Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1896 — A WORD TO THE PENSIONER. [ARTICLE]

A WORD TO THE PENSIONER.

The total number of names borne on the pension lists is about 950,000, and the pension appropriation still amounts to nearly $140,000,000; but tho sum will bo heavily reduced as death shall thin the ranks of the veterans. While nearly two-thirds of tho pensioners are women and children, who cab exercise no di-

feet luHuence upon flic ballot they have all* an interest' that the pension fund shall not be Shriveled up by a debased and depreciated currency. Every pensioner who shall vote for the free silver presidential candidate will vote not only agaiilst'himself, but to defraud the widows and children of his deceased comrades.

No intelligent veteran has need of any more experience concerning the effect of depreciated legal tender currency. Whoq gold rose to a premium during the wai 1 , and the greenback fell to less than 50 cents on the dollar, tha soldier’s pay Of sl3 a month lost more than half its purchasing power. The soldiers and their families were compelled to pay more than twice as much for all they consumed as they paid when the greenback was at par with gold. Bills hate frequently been introduced in congress to compensate the veterans for their heavy losses in a depreciated currency; but there would be no such bills, and no justification for them, if their pensions should shrink to half their present worth under tljo inevitable operation of free silver coinage. The veterans who shall vote for this policy of repudiation will walk into the trap with their eyes open. There will be no excuse for the pensioner to be deceived ty the pretense that the free coinage of this cheap silver dollar means bimetallism, or the maintenance of this currency at par with gold. Such a thing is not in the power of the government; and the pretense of it is made only for the credulous who have had none of the costly experience which the veterans obtained when their monthly pay in war time fell to less than 50 cents on the dollar. Should William J. Bryan be elected president, with a congress in harmony with his principles, there would be no need to wait for the enactment of a free silver bill in order to realize its consequences. No sooner should the result be on the morning after the November election than the crash would fall upon -the country. The depreciation of the greenback currency was gradual, and was therefore mitigated in a great degree; but the finan-

cial ruin threatened by the Populist policy would bo sudden and irremedial. Free coinage would be anticipated by an abrupt drop to the debased silver standard. The stoffe of treasury gold for the redemption of public obligations would vanish, add as fast as the fund ahould be replenished by borrowing it -would-flewout- againlikewaterthrough the sieve of the daughters of Danaus. Gold would at once disappear from circulation as if the earth had swallowed it. and could be enticed from its hiding places only by the offers of large premiums in depreciated silver. Prices of all the necessaries of living would rise with the depreciation in the currency; but there would be no rise in the value of the soldier’s pension. The worth of the pension certificate would fall with the fall in the silver currency. With the pensioners the greatest sufferers from this policy of depreciation would be the masses of citizens who' have small savings in banks pr in securities, or who are dependent upon their wages and salaries. But the silverite demagogues boast that they in' tend to carry the war into Wall street, and thus to avenge the people upon ‘heir oppressors. Wall street speculators enrich themselves, in the. operations of the money market; and a depreciated silver currency would give them opportunities such as they have never had, even in the days of greenback depreciation. The cosmopolitan bankers who place the loans of nations would transfer their gold and their investments from United States bonds, payable in depreciated silver dollars, to th»4 securities of Chile, Argentina, Russia or any other nation promising to redeem its obligations, principal and interest, in sound money —that is to say, in the money in which its debts' were contracted. Bryan and Altgeld and Tillman, the new race of statesmen and financiers, intend to show the country a way of paying old as well as new debts, public and private, with cheap silver dollars. But there is reason to predict with confidence that before tho November days the folly, the fanaticism and the danger of the silverite plans will have been so thoroughly exposed to the manufacturers, merchants, workingmen and farmers of the land as to make their execution utterly impossible.

According to tho last reports made by the building and loan associations of Indiana to the state auditor, there was paid up and in force $93,912,284 of stock. From reports and estimates nAdo by experts it is found that tho value of life insurance policies now carried in Indiana Is $120,000,000, a total of building and loan stock and life insurance of $213,912,284. Tliis was paid for in money worth 100 cents on the dollar. It tho holders of this could bo paid off in money worth 50 cents it is easy to see tho amount of loss that 'would be sustained by citizens who have invested their savings with no other Understanding than that thl> standard of money in tho United States would be maintained and tho honor and credit of the government kept above reproach

For years Democrats told farmers that the Republican idea of a tariff on farm products was a humbug, asserting that the price of farm products was fixed by the London or Liverpool market. If this was the truth then how will free silver coinage help farmers now—will not prices still be fixed in London on a gold b asis?