People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1896 — AS OTHERS SEE US. [ARTICLE]

AS OTHERS SEE US.

A W*U Merited Rebuke from Our “Oheup Dollar*’’ Ne'Rlibore. The people of the United States are on a gold basis; in other words, they are holding up something like $1,000,000,000 of currency on $92,000,000 of treasury gold reserve, a magnificent accomplishment which reminds one of a Japanese juggler sustaining a series of ladders by his teeth lying flat on the ground. It is magnificent, but it is not finance. Mr. Carlisle, who knows so little of finance as to imagine, because the treasury issues notes, that it is in the banking business, Is filled with awe as he contemplates the financial sj-Lcm of hie country. We do not wonder, for it Inspires the same sentiment in the minds of ordinary men. And, being on a gold basis, the United States must have a prosperous government? That does not apparently follow. The government, in point of fact, is in straits, tor the revenue does not keep pace with the outgo. Not since last January have the treasury receipts reached the average monthly requisite of thirty million dollars, the amount which must come in, if all the bills of the nation are to be met. In August the receipts ran up to $29,236 (WO, but the average has been below $27,000,000 for the other months. It looks like another bond Issue and if that ie made the treasury will be easier. A loan is only a palliative, however; what is needed is permanently to increase the revenue. The throwing off of the sugar duties was the beginning of the foolishness; those duties were not felt by anyone and they kept the treasury in easy clrcumetances. It is beginning to be noted by the American people that their finances are in control of charlatans who know no more about the fundamental principles of financial administration than eo many school boys. Any European finance minister, who should make such blunders as have been committed in Washington, would be retired to lirlvate life for “keeps.” Fancy an English chancellor of the exchequer In such a mess as is Carlisle. A commission in lunacy would be sumhioned to elt on his case. And no European finance minister has such a rich country abounding In potential sources of revenue to operate in. An ordinary financial duffer ought to shine as finance ’"inJeter in the great republic which is rich beyond compute.—Mexican Herald. There ”o longer any donhf ns ■ th® republicans being in favor of a gni st”i'S;jrd. There is no Lincoln r n pni; liennism In this. Now let the true republicans come out of that party. According to republican logic it If perfectly proper to print paper money to pay men to shoot other men, but it would be all wrong to print it to pay men for constructing public highways. Nice logic, that!

Quite a sensation has been created in the east by the recent utterance of E. Benjamin Andrews, president of Brown University, and heretofore a prominent gold-bug. "Brown University, Providence, June 22, 1896. Stephen W. Nickerson, Boston, Mass. My Dear Sir: In yours of the 20th Inst., after adverting to Cernuschl’s latest position touching the policy of the United States In freely coining sliver at 16 to 1, without waiting for an International agreement, you ask what, if any, objections I would urge against their policy: I reply that I would urge none. The vast new output in gold In recent years as compared with that of silver impresses me that free coinage by the United States alone would not lead to the displacement of our gold; that, therefore, free coinage would be safe. If it is safe it is certainly desirable. Of course no one can be absolutely certain that we could proceed with free sliver coinage and yet retain our gold. To my mind, however, the overwhelming probability Is that gold would stay with us. I have noticed of late no serious argument to show that It would not. Cordially, "E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS." College presidents generally are so tied to the money power by endowments from such robbers as Rockefeller that they dare not express an Independent opinion without losing their jobs. Mr. Andrews will probably receive the usual treatment for “heresy." One good sign that the Democratic party Is getting nearer to the common people, is that its present national .chairman bears the good old-fashioned name of Jones.