been wiped out. the silver lunacy, before it had wrought incalculable damage, would have been confined to the asylums, where it belongs.” And they are organized are they? We knew it, but thanks for this blast upon his horn that will assist in awakening the people. The question now is; Shall it pe English policy or an American policy? These men are seeking to rivet upon us the gold policy of England, with nothing but gold to be the primary monev of this country. They have by their gold policy got us in debt to England to an amount that requires over $200,000,000 in interest to be paid annually in gold, to pay which all our balance of tradeis consumed; all our annual gold production (about $40.000,000) and our surplus stock of gold is being drawn on for the deficiency. Their policy has driven the administration to go to the pawn-brokers of England to get gold to sustain this great government, and this is the system these men have organized to fasten perpetually on this country. Why do they take such an active interest? If Andrew Jackson were alive and president this policy would be suddenly reversed and every American heart would beat with responsive pride.

“Why,” you ask them, “was silver demonetized in 1873?” “Because,” they now answer, “it was at a premium over gold of 2 per cent and it had gone out of circulation.” “Where did it go?” you ask. “To Europe,” they reply, “where the bullion in a silver dollar was worth $1.02 as measured in gold.” When you answer this that “the United States produced about $35,000,000 of silver in 1873 at coinage prices,” and ask; “What objection is there to settling our foreign balance with silver at 2 ber cent premium instead of 50 per cent discount as now?” they say it is not bimetallism unless the two metals stay at the exact parity of 16 to 1. These men do not know what bimetallism is. It may be desirable to let one metal, go as it would be now, With both as. primary money we have bimetallism and bimetallic prices, whether one metal has a tendency to leave us more than the other or not. Ar.d if desirable to stop its leaving a change in the ratio .will do it, and if necessary can do it so as to set the other metal going. So that we can feed Europe either metal we choose. Here is a sample of astute arguments running through the minds of metropolitan editors: “Silver never was a unit, as was claimed for it, and one of the best evidences of it is that so little importance was attached to it that only 8,000,000 of these silver dollars were coined prior to 1873.” Show him the act of 1873 making gold the unit and ask him “How many gold dollars have been coined since then, if the

number coined is evidence of the law fixing <he unit?” and if he is an intelligent editor and speaks his mind he will tell you that he is hired to write editorials on a a subject he knows nothing about or does not believe in, or that cold calculating capital sets the policy of the paper, The fact that less than half a million dollars in one dollar gold coins have been coined since 1873 and those have been found impracticable and have gone out of circulation, and by an act of Sept, 26, 1890. their further coinage is prohibited. They will tell you that Mr. Jefferson stopped the coinage of silver dollars for thirty-four years, but at the same time they will conceal from you the facts that between 1792 and 1840 there was twice as many dollars’ worth of silver coined, and that the mints were open to the free and unlimited coinage of both metals, and both were full legal tender in the payment of all debts. They will tell you that the “free silver” men are all in favor of silver monometallism. And this by a great many people is believed.

This misconception arises from the reason that we are trying to restore silver —to give it free and unlimited coinage—the position it once occupied. It seems that many people do not understand that gold now has, as it always had, free and unlimited coinage So, that in trying to restore silver we use the term “free silver,” but we are no less in favor of “free gold.” We are bimetallists, believing in the free coinage of both metals. The fifty-cent silver dollar delusion has deceived more people than any one fallacy connected with this subject. But it will not deceive them much longer* We have literature among the people that makes this so plain that even the schoolboys can understand it. It will soon be a delusion no longer. If gold had been demonetized and the mints closed to its free and unlimited coinage and the work of redemption money thrown entirely on silver by the same nations we would have had fiftycent gold dollars as measured in silver just as we now have, fifty - cent silver dollars as measured in gold. They say that the silver-bull-ion owners are making this fight for silver. What about the goldbullion owners whose metal is favored? But it is not true. No man stands in a position to know this better than I do. The sil-ver-bullion owners are doing nothing to assist in this fight, and are giving no financial assistance. This is a question of adopting suitable property for use as money irrespective of who owns the property or who may dig it out of the ground. I would a thousand times rather, however, benefit one section of my country and its people than cater to the interest of England, whose gold is so dear and to get which we are giving up our property at a great sacrifice, and adopting a method that will bring national bankruptcy. I advise the people to take no one’s word for the facts in this national controversy and to send to Washington for the following books and documents:

1. A copy of the currency laws. If they send you a copy that leaves out part of the sections in the act of 1873 write back for a full copy of that act. 2. The statistical abstract. 3. The report of the currency laws and other, information revised to Aug. 1, 1874. 4. A copy of the report of the monetary commission of 1876. 5. A copy of the report of the monetary conference of 1878. The welfare and happiness of the people—the masses—the common people—are now at stake in the most momentous political struggle that has ever arisen in America, and it will be fought on the side of gold power with all the fierceness and viciousness that has ever characterized greed and selfishness. The people must be firm. ' That bravery inspired by manhood and patriotism must nerve them to stand as a stone wall against these pirates of commerce who have no remedy to offer except the terrible experience of the past. W. H. Harvey.

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