Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1900 — LEADING COAST BANKER DECLARES FOR McKINLEY [ARTICLE]

LEADING COAST BANKER DECLARES FOR McKINLEY

I. W. Heilman, President of the Nevada Bank of San Francisco and Farmers’ & Merchants’ Bank of Los Angeles: “I am a life-long Democrat, but I shall not vote for Mr. Bryan for President. The 16 to 1 idea * * * if put into practice, would upset all values. Everybody would be injured; the mechanic and laborer as well as the banker and merchant. America is today a creditor country and will continue to be so unless we change our monetary system. Let the ratio of 16 to 1 be adopted and it will •drive out what gold there is here. Our securities will be sent back from abroad to be sold here in immense sums. One crisis would follow another. Manufacturing interests would be greatly injured; labor, which is now in

good demand, would suffer. “Another objection to Bryan Is that he is not a Democrat. “I am a moderate expansionist. Without expansion 1 believe that this country would stand still, just as any large corporation does which does not expand and keep up with the times. I believe in holding on to every foot of land that the American flag flies over, and would not give.up one bit of it. “California has been much benefited by this expansion. Our trade has grown and is growing continually by reason of the policy of the present administration. I believe that this trade will keep on expanding if Mr. McKinley is re-elected. It would be lost if Mr. Bryan were elected.”