Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1898 — THEN AND NOW. [ARTICLE]

THEN AND NOW.

What Kern Thought of Free Stiver Before He Was Told by Party to Support It. At the meeting of gold Democrats of Indianapolis, held in May two years ago, Hon. John W. Kern, now an advocate of Democracy on a free silver platform, said: “Shall the owner of 60 or 65 oents worth of silver bullion be permitted to have the same coined into a piece of money labeled a dollar aud made a legal tender, and shall the workingmen of the country be compelled to receive this debased and depreciated curreuoy in payment of their wages? “Shall the 4,600,000 depositors in tho savlpgs banks of the country of $1,810,000,000 —an average of $371 for each depositor—be paid with* a depreciated money, with dollars worth little more thau half as much as those deposited? “There arc now in this oountry hundreds of million! of dollars of capital ready to be invested, if the owners were only assured that they would be able to take up 100 cents for every 100 oents they pnt dowu. If a man has gold he is putting it away until he sees how all this financial agitation is goiug to eud. He knows that his dollar is now worth 100 oents. but he is afraid, if it gets away from httn. it may come back worth only 60 ceuts. “The euactmeut of n free silver law would result iu inevitable disaster, not to those at whom it is aimed, but to the hoys iu the rrent:he*, to those who earn iueir bread by the sweat of their brows. If tne country has one absorbing need at tilts nine, it is stability in our fiuaucial affa rs.”

One thing should not be forgotten by the voters (his year. As long as there were unrestricted Democratic majorities iu the legislature, so loug the people were deprived of fail* representation iu that body. lufumous apportionments succeeded each other until the Republicans had the opportunity to drive thorn oat of the state for all time to come. They phased an apportionment so fair, so houest, so just, that the Democrats dare not assail it.