People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1897 — Slander Is Not Argument. [ARTICLE]

Slander Is Not Argument.

The Chicago Tribune, in a long editorial on one of the recent bank failures, has the unparalleled effrontery to say that second Vice-President Hammond who was a Silver man, voted for Bryan with a view of cheating the depositors by “paying them in 50-cent dollars.” Thehollier-than-thou Tribune, with rank hypocrisy, which it vainly endeavors to conceal, will not deceive anybody by assuming a lofty attitude from which to discuss the financial question. It may prate from now till doomsday about “50-cent dollars” and “financial honor,” but it cannot much longer delude its readers, who are beginning to see by such object lessons as it strives to turn to advantage, that“sound money” and scarse money are synonomous terms.

The fact that second vicePresident Hammond, of the bank which was compelled to close its doors, was a ' Silver man only shows that he realized the sham and fraud of the gold standard. He was one of the men, who, by personal experience, was having the thing driven home. He knew there was no prosperity, and could be none as long,as prices continued to go down, and business languished because of an insufficient volume of money. In voting for Mr. Bryan and the restoration of Silver he simply acted upon advice often given in the Chicago Tribune when that paper pan dered to The People, and not to plutocracy. If he read the Tribune during the campaign, or any of the other “great” dailies what arguments did he see to convince him that free Silver was wrong? Platitude about “honest dollars” and abuse of Silver men were the sum total of every thing in such papers as the Chicago Tribune; and, even now it keeps on in its vile trail of slander. It alleges dishonest motives against Mr. Hammond simply because he voted for what the same paper once advocated. was the Chicago Tribune dishonest when it urged the free coinage of silver in 1877? Was William McKinley dishonest that same year when he voted for free coinage? The bullion in a dollar then had gone down to 90 cents, and President Hayes told Congress that a “90cent dollar” was dishonest—why was the Tribune for a 90-cent dollar then? The same evil course against Silver has wrought a 50 cent dollar instead of a 90-cent dollar. Twenty infamous years instead of four have brought the full measure of ruin—gold has gone upward and upward—Silver and all forms of property have correspondingly gone downward and downward. Still when the friends of the old Constitutional

monetary unit ask for its restoration they are insolently termed repudiators and anarchists. « But no matter how desperate the organs of plutocrsacy become they cannot long withstand the daily and hourly pressure that is coming against them and their robber dollar. No permanent relief can come on the narrow basis of a gold standard. This is why the apologists of their country’s spoilation keep on villifying those who are determined to fight them to a finish.

Never in the history of the nation has been felt more keenly the need of a change of method in electing members of the United States senate whereby the people shall have a direct vote in their choosing. A veritable phantasmagoria of corruption is reflected in the legislative halls of many states where the work of choosing senatores has been or is in progress, and if we trust the statement of the press representing the party in power, the men chosen, or likely to be chosen, are destined to make of the senate a very shambles where the interests and rights of the people will be bartered away as suits the interests of these pigmy statesmen. The house of representatives is without doubt to-day the safer and more conservative body.—Farmers Voice.