People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1895 — ON CURRENT TOPICS. [ARTICLE]

ON CURRENT TOPICS.

WHAT PRESS AMD PEOPLE ARC 4 • SAYING. r ■— Denocnti Want to Extra Session ot Cmfr*« —Gov. Alt geld Talks —Senator lihsm G. Harris on tke Situation — Gold Bags Want Everything. The gold bugs are leaving nothing undone to check what they call the “silver craze” in the South and West It is thought now if an extra session of congress is called and the responsibility of the situation thrown on the Republicans it could help their cause. A dispatch from Washington says: “A large percentage of the Democratic party have become convinced of the immediate necessity of an extra session. They urge that it would serve to divert popular attention and cause a temporary cessation *of the silver craze and would place the Republicans in the same attitude of incompetency and imbecility as that ascribed to the Democrats of the Fifty-third congress. It is considered by men of both parties that it will he as impossible for the Republicans to enact financial legislation as the Democrats. The result would be, it is urged, the division of the Republicans into factions which would devour each other. As a consequence, the masses would experience a revulsion of disgust. The Democrats would have nothing to lose and might stand to be greatly benefited by internal. dissensions in the ranks of their rivals. “These arguments, opinions and facts are now, it is said, being daily laid before the president by resident and visiting Democratic leaders, who urge the great party advantage to be gained by calling upon the Fifty-fourth congress to make necessary alterations in the present financial system. They call attention to the situation in New York as a bright and shining illustration of what may be expected when the Republicans come into national control. “It is believed among politicians in this city that the pressure upon the president to call an extra session, will increase rather than diminish. As free silver sentiment spreads, party leaders will become more and more unanimous in pleading with Mr. Cleveland to save the cause by embracing the great opportunity offered of deriving enormous advantage from Republican indifference and indecision.”

* • • / Governor Altgeld has a way of calling things by the right name in a manner that is refreshing. The Democrats in Chicago recently formed what they called an “Honest Money League.” In an interview in which the governor was asked what he thought about it, he said:, “Well, they are apparently starting opt under false colors, and evince an intent to deceive, fbr they know or ought to know that the money system they advocate is the most dishonest and damnable that was ever invented, because it doubled the burdens of the entire producing classes. It broke down the purchasing power of the world and left the laborer without bread because there was no market for his products. These gentlemen also know, or ought to know, that this was done at the instance and for the benefit of the bondholding and salary drawing officials of Europe and the East. Consequently the name ‘Honest Money League’ must have been adopted because it was calculated to deceive the public. You sometimes see a bank or a store or a restaurant with some high-sounding name over it. Did you ever know one that paid a hundred cents on the dollar, or that gave your money’s worth when you ordered apple pie? Now, if these gentlemen were honest In this movement and intended to be candid with the public, they would have called themselves ‘The Paralysis, Panic and Poverty Club.’ Had they done this we could at least respect them.” “Do you think, governor, that this association will be able to accomplish much?”

“No, not as it is now constituted. Mayor Hopkins sized it up in a nut-shell when he pointed out the fact that just one-third of them were federal officeholders and the remainder consisted of some bankers, some corporation lawyers, a few business men, and some ‘hangers-on.’ ” - * * * Senator Isham O. Harris, of Tennessee, thinks that neither of the two old parties will be able to organize the United States senate in the Fifty-fourth congress, but that the Populist senators will hold the balance of power. Speaking of the silver question, he says: “The sentiment in favor of the utilization and the rehabilitation of silver to its position as a money metal and as a money of ultimate redemption; and in connection with gold as the regulator of volume, or amount of that thing called money, is overwhelmingly strong in the South and West, and in my opinion ought to be strong and conclusive everywhere, if people would recognize the undeniable fact that money is purely the creature of law. It is now, Always was, and always must Be, just what the law of its own country makes it, and when it passes beyond the limits of its own country it is not money, but immediately becomes a commodity, which goes upon the market at its market value just as your bale of cotton, hogshead of tobacco or bushel of wheat goes upon the foreign market at its value. “To illustrate: Four hundred and twelve and one-halt-"Ufainp of standard silver, coined into' a dollar and 25.8 grains of gold coined into a dollar, are legal tender dollars anywhere and everywhere in the United States. Within the boundaries of the United States each of these dollars performs precisely the same functions, each pays exact-

ly the same amount of debt aad beys the earn* amount If property. Under the laws of the United States, certain treasury motes have been made legal tender money, owing to which fact the treasury note will perform every function as money that gold or silver coin can perform; will buy as much or pay as much, dollar for dollar, as any other money in the United States. “Now here are three kinds of legal tender money in the United States, and under the laws of the United States every dollar of either can and does perform all the functions of legal tender money, or, in other words, each dollar of which, as money, is the exact equal of any other dollar that the laws of the United States have made a legal tender; and, therefore, the idea of talking about the market value, commercial value or intrinsic value of the material of which money is made is simply absurd, and a device —I will not say a contemptible device (though I think It is) —intended simply to complicate the question and as far as possible to confuse the public mind.” * * * The present attitude of the goldbug3 towards all those who oppose their socalled sound money doctrines reminds us of the story of the mean man who owned a cow in partnership with his brother. The mean man insisted that the hinder half of the cow was his and that the forward part was his brother’s, which he was in duty bound to feed and care for. The mean mah refused to divide any of the milk, refused to pay for any of the feed, and then sued his brother for damage when the cow hooked him. All the bankers and sound money want Is to give them bonds on which to base their banknotes, pay them interest on the bonds, pay interest on their notes, pay interest on the deposits, demand no security from them, and all of their notes that become destroyed to bocome a clear gain to them. This is the “Sound Money” dictrine that is being preached all over the country.

• * * The plutocrats seem to be getting their eyes open. In the American Banker of March 20, we find the following significant paragraph: “Of particular interest this week was the arguments made before the United States supreme court in defense of the constitutionality of the income tax. Aside from the purely legal problems which are involved there were utterances made by lawyers of eminence in favor of the tax which were inspired by exaggerated conceptions of the growth and power of revolutionary sentiment in this country. Attorney General Olney intimated that unless the court sustains congress in this case there might come by and by a revolution which would sweep the court as at present organised out of existence, and Mr. Carter ,of New York, argued to the effect that the rich men ought to be made to pay a much- larger share of their possessions in the way of taxes than the poor, and that a dangerous social uprising might be avoided by enforcing this principle.” That is about the right view of the situation, and coming from such men as Olney and Carter ought to have much weight with those who seem to think that if the law and the courts are on their side they constitute a perfect refuge of safety. The people know that either the court or constitution is wrong and they have a strong suspicion that it is the court, hence, as Mr. Olney intimated, there is danger of the people wiping out the court. The court is made by and for the people and the honorable judges don’t want to lose sight of this fact

* * * This so-called international conference is becoming the greatest fraud of the age. There is not much likelihood of there being any international conference, and if there was nothing would be done. England will never consent to silver coinage from the fact she is a creditor nation and wants dear money. Ue Rothschild made this fact perfectly plain at the last conference at Brussels. Senator Cockrell sizes up the situation in pretty good shape in the following words: “Their desire is to make silver merely a subisdiary currency, redeemable in gold. In fact, they want everything under the sun redeemable in gold. The gold of the world is held by a syndicate of bankers, and the elevation of the gold standard will make more profit for the owners of the gold than any other employment to which that metal can be placed. They regard silver as currency, and even the president in his letter today speaks of it as such.”