Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1900 — MR. BRYAN’S LETTER [ARTICLE]

MR. BRYAN’S LETTER

Free Silver Not Merely a Reminiscent Doctrine. EXPOSURE OF HIS PURPOSE And an Analysis of His Purely Deceptive Arguments. Pretense That Limited Coinage Under Present Laws ts a Confession of the Soundness of Free Coinage Fully tellectual Fiber and Dangerous Character of Bryan Revealed In His Appeals to Ignorance, Passion and Class Feeling. If there tire any gold Democrats who are under the Impression tliat the free silver doctrine Is merely a reminiscence kept in the Kansas City platform for consistency and campaign purposes, and is not a menace to the prosperity of the country, they should find eulightennient in Mr. Bryan’s letter accepting one of his nominations for the presidency—He is still-determined ‘to bring about the unlimited coinage "of silver nt the Patio of 16 to 1. and he evidently hopes, and without reason, that if elected enough state legislatures will be carried by his party to enable him to put his policy into operation. Ills purpose and the energy with which he would use the great power of the executive office to accomplish it is unmistakably revealed in his declaration: “’Whether the senate, now hostile to bimetallism, can be changed during this campaign or the campaign of 1902 can only be determined after the votes are counted, but neither the present nor the future political complexion of congress has prevented or should prevent an announcement of the party’s position upon this subect in unequivocal terms.” His arguments in behalf of free silver are of the usual deceptive kind. He pretends to think that internattorrart bimetallism, under which silver would have a standing in the commerce of the world, is the same as free coinage, under which the United States would be coining dollars which its own citizens would have to take at twice the value they n would pass for in any other country. He pretends also to see in the limited coinage under existing law by the Republicans of the silver in the treasury a confession of the soundness of the 16 to 1 principle. Yet-lie knows that the present silver dollars, limited in number and kept by exchange on a par with gold, arc merely token money, and their issue no more concedes that unlimited quantity of 412 V.. grain silver pieces would be honest dollars than that rtny piece of .paper the size and quantity of a dollar bill would be an Ijonest dollar if the law allowed anybody to take reams of it to the government printing press and get it back with th? jAyllSJ' stump. Mi’ : Bryan might as well Irgife Republicans concede a demand for tlUlipiited - v '* ' ~7Cr < "L" coinage on a bronze standard becailse they Issue cent pieces which are intrinsically worth about an eighth of a contra 7 On other topics Mr. Bryaij shows himself as usual the politician intent on making points with adroit evasions and catch phrases. Nothing else so clearly reveals the intellectual fiber and dangerous character of the man as this tendency at every turn to inject into his argument appeals to ignorance, passion and class feeling. His threadbare figure of crucifying mankind on a cross of gold turns up in different forms. He can not argue that an income tax Is a proper and equitable method of raising revenue without availing himself of the demagogic trick of assuming that by it alone in the hour of danger can the government draft the pocketbook as well as the person, and then indulging in this cheap pandering to class jealousies: "Unless money is more precious than blood, wo can not afford to give greater protection to the incomes of the riel) than to the lives of the poor.” He deals with the trust question in the same glib and specious fashion. The problem of concentration of industrial enterprises under modern conditions is an intricate one, but he gives it no consideration worthy of the name. He is as ready to cure the undoubted evils of trusts wifli ready made nostrums applied at random as any quack at a county fair is to treat all diseases on sight. The fact that lie may do infinite harm by recklessness and plunge the country into panic and stop" great industries does not trouble him in the least, if he can get fees for his prescriptions from the empty headed in the shape of votes. I When he comes to talk of his paramount issue he. avoids carefully the most important constitutional question raised in his platform, and likewise <he most important question everywhere asked concerning his future policy: Will he at once bring the troops home from Manila and leave Aguinaldo to impose his rule on friend and foe among the natives? He does not answer. How he will give the Filipinos a stable government of their own he will not tell. What right be has, while proclaiming that we have no business in the Philippines at all, to plan for a protectorate over them he does not say. He merely argues that we can maintain a protectorate without difficulty or expense, and distorts the Monroe doctrine by assuming that it means a protectorate over the American republics, whereas no suggestion is more n s-ntefl by those republics , than that.i For our own safety we have declared that European nations ; must not annex territory here, but we ] have never exercised the least over- I light of our neighbors. The establish-

ment of a stable government, with a guarantee to protect it, Is something entirely different. The constitutional question avoided by Mr. Bryan is his party’s principle that no constitution extends to Porto Rico, and, of course, therefore to the Philippines. Yet he urges that the Philippines be treated as a foreign land. He must himself see his inconsistency, for it has frequently been commented upon, but he has no time to reconcile his miscellaneous collection of grievances and nostrums. His purpose is merely to catch votes, and- no trick of argument is too specious for his use.