People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1895 — VEST AND SILVER. [ARTICLE]

VEST AND SILVER.

Believe* In Free Coinage, but Is Willing to Vote for a Goldbng. When political leaders like Senator George G. Vest of this state sink patriotism below party name, it must be evident to every intelligent, thinking man that he must act independently, boldly and promptly, if he would see this country wrqeted from a greedy, vicious and heartless plutocracy; a power that grows fat and waxes strong under tho deadly, desolating effects of contraction and the establishment of a gold standard. "When a man—a United States senator—can stand in front of an audience of his constituents as did Vest at Fayette, Mo., last Saturday, and tell his hearers in the plainest terms of the evils of a scarce money volume and the horrors and misery attending its contraction —when such a man can picture this and then deliberately tell his hearers that he will support this system of wholesale ruin and oppression if his party so decides in its next national convention, can the people longer wait for leaders to act? He tells his hearers that an inflation of the currency is needed, but will support the nominee of his party if the candidate be a gold standard man on any platform the convention may make. In effect he declares that while knowing the road to prosperity for the masses of the people—his constituents —he will follow the path leading to confiscation of their homes, want, misery and ail the horrors attending the system he so vividly and truthfully portrays, if his party so decides. Think of that! He tells his hearers that he could not face them without the mantle of shame on his face, were he recreant to his allegiance to their cause, and then brazenly informs them that he will support a gold man on a platform without regard to its declarations. He asserts that the money in circulation does not exceed $3.84 per capita, and declares in effect that if his party decides against an increase he will yet stand by it. If the advocates of free silver and more money pin their faith to the leadership of such men as George G. Vest the consummation of their object is delayed till the end of time. He would rather be wrong and be called a democrat than be right and identified with an organization honestly in sympathy with the masses of the people.—Missn'”' s World.