Conservative *
ity , and that that fear need not give
much reason for distrust. Bat as to
private debts , falling duo every day ,
every one realizes it to be a matter of
present concern. Since the unlimited
legal tender power of the silver dollar is
retained for all obligations in which
gold is not expressly stipulated , it is
clear that all private contracts thus gen
erally drawn could be liquidated in
silver. The gold standard of payments ,
therefore , is not made obligatory for
private debts. The new law manifestly
has not established the gold standard
for the ordinary transactions of daily
business life. If a lender of money
wishes to secure repayment in gold , he
must , today , as well as before this act
was passed , expressly stipulate for gold
in the contract. The act of March 14 ,
1900 , does not give us any new protec
tion in this regard. Hence we ought to
give up the fiction that the new law has
"established the gold standard. "
"Since silver dollars can be paid for
public and private debts in nearly as
many cases as be-
Maintaining Silver . , , _
„
fore the aot ° f
at Par.
1900 , the question
as to the permanence of the gold stan
dard is , then , to bo found in the pro
visions for maintaining silver at par
with gold. Certainly , a reader might
say , so long as silver is kept in value
equal to gold , no one would object to
being paid in silver ; and reference
might be made to the fact that the new
law ( sec. 1) ) not only declared the gold
dollar to be 'the standard unit of value , '
but also that 'all forms of money issued
or coined by the United States shall be
maintained at a parity of value with
this standard , and it shall be the duty of
the Secretary of the Treasury to main
tain such parity. ' To the innocent
reader this may look like a veritable es
tablishment of the parity of silver with
gold. But it adds nothing that did nol
exist in the law before ( in the acts of
( July 14 , 1890 , and November 1 , 1898. )
It pretends to establish a parity by com
mand , but it gives absolutely nothing
with which to maintain parity.
"In short , the house bill set out to pro
vide a gold reserve to be used for the
maintenance of the parity of all kinds
of our money ; but the senate overruled
this plan , and limited the use of the golc
reserve solely to United States notes and
treasury notes of 1800. That is , if the
Secretary of the Treasury should find
difficulty in keeping about 579 million
of silver dollars at par with gold , he
could not use the new gold reserve ( for
the replenishment of which provision
was made by selling bonds. ) All the
regulations of the reserve apply to the
two forms of paper ( amounting to abou
420 million dollars ) while about 676
million dollars of silver , which carries a
seigniorage of over 50 per cent , is lef
without any direct means of redemption
into gold , as a means of keeping the
parity. I have said that the permanence
of the gold standard depends upon the
revisions of the new law as to main
lining the parity between gold and
ilver ; but we now see that no means
whatever have been given to accomplish
his end. Such methods of keeping
silver at parity with gold which existed
before the act of March 14 , 1900 , are
still the only means we now have of
assuring the continuance of the gold
standard. The new law has not given
us any new methods of redemption ,
ilere we have had an exhibition of gross
cowardice on the part of congress. "
If the election of Bryan in 1890 ,
would have endangered the permanency
of the gold stand-
HoiieHty Paramount. , _
ard , as Professor
Laughlin points out , the same danger
now exists. If in 1890 the proposition ,
; o pay debts in a coin of less value than
that in which the debt was contracted ,
was dishonest and a species of repudia
tion , it is no less dishonest today and is
not less deserving of rebuke. THE
CONSEUVATIVE believes that the obser
vance of honesty in both public and
private contracts is of more importance
to the honor and well-being of a nation
than any question of territorial acquisi
tion.
The. f ree-coiii-
SECONDARY.
age-of-silver-at-16-
to-1 Crusader of 1896 is now the Sanoho
Panza of 1900 fighting the deadly Para
mount of Imperialism. This gallant
knight , when the assemblage of his
henchmen and retainers was holding
council at Kansas City , July 4th , 1900 ,
declared that unless 1C to 1 wasput in
to the platform he would not consent to
enter the tournament. Without a posi
tive reassertion and re-consecration of
the sacred ratio for the free and unlimit
ed coinage of silver , Col. Bryan , with
impressive solemnity , declined absolute
ly to accept candidature. He recog
nized the inseparability and identity of
his own peerless populism and the finan
cial fallacy which made him famous
He could not ran without a silver annex
better than a balloon can soar without
gas. "No silver , no Bryan" was the
terse telegram from Lincoln to Kansas
City when that convocation of populists
and cowards was planning for a presi
dantial candidate. And now the man
who positively declared that unless the
reiteration of the necessity and right
eousness of the free and unlimited coin
age of silver at the ratio of sixteeu-to
one was embodied in the Kansas City
proclamation of principles he weald no
accept the nomination , informs the pee
pie that "imperialism is the paramoun
issue. "
Did Bryan purpose declining if anti
imperialism was left out of the platform
Did he intimate
Declining ; . . , , . , , . ,
that if the slur up
on the Supreme Court or the fling a
ho writ of injunction or any other of
he lunacies of populism were left out ,
he would not run ?
On the other hand , did not Bryan
declare in terms , and by his action , that
_ , . . the question of the
Tantamount. , .
free coinage of
silver by the United States at the ratio
of 10 to 1 was tantamount to all the re
maining declarations of that composite
phonograph at Kansas City , which was
declaiming his personal views ? When a
candidate declines to accept a nomina-
; ion because one dogma , or one belief of
iis is omitted by the resolntionary com
mittee of the nominating convention ,
does not that candidate declare the
omitted thing to be tantamount to all
the other things in his creed ?
And if the dogma is finally acccepted ,
because the tantamountcy thereof has
y
_ . , been decreed to the
Paramount and
Tantamount. convention by the
candidate , how
can that candidate then accept and de
clare imperialism paramount as com
pared with everything else , including
the great tantamount of 16 to 1 as de
livered to his disciples by Bryan ?
The caterwaulings , spittings and strug
gles of the tantamount and the paramount -
mount in the back
A Cat .
yards and upon the
shed roofs of populism , free silver republicans - j
publicans and bewildered democrats |
daring the next four months , will be as J
entertaining as a cat fight. They will
decide whether that which was tanta
mount shall find its paramount in anti-
imperialism. Free silver was equal to
all else. Then how can anti-imperial
ism be its paramount in the same plat
form ?
At his beautiful
TRICE GROWTH.
and very attrac
tive home , two miles south of Nebraska
City , Mr. L. O. Burnett has some splen
did specimens of tree growth.
Twelve years ago Mr. Burnett planted
the seed of catalpa trees which now
measure forty-one inches in circumfer
ence , at six inches above the ground ,
and at four feet above they girt thirty-
one inches.
Red cedar trees of same age , oiroum-
measure twenty-eight ; Ben Davis apple
trees thirty-four inches. The latter
were two years old when set out.
Oatalpa statistics desired for circula
tion by THE CONSERVATIVE , which is de
voted to the truth and trees.
At Indianapolis
A NEW RATIO.
a new oratorical
ratio of eight thousand words to a single
thought "the presidency , " has been
promulgated by Col. Bryan. Eight
thousand words and bat a single
thought !