Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1896 — For Sound Money. [ARTICLE]

For Sound Money.

No part of the record of the Republican party is more creditable than its unswerving devotion to 3onnd finance and honest money a weighty and well-consid-ered editorial in the Indianapolis Journal. Daring the war and for many years afterwards it was the chief reliance for maintaining the public credit In 1564, when enemies were attacking the government in front and rear, it declared in its platform “that the national, faith, pledged for the redemption 6TThepnbticd^t,miffif ? inviolate.” In 1868, when repudiation was finding supporters, it said: “We denounce all forms of repudiation as a national crime, and the national honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the uttermost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad? not only according to the letter but the spirit of the laws under which it was contracted.” That

same year the Democratic platform declared that “When the obligations of the government do not expressly state, upon their face, or the law under which they were issued does not provide that they shall be paid in coin, they ought, in right and justice,' to be paid in the lawful money of the United States,” meaning greenbacks. The Republican platform of 1872 said: “We denounce repudiation of the public debt, in any form or disguise, as a national crime,” and nrged the early resumption of specie payments. In 1876 it declared that “Commercial prosperity, public morals and national credit demand a continuous and steady progress to specie payment” The democratic platform of that year said: “We denounce the resumption clause of 1875, and we here demand its repeal/’ Ami BO through aD the years of its existence the Repufc-

lican party has stood for sound finance, hottest money and the maintenance of the national credit The party will be false to its traditions and to one of the best features of its past record if, in the next national convention, it does not make a bold and ringing declaration on the silver question. If there is to be any juggling on this question, any paltering’ in a doable sense, any attempt at stradel ing or facing both ways, let it be done by the Demobr&tie party. The declaration of the Republican con v eii lion in favor of the maintenance of the gold standard and in opposition to the free coinage of silver under existing conditions should be as plain and strong as the English language can makeit Anything less than this would mar its record as the party of sound finance and honest money and materially weaken its position before the country.