Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1900 — THE "CREDITOR CLASS" [ARTICLE]

THE "CREDITOR CLASS"

A Gross Perversion upon Which Mr. Bryan Bases an Assault. 1 1 ■ - The silver orators from Bryan down are never tired of reiterating that the gold standard is established solely in the interest of the creditor class, who want whatever is due them paid in the best and highest kind of money. They assume that the debtor cldss is the poor who owe money and that the creditor class is the rich to whom money is always due. On this ground , they endeavor to fomemt hatred and bitterness among the poor against the rich and to array class against class and employe against employer. To stir up such jealousies and hatreds opens the road to anarchy, and anarchy leads to the destruction of government.

But it is not true that the poor are the debtor class and the rich the creditor class. As a matter of fact the great majority of pi-ople belong to both classes, having money coming to them from one direction and having to pay it out in another. It is therefore difficult to draw any hard and fast line to separate the debtors from the creditors. Hut if there is a creditor class iu this country, a set of people to whom that designation is peculiarly applicable, it is not composed of the men wlw handle large sums of money ttitd who are engaged in carrying oil great enterprises. They for the most part are debtors. The real creditor class is composed of working men and women, of eiuidoyes in walk of business, of salaried people and of depositors in tianks. especially dej>ositors iu savings Ixinks. These are tlie men and women to whom mopey is always due and who are entitled.if anylsxly in all the world is to the l>est and most S'taitie money that can lie devised. A fluctuating money, varying In value from time to time, is to tliein a con'demtiation of poverty and loss. A workingman, no matter what his labor may be, who starts to work on Monday morning is a creditor at nightfall tor the amount of bls ' day’s wages, and at the end of the week lie is fi creditor for six days' pay. Wlieth-

er a man works by the day, by the week, by the month or by file year, lie is always a creditor, for he must give his services first. . But alhove all it is the savings Lank depositor who is the chief of creditors and who in laying by his money for “ii rainy day” sliould' when lie i'ltnes to draw it out. have have just as g(«rd money paid as lie dei»osited. To tls-sv cnslitors who are saving' day by day their laird earned wages ami sajuries Bryauism and b> to 1 would lie disaster, ruin and despair. The general prosperity of the fanners in nil paris of the country, north, south, east, and west, resulting from good crops unci good prices is a legitimate votoninker for the Republican party. . The Lord gave the good crops ami the Republicans gave the good markets, and no amount of , political misrepresentation can deprive either-of the credit due. The South Should Begin to Think, j AViiy the south should want a eliange fnnn the present conditions is beyond the power of reason to ferret out. ■ Every southern statertvhich gives its electoral vote to Bryan will do so be- ' cause prejudice tftid tradition rule ■ rather than reason or a consideration J of the best Interests either of the south or of the country as a whole. There never nas Iteen before in this country in - in rhe world such prosperity as exists in the United States today. AW the south is getting its fullt share oj this prosperity. Of the 307 new texj tile mills which were reported by the American Wool and Cotton Reporter

as having-been begun to be constructed during the first six months of 1900 202 are in the south, of which 57 are in North Carolina. 50 in South Carolina and" 42 in Georgia. Every vote for Bryan and free trade means a vote to put an end to mill construction in the south and to shut down most of the mills now open. It is time that the voter's of the south began their bajl<>ts...for jjieir own interests and for the interest of their section of their country instead of voting in deference to the prejudices of a past generation, prejudices, too. which were -based on conditions winch no longer exist. The efforts to introduce foreign Issues into the campaign have come exclusively from the Democrats. The Republican platform appeals directly to the American voter and his welfare and doesn’t evade a single issue.