Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1895 — Bobbing The Many to Enrich The Few. [ARTICLE]

Bobbing The Many to Enrich The Few.

The government of Chili permits the free coinage of silver at the rate of 33 to 1. This is placing silver in the monetary market on the basis of its commercial value. This proposition would doubtless be obnoxious to the numerous class who are just now insisting that our government should give silver a fictitious value by fiat, but it is none the less commendable for its fairness and honesty. This free silver howl has all the earmarks of the old greenback heresy.—Monticello Press.

Since the great “Crime” of 1873, when this country stopped coining silver dollars that didn’t circulate, this country has added to its wealth nearly forty billions of dollars, or forty thousaand millions. The average wealth of each ihabitant has increased from S7BO to 81036, an increase of over thirty per cent, yet our free coinage friends would have us believe that we are going to the demnition bow wows, all because we don’t allow the silver barons to bring fifty cents worth of silver to the government mills end get a dollar’s worth of grist at the expense of the nation’s credit and honor.

It looks like it would be a long time before the general ception about the provisions of section nine, the so called localoption section, of the Nicholson bill, will be cleared up. This section as originally proposed was a very radical local option measure, and provided that if two thirds of the voters of any township, or in a city, of any ward, signed a remonstrance against " saloons, then" no liscenses could be granted in such township or ward for two years. As finally passed, however, this section was so modified, that the remonstrance must be against the individual applicant, and it only affects the applicant against whom it is directed. As the law actually is, if the people of any township or ward wish to keep out all saloons they must have a fresh remonstrance ready for every applicant.

Indianapolis Journal: Those who are so indignant over the alleged crime of 1873 that they seem to have lost the capacity of cool reasoning declare that the outrage consists in denying the debtors the privilege of paying their obligations in the two kinds of money which they assert were in circulation at that date, and compelling them to pay them in one kind, namely, gold. If these men are intelligent they know that for nearly six years after the dropping of the standard silver dollars from the coinage of the United States in 1873, the greenback was the money in which payments were made. They know, also, if they are intelligent, that there were no standard silver dollars in circulation in 1873, and that {he silver dollar had a commercial value of almost 2 cents more than the gold dollar at that date. Consequently the debtor was not deprived of any rights in payment of money on contracts at that time. But the important point, which these advocates of the interests of the mine owners ignore, is that no contracts such as mortgages which individuals give upon farms and house*, in "do in 1873, are alive today. The average life of an ordinary mortgage is less than six years; but here are these champions of the free coinage of silver demanding free coinage in behalf of debtors who were outraged because the larger part of them had fiven mortgages on farms and omes more than twenty-two years ago! As a matter of fact, municipal bonds issued in 1873

bearing 7.3 per cent interest have been paid off by bonds bearing 4 per cent. By the last reports it appears that the savings banks held sl,730,000,000 of deposits which belong to 4,830,595 depositors—an average of $369.55 each. Comparatively little of these deposits was made prior to 1873. The life insurance companies owe their policy holders about $600,000,000 paid up insurance. A few rich men are insured, but by far the larger part of it measures savings from small, incomes and wages. The building and loan associations hold $526,852,882 of the savings of those who are called poor people. The $2,872,000,000 or deposits in banks and trust companies are owned by 3,400,000 depositors. That is, there are about ten million of people ip this country who ore creditors because they have deposited $5,740,000,000 of their money in the four institutions above named, a large part of which is invested in mortgages. All, or nearly all, even the advocates of free silver coinage, claim that the result of that policy would be to lessen the purchase povfer, that is, the value of dollars. Most intelligent people believe that free silver coinage by the United States alone would reduce the purchase power of the present dollar from one-half to one-tliird. It means, theD, that these ten millions of depositors, etc., ninetenths of whom are what may be called the poor, will be robbed of one-half or one-third of their savings by the free silver policy. And for whose benefit? That of a few thousand silver mine owners, to the end that they may become millionaires as have a few like the late Senator Pair. — Ttr means the enriching of the few by robbing the many.

The Irdiana Supreme Ceurt has just handed down a decision to the effect that money invested in Building and Loan Association shares should be taxed. “Paid up” shares should be assessed at what has been paid foi them; and the same rule applies to shares being paid for in installments. These last to be assessed each year at what has actually been paid in on them. These shares of stock each, so the court holds, represents so much money loaned to the association, and as such they must be taxed. In the case of shares that have been borrowed upon, the court holds that the shares represent only a debt due to the association from the shareholder, and as such they should not be taxed. This decision will, it is estimated, place $7,000,000 additional property on the tax duplicates in this state. It is doubtful however if any general movement towards putting ordinary building and loan stock on the tax duplicates will be made, until the Court makes a somewhat more specific and unmistakable declaration upon the matter. Although the State Board of tax commissioners, are likely at any time now to order county assessors to put such stock on the list,