People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1896 — MEMORIAL DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MEMORIAL DAY

New York, May 24.—Henry Clewes, in his weekly financial review, says: * Wall street continues to lack any fixed basis of confidence for transient operations. * Material conditions are satisfactory, such as the prospects of the crops, the earnings of * the railroads and the movement in the larger departments of merchandise, and the ex- * ports of gold are viewed as but a natural movement. Virtually the sole obstacle in the * way of an active aud rising market is the condition of politics. * With such an issue as now profoundly agitates the country from end to end. an un- * settled and waiting feeling in speculative circles is perhaps all that may be expected * Wall street is the point at which the greatest sensitiveness of the silver agitation centers. * The mere fact that a large portion of our people should be intent upon forcing the ac- * ceptance of a debased and fluctuating metal as standard money is a discouraging symptom * for it shows to what dangerous ends an ignorant free suffrage may be prostituted. That M alone is enough to produce a deep unsettlement of feeling among responsible property- * owning citizens; for the same incapacity for judging upon complex money questions may * easily, at any time, imperil the country under the settlement of other large questions * affecting the welfare of the nation. * “ The danger from popular prejudice and ignorance in connection with this silver agi- * tation is, however, something more than a conceivable evil possibility. It is a threatened * •actuality. It is up for immediate decision; and at this moment, no one can feel abso- * lutely certain that this worst curse of a nation may not be brought to a conclusion with- * in a comparatively few months. * “Wall street is not in any degree insensible to this crisis. It can understand that the * danger may reach an acuter x stage than it now presents; it is quite prepared for the * possibility that managing politicians may go further than they have yet dared in the * way of sacrificing sound-money policy in order to secure votes for their candidates; it is * aware that startling results may come out of either of the party conventions; it would * hardly be surprised should the silverites be able to block sound-money legislation in the * next congress; all these things may be classed among the possibilities of the next few * months. But Wall Street has learned to believe that there are greater potencies than * party platforms, than legislative subserviency to popular ignorance, than the madness « of a partisan infatuation. There are situations and events which can instantly coerce * and convert the most reckless legislators into the willing servants of a conservative * sentiment that represents the real interests and safety of the nation. It will not be * necessary to wait for any after effects of silver legislation to remedy its mischiefs, al- * though that would be a perfectly safe course. The near prospect of the authorization of * free coinage—a counting of heads showing a certainty of a two-thirds vote in the house * aud senate—would evoke in Wall street the kind of conditions that no congress has ever * yet dared to disregard, and the cause of free coinage wonld be overthrown at the moment * when its succes seemed most certain. It is this reserved power on which Wall street is ♦ now reposing.”—Special to Chicago Record. * * fff?JHMM*H*M***********'********«.*