Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1893 — WEALTHY PENSIONERS. [ARTICLE]

WEALTHY PENSIONERS.

Congressman Holman says—- “ Repeal the state bank tax law and money will be as plenty as beech leaves.” You are right Mt. Holman, but you should have added that the money would lie just about as valuable. Wild cat money was not counted by dollars but by bushels or bags full, and it took an armful to buy a common cow. Those who lived before the war have the best evidence of the 2 financial capabilities of the Democratic party, when the government borrowed money at twelve per cent, and bursted bank bills were “as plenty as beech leaves.” Ex-Speaker Reed came about as near voicing the sentiments of the republicans in Congress as anybody could come when he said of President Cleveland’s message, that it was sound from a republican point of view so far as it related to the-financial situation, but wrong in assuming the silver law to be the underlying cause of the country’s troubles. Mr. Reed thinks the trouble is caused by the uncertainty which prevails as to finance and tariff, and everything upon which business calculations can be based, and that to remove one of the uncertainties will do little or no good if the others be allowed to remain.

In one respect, it must in candor be admitted, the results following the success of the Democrats last fall, has justified their promises, to workingmen, and that is: THEBE ARE NO MORE STRIKES. Unless, that is, we call it striking when they “strike’* for the free soup house. But for the other kind of strikes, for higher wages, shorter hours Ac., there are none. Not any! Not much! If a workingman has got any kind of a job these days, at any kind of wages, he is only to glad to hang on to it, without any thought of striking. For of such is the kingdom of Democracy.

Our idea of the best thing to do with silver, at the present status, is for Congress to adopt as a new ratio, the average price the government has paid for all the silver it has bought since 1878; to coin all the silver bullion on hand in the government vaults at that ratio, and to replace all the present silver dollars, with the new and larger coins. After that was done, but not sooner, to per mit free coinage of all American produced silver, at the same ratio. This action would restore to the silver coinage of the country all the value which the government has mistakenly kept out of it during the last fifteen years. The bullion in the new dollars would not be worth quite a dollar, at the present very low prices of silver, but would approach pretty nearly to that figure, and the chances are that silver will not long re main at as low a figure as now, and such a course as above proposed would surely have a tendency to advance its value to some considerable extent. The manifesto issued by the silver congress in Chicago last week contained a quotation from James G. Blaine making it appear that he was in favor of the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. The Indianapolis Journal thus punctures the delusion: “The remarks that are referred to in the resolutions were made upon the introduction of an amendment to the original free silver coinage bill in 1878, which provided that the

patio of coinage be changed From time to time, so that the bullion in a silver dollar would be worth as much as the gold in the yellow metal one. In other words, Mr. Blaine was really a bimetallist, whereas the members of the stiver convention are silver monometallists. The men who drew that resolution knew when they did it that Mr. Blaine was hostile to the free coinage of silver on the old ratio of 16 to 1, until the value of an ounce of silver shall be 81.29, and yet they so use his words as to make it appoantothb._CQnntFythat Mr. Blaine has advocated what they now ask for. The foregoing is simply quoted as a sample of the dishonest and desperate methods to wh ieh these leaders resort to deceive the people.”

The Chicago Inter-Ocean suggests as the best method of restoring confidence that the present Congress: • Repeal at once the- purchase clause of the so-called Sherman act. Pledge the government to maintain on an equality with gold our_ entire stock of money, viz: Gold, silver, silver certificates, greenbacks, and every obligation of the government. Authorize and direct the Secretary of the Treasury to sell gold bonds when necessary to protect this pledge. Permit” .and require national banks to issue notes to the full par value of the bonds deposited by them to secure circulation. Pass a joint resolution not to disturb the tariff for two years. There is no doubt whatever that if the above suggestions were carried out that public confidence would be at once restored, to a wonderful extent, and that most of the several millions of working men now idle in 4 this country would soon be at work again. The “nub” of all these suggestions is the last one. In fact, fear of what the Democrats would do to the tariff is the very root of the present depression, and until that fear is removed, general prosperity can not return.

Judge Charles D. Long, of the Michigan supreme court, a brave veteran of the late war, who received terrible wounds while battling for his country, losing his left arm and being shot through the hips and abdomen, making injuries that required dressing twice daily, has been summarily dropped from the pension rolls on the ground that he has a salary of $7,000 per year and the pension is not necessary for his support. In speaking of this “Pension Outrage,” the Toledo Blade says: “Without discussing this action of Hoke Smith’s at length, let us call attention to one point: If it be right and proper to withdraw a pension from a man suffering such disabilities as Judge Long’s then cut off all pensions now received by men who are able to maintain themselves. Here are a few such:

“Secretary of State, Walter Q. Gresham, draws S3O a month for a shot wound in the leg received before Atlanta. He had a comfortable law practice, was judge for years at a good salary and now gets SB,OOO a year as a member of Cleveland’s cabinet. “General John C. Black draws $1,200 a year pension for ‘total disability,’ yet he was commissioner of pensions during Cleveland’s former term; makes SIO,OOO a year from his law practice, and is now a representative in congress at $5,000 a year. “General Franz Sigel draws SIOO a month, yet is understood to have made a very tidy sum out of the pension agency in New York city. “General Neal Dow, of Maine, the well known Prohibition orator, draws a pension for a wound received at Port Hudson, but is a wealthy man. “These are but a few of the men of national reputation who have means to maintain themselves well, yet are on the pension rolls. If J udge Long’s pension is cut off for this reason, why not cut these and other similar ones off for the same reason? ‘Consistency's a jewel,’ Secretary Hoke Smith!”