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About The independent. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907 | View Entire Issue (July 30, 1903)
JULY 30, 190 3. THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT THE POPULI8T8 "IT AM) PAT" The 'populist party has never made any change in the position that it first took in regard to money. It h-.s held frnr 1 1 . - unit of money, -whether it is made of gold, paper or anything else, depends absolutely upon the number of units and the relation they bear to the ser vices they are to perform. It has held that nothing can be more certain than that the production of the precious metals bears no scientific relation to the increase or decrease of population or commerce.. If the output of the precious metals was obtained without any labor whatever and the amount remained-the same, the value of money would remain the same. If the labor cost was three times what it is now and the output was the same still the value would not be enhanced. It is the limitation of quantity, without any reference to the cost' of produc tion that regulates the value of each unit of money whether the material is paper, gold t or silver. The effect of limitation on the value is the same regardless of the material on which the legal tender law islmprinted. THE VALUE OF MONEY OP WHATEVER KIND IS MEASURED BY THE COST OF OBTAINING IT AFTER IT HAS BEEN PRODUCED, "AND NOT BY THE COST OF ITS PRODUCTION. Money is ; the primary and govern ing force whose function cannot be su perseded by, any other device. Checks, promissory notes and all forms of credit are based upon money and could not exist without it. Credit is the dangerous element in all the bus iness of modern times. If the num ber of units of money always main tained the same relation to popula tion and commerce, credits would rest on a sound basis. The dependence upon the output of mines for the volume of money leaves the commerce of the world at the mercy of the mcst uncertain and haz ardous business in which men ever engaged. It is utterly unscientific' and is wholly without reason to sustain it. The populist position is now and always has been that the volume of money should be controlled by the government in such a manner that the number of units of money should al ways maintain the same relation to population and business, and that the result would be a stability of prices which would prevent panics and long years of depression, to be followed by short periods of speculation and great ly advanced prices. Populists never belonged to tha section of politicians known as "sil ver lunatics," who believed that silver was a God-ordained money metal. They advocated the free coinage of sil ver because that would increase the number of units of money, relieve the distress then prevailing and give a stimulus to business. As soon as the republicans began again to coin" sil ver, times improved and the act of the republican party demonstrated that the populists were right. The very result followed that the pop ulists predicted. There could be no commerce, no prosperity, not even civilization in Its lowest form without money and for this reason the populists always put the money question first, after which follows land and transporta tion. The populists took the right position in the first place and there they stand today. GOLD STANDARD ANTICS The antics of the gold standard ad vocates are exceedingly amusing. The other day while the president was holding councils with party advisers devising schemes to pass an asset currency bill, and stocks were tum bling because of the money stringency, the comptroller of the currency was down in Georgia making a speech to bankers in which he said: "As soon as it can be done the greenbacks should be retired and redeemed, the silver - also disposed of and nothing but gold and gold certificates used as bank reserves." At present there are 552.37C.093 sil ver dollars, the greenbacks amount to $346,681,016, and treasury notes pro tected by silver to the amount ' of 520,013,000. The brilliant idea of the comptroller of the treasury would re duce the amount of money in circula tion $918,020,109. If the government should try to sell the silver for bul lion, it would knock the bottom out of the price of silver and on that would follow the destruction of trade with all silver using countries and pro duce a series of disasters that would take the world twenty years to re cover from. Evidently the comptrol ler has not heard of the change of financial policy made by the republi can party and is still advocating the old fallacies of the campaigns of 1S9G and 1900. "The ignorance of some of these gold standard men is sublime. Even Henry W. Yates did not know how many greenbacks there were in circulation and over-stated the amount $20,000,000 in his recent article in the World-Herald. The sad thing about this whole mat ter is that there are some millions of voters in the United States who are such partisan slaves that if the policy being planned at Oyster Bay becomes the policy of the republican party, they will go out and shout themselves hoarse for asset currency and if the rolicy of the comptroller is proclaimed the will advocate that, as they did in 1896 and J900. THE SUPREME COURT The medical director in the Phil ippines has just made a report in which he recommends that both civil officers and soldiers be required to serve only one year in those islands. He points out that the many defalca tions that have occurred have always been after one year's service. He ac counts for it by the deterioration, both mentally and physically, that takes place after a sojourn there of twelve months or more. All this sorrow, suf fering and degeneration is the result of the decisions of the supreme court of the United States. Five judges of that court must bear the responsibility and whether this republic lives to throw off this curse of imperialism or gees down under it, these five men must be held answerable. History will place the responsibility there, for these five judges made imperialism possible. In discussing the latest de cision of this court, Liberty makes the following remarks: "It has just decided in a Hawaii case that the bill of rights also stays at home, not extending over new ter ritory of its own force. So, after all, congress may, in Porto Rico and the Philippines and Alaska, establish a state religion, abolish free speech, adopt cruel punishments in short, do any and all of the things prohibited by the bill of rights. As Justice Harlan says, this decision an infamous one makes congress as omnipotent (in new territory) as the British' parlia ment has claimed to be. The consti tution, or what is left of it, is for home consumption only. Hawaiians, Porto Ricans, Filipinos, have no rights which the autocratic congress is bound to respect. We may give them a certain amount of liberty as a mat ter of grace and benevolence; rights they have none. And this is the re public of Jefferson and Paine! This is the government of the constitution, of the Declaration of Independence! Degenerate politicians and political judges have destroyed American lib erty, and yet the people are as in different as they are ignorant. All they want is a full dinner pail." POST OFFICE XONSEXgE The United States postofSce is not only used for partisan "purposes, con cerning which The Independent has had several sad experiences, but it is nn ranrarmn' Special flail Order J no Qafo Write for Samples or Send Your Order. Evary Garment Guaran teed Satisfactory or Your Money Back Special . $5.00 Suit Coat and. Vest $3.75 Pants not sold separate Men's Suits made from all wool worst tds will be sold by Hayden Bros, for 15.00. All well made and have good lin ings and trimmings. They're put to gether to stay together; and come in regular sizes also stout and siim cuts, made in four button cutaway sack style. In all sizes fiom 34 to 4G. Your home merchant will tell you that it h cheap at 18.00. If you don't like thera after you get them we want you to send them back to us and we will refund your money. This applios to anything we sell as well as these suits. Pure Worsted Four-Button Sack Suit $9.00 Coat and Vest, $7oo4 Pants sot sold separate. Men's fine pure worsted suits in a neat stripe and cut in the very , latest styles, four button cutaway sack. This material is made from pure long worsted yarn, will probably wear longer and give as much satisfaction as any , cloth that you can procure no matter what price you pay. The coat ia made with hand padded shoulders, hair cloth fronts which keeps coat in perfect shape; also lined with a good serge lining and well tailored throughout Comes in sizes from 34 to 4G, regulars. NEW GROCERY LIST NOW READY FREE FOR THE ASKING in Wholesale Supply House Omaha.Neb. miserably managed in many other re spects. R. H. Dana, in his "Appoint ment and Tenure of Postmasters," says: "We have the worst postal ser vice of any civilized country in the world. There are improvements adopted in England, France, Germany, and Italy, twenty and thirty years ago, which we have not yet adopted at all or only partially or imperfectly." The truth is that there has been but one improvement in the postal service for the last forty years, the rural ielivery, and that' was forced through congress by a populist con gressman, Tom Watson. The whole system is run without common sense. If we take the weight of mail into consideration, and that is the way all postage rates are made, why should a charge of 16 cents a pound be made on merchandise,- 8 cents- a pound 6"n books, 1 cent a pound on magazines sent to news dealers by publishers, 4 cents a pound on magazines sent by one private individual to another and 8 cents a pound on magazines sent by a printer to his publisher? The cost of handling and transportation in all these cases is exactly the same. If there is any transaction in all com morce that has less common sense in it than that, The Independent would be pleased to have some one point it out. This nonsense makes necess&ry a government espionage as vile and un American as anything that can be found in Russia. What business have postoffice clerks to open private pack ages to find out whether they should be carried at 1 cent a pound or 16 cents a pound? The cost to the gov ernment for transportation and deliv ery of a pound package is the same, whether it is magazines sent by a publisher or samples of goods sent by a merchant. While transportation rates have teen greatly reduced during th-3 last ten or fifteen years, the postoffice au thorities continue to pay to the rail roads the same extravagant tariffs that it did twenty years ago, notwith standing evidence has time and again been submitted that proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the roads hauled packages In the same car for the express companies for les3 than half that was paid to the roads for the same service to the postoffice depart ment. There is another nonsensical rule. Packages are limited to four pounds in weight. But a package of any size can be sent if letter postage is paid on it. Not long since a gentleman, be ing caught in a tight place, mailed a dress suit case at a sub-station in New York to New Haven, Conn. Ho put stamps, . including a special delivery stamp, on it, to the amount of $3.68. It was mailed at 5 p. m. and was de livered to the street number on the address in New Haven before 11 c'clock the same evening. In Switz erland, which has no nonsense in its ' postal department, packaged aro not limited in weight and are limited in size only so th:.t they can be passed through the door of the mail cars, and some of the Swiss declare that that limitation is unreasonable. As long ago as 1880, Dr. Stephen, the great postmaster general of Ger many, called round him the represen tatives of the leading nations of Eu rope and established the interna tional parcels post union. Today this service covers thirty-five of the coun tries of the world letter post union, and more than half the civilized world, but not the United States. Under that agreement eleven-pound packages go from Germany to Italy for 25 cents and to Egypt for 45 cents. The Swiss post takes a 44-pound package to any address in that country and delivers it at the residence of the receiver for 33 cents. The German parcels limit is . 110 pounds and parcels of that weight are sent anywhere bstween Germany, Austria and Switzerland by post. In those countries there are no re publican bosses to get contracts for their henchmen or place their work ers In the postoffice department The express companies in Europe cannot get one of their agents like Congress man Loud at the head of the postoffice committee in their parliaments, or men . like Senator Piatt in the upper houses. Neither do the railroads se cure seats for their ex-general super intendents like Depew. In three of the reports that Loud made from his committee and in ad vocating all the bills that he intro duced, he declared that the postofflco was not a public necessity and that its business could be better done by private corporations. A house In