Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 April 1895 — THE OTHER SIDE. [ARTICLE]

THE OTHER SIDE.

An Open Letter to President Cleveland. Reply of Chairman Harvey, of the Blw>e. —^>M«riaq^'tß--TOveTaAd t a Chi cago Letter. -—A- ——: —»— ~ Chairman W.-H. Harvey, of the Bimetallic League, whoso headquarters are ir. Chicago, Monday, gave to i-he- press a reply to President Cleveland’s letter to th» committee of Chicago business men. at follows: Chicago, April 15. To His E x cellency, Q rover- x: Icvehmd, dent, Washington, D?C,: Dear Sir—ln reply to your-letter addressed to a committee of business men this city, we wish to say that, the commit, tee that waited on you represented that, class that owns money arid securities payable incomes. We respectfully submit that your lettei does not present the true merits of thit controversy. You call the attention ot farmers and wage-earners to tlie fact that raising prices, while enabling them to sei their products and labor at a higher price will also cause them to pay equally mon for what they may purchase, but you neglect to say that your statement is not applicable to debts. With prices comini down, regularly arid steadily since the demonetization of silver, our manufacturers and. the people general If have been doing business on a falllnj market, so that the time intervening b# tween the purchase of their merchandise or raw material and placing it months as ter on the market has removed the margii they would have otherwise made. Tub shrinkage in values has led to an ever increasing volume of debt—to a moneylending period, until it has increased al told to about 840,(XX),000,000, or about twothirds of the total value of all the property in the United States. Money and those debts payable ii money, have been steadily increasing ii exchangeable value with the property o. the people:' A debt for SI,UUO that 1,001 bushels of wheat would have paid tec years ago now requires the farmer to giv« up 2,000 bushels of wheat in exchange foi ’these dollars with which to pay the samt debt. The debts now in. existence an principally Old debts, or renewed or refunded debts, or new debts contracted tc pay old debts, or debts the people havi been forced to contract by reason of tin ' continued decline in prices.

I We have constantly pointed out to tin I peopMthe ever Increasing Interchangeable value of the creditor’s dollar, aud t« the reason why it was increasing, but th< influence of these creditors have dominated your administration, and you in- | sist on such a currency as they have established as a sound currency. It meant I the confiscation of the property of tht ! people by the sale of property undei mortgages, judgments and executions. >So that when you call the attention of tb« farmer and the wage-earner to the facl that rising prices will make him pay mon for what he buys you should at the same I time call his attention to the fact thal it would enable him to pay his debts, free him from a bondage in which he has been unjustly placed and again make him the ■ owner of a home and a free and independent citizen Our forefathers fled from Europe and established a government here that they might be free from the class legislation of those nations where the masses are hew- ■ ers of wood and drawers of water for thr i rich and few who control the law making i power, countries that we justly term plu- ; tocracies; and yet it is now being seriously ■ Insisted upon tnat we must«adont and continue the most pernicious class legislation that the monarchies of Europe havt ever fastened upon their helpless people. We submit that this policy should b« abandoned and our mints again throwt ppeti to silver (as they are now to gold* and our stock of primary money increased thereby. We agree with yon that it is time for the people to reason together and to that end we respectfully ask that you make It possible for them to get printed copies of the act of 1792, on which our forefathers i based our financial system, and all subse- ! juentacts, together with the act of 1873, that reversed th 3 former policy and aett subsequent thereto, as well as all statistical and other information of an equal nature that Washington bears thereon. We but express your own opinion as President of tlie people when we say that all the people should have the opportunity to ivestigate and intelligently pass upon this question. ,