People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1896 — A RICH MAN’S REASON. [ARTICLE]

A RICH MAN’S REASON.

John S. Baker of Tacoma Writes His Brother in Jasper County His Reasons for Advocating the Free Coinage of Silver. Below is given a private letter to Asa Baker, a prosperous farmer of Milroy township and a republican of long standing, from his brother John S. Baker, of Tacoma, Washington, who is vice-president of the Fidelity Trust Company, a banking institution with $500,000 paid up capital. The brother in Indiana it appears has been undecided as to what he should do politically .this fall, and wrote his brother in the west if he could tell him how the farmer’s interest in Indiana could be identical with the silver mine owner’s in the west. The reply is certainly clear and logical, and has settled any doubt which his brother entertainded as to his duty politically, for he openly declares that Mr. Bryan will receive his vote this fall. • My Dear Brother Asa:—l am very busy today,'but have just received your letter with the one from Uncle Dan enclosed, and must give it immediate answer. All of Dan’s alleged arguments are the thread bare stories told us by all advocates of the single gold standard. The ,banks of the entire west instead of failing would wonderfully strengthened for this reason—that at present, because of the frightful shrinkage in ail property other than gbld coin, the people who owe the banks money cannot pay it, but if we had free silver coinage values would increase and debtors could pay what they owe. Even our most rabid gold men here, such as the rich English grain exporting firm of Balfour, Guthrie & Co., who handle over ten million bushels of grain yearly from this coast, say that free silver would cause all farm products to almost double in price, and what harm if we do have to pay more for everything else. If you get 75c in place of 40c for wheat you can well afford to pay SI.OO per pair more for shoes. It is more than absurd to say that gold will go to a greater premium over silver than now. Free silver would bring them closer together for it would surely increase its demand, for this country owes hundreds of millions of dollars payable in coin or dollars and silver would be as fully legal tender as gold to satisfy these claims and no one would pay in gold dollars if they could get silver ones for 95c. In the west we usually specify that all obligations be paid in gold. In fact while I owe about $300,000, it is every cent payable in gold, and shall be paid in gold, but I want the values of my buildings, lands, and stocks restored to something like their old value of nearly $1,000,000 before I can pay, and that cannot happen until the farmer and producer is enabled to get some profit on what he raises. As for free trade; we are bound to have a tariff for revuene and it is found to be greater thftn the present t ariff and all the devils in hell “could not produce a tariff law as unequal in, its protection as the one we now have, and when it is revised by which ever party is in power it will be a great improvement over the present law. You must bear this also in mind that the present democratic silver platform is not the Cleveland platform by any means, but the McKinley side is the continuance of the Cleveland policy, and all Cleveland democrats are now flocking to McKinley, while the republicans who believe in honest gold and silver are for Bryan, because they were forced out of the republican party by the a’doption of the St. Louis platform. The west and every farmer in the land, and every one except those who have fixed gold incomes will enjoy greater pros-

perity under free coinage than if we continue to attempt to do business under a constantly appreciating gold standard. It may be that we will have a panic brought on by creditors demanding immediate payment of all sums due them. But even a panic, however severe, could not last long and the sufferings and losses of the past few years are infinitely greater than what would result in a sharp, short money scare, and under existing financial policy of the Cleveland administration, and which is endorsed by the McKinley republicans, it won’t take more than a year or two to wipe out every man who is in debt for he cannot turn anything into money at a profit. I am not a silver man because I own interests in silver mines, for I own greater interest in gold mines, but because I want the man who owes money and who possesses anything other than gold to have a fair chance in this world. , My mines have paid me over $65,000 during the past 12 months, mostly from the sales of some interests in them, or I should mot have been able to have kept alive up to date. , My silver interests are not one fourth of the value of my mines, but I would give up every cent I have invested in mines if by so doing it would establish free coinage of silver and thereby make valuable once more all the rest of my property. I trust you will work and vote far the cause of silver.

The money loaning class of both parties are all opposed to it for it lessens the value of their gold and it shows how silly their claim is that gold would go to a still further premium over silver for if they thought so do you for one moment think that they would give up the chance of getting more for their money for the sake of paying the farmer or miner more for his products? With best of wishes I Am, Yours affectionately, John S. Baker, Tacoma, Washington. Sept. John S. Baker is a state sena-. tor and one of the leading republicans of Washington state.