Che Conservative.
VOL. III. NO. 41. NEBRASKA CITY , NEBRASKA , APRIL 18 , 1901. SINGLE COPIES , 5 CENTS.
POTHYISHED WEEKLY.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK.
J. STERLING MORTON , EDITOR.
A JOUHNAIj DEVOTED TO THE DISCUSSION
OF POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND SOCIOLOGICAL
QUESTIONS.
CIRCULATION THIS WEEK , 12,000 COPIES.
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.
One dollar and a half per year in advance ,
postpaid to any part of the United States or
Canada. Remittances made payable to The
Morton Printing Company.
Address , THE CONSERVATIVE , Nebraska
City , Nebraska.
Advertising rates made known upon appli
cation.
Entered at the postofflce at Nebraska City ,
Neb. , as Second Class matter , July 29 , 1898.
Under the Bland-
FINANCIAL Allison act , for
HISTORY. which Major Wil
liam McKinley
voted and which became a law by being
passed over the veto of President Hayes ,
on Feb. 28,1878 , more than 400 millions
of silver dollars of 412 j grains each
have been coined.
This coinage , this pernicious attempt
to make money plentiful and cheap ,
which Major McKinley and other re
publicans pushed through congress , dis
placed , under the operation of the
Gresham law , an equal amount of bet
ter currency. But , in spite of Major
McKinley and other advocates of this
act , under its operation silver declined
nearly 60 per cent , in bullion value , not
withstanding Bryanarchio prophecies
that this immense coinage would put up
its price.
After the failure of the Bland-Allison
act to maintain the price of silver bul
lion in the world's
Sherman Act. markets , the Sher
man act was adopt
ed , and the endeavor to maintain
the price of silver by buying
4 million ounces a month and issuing
Treasury notes in payment therefor , to
be floated on a parity with gold , proved
as disastrous a failure as its predecessor ,
the Bland-Allison nostrum.
Under the Sherman act , which pro
vided for the purchase of silver junk ,
with notes redeem-
Junk Falls. able in gold , silver
declined from$1.06
to 73 cents an ounce. So these two pieces
of silver legislation , intended as supports
to the silver bullion market , ignomin-
tiqusiy failed to uphold the bullion price
of that metal. The inevitable law , that
the relation of supply to demand is the
sole regulator of value , rendered nuga
tory the provisions and intentions of the
Bland-Allison act and of the Sherman
act. These acts resulted , however , in
; ho issuance of about 575 million dollars
of circulating medium. This currency
was made up of 480 millions of silver
and silver certificates and the balance of
U. S. Treasury notes and silver dollars.
This silver incubus weighted down the
currency of the country and squeezed
out of circulation an equal amount of
better money.
On March 29th ,
A DEFINER. 1901 , "the peer
less" presiden
tial possibility in perpetuity , by a com
moner editorial than usual , attempts to
define democracy and its financial views.
This erudite writer , forecaster , and 16-
to-1-or-die statesman remarks
- - - , :
"The democrats advocate a legal
tender greenback issued by the govern
ment , redeemable in coin , the govern
ment to exercise the option as to which
coin , while the populists believe in an
irredeemable greenback. "
When did the democratic party advo
cate the legal tender greenback ? Did
the national democracy ever declare for
a legal tender of paper money , credit
money ? Is not the greenback a mere
promise to pay dollars ? Did any re
putable democratic convention ever de
clare greenbacks , righteously and con
stitutionally , made a legal tender ? On
the other hand , have not the best and
ablest representative democrats of the
United States deplored the action of the
Supreme Court , and reprobated its
changed front and self-reversing on the
greenback question ?
Is not history a witness to the facl
that democracy has , in this republic
always been opposed to the centraliza
tion of power in any branch of the gov
ernment ? And is to confer upon con
gress the power to issue , to control , to
contract or expand , the volume of green
backs , anything less than centralizing
power in the legislative branch of this
government , greater than that possessed
by any sovereign on earth ? Where did
the definer get his wonderful knowledge
as to the advocacy of greenback issues
by the democracy ?
What eminent democrat in the senate
or house of representatives advocated
those issues ?
What distinction is there , morally ,
between an alleged democrat who advo
cates the redemption of a government
note , which promises to pay a dollar with
a silver coin that is denominationally a
hundred cents , but purchasingly only
Ifty cents , and an alleged populist who
proposes to never redeem it at all ? Is
; he man who only steals fifty cents a
more honest man than the one who steals
a whole dollar ?
And if silver is just as desirable as
? old , then why does the alleged demo
crat reserve the option of paying , in
either metal , to the government ? If the
people are partial to silver why not let
the payee tell which dollar he prefers
when he presents a greenback for re
demption at the treasury of the United
States , and thus get either the white or
the yellow coin ?
There were in the very beginning of
greenback legal-tenderism democratio
protests against the same. There never
has been any reputable advocacy of
legal-tenderism for greenbacks by dem
ocrats. The legal tender quality was
first given to money to compel creditors
to accept from debtors , in liquidation of
claims against them , that which other
wise would have been rejected.
But , if the legal tender quality should
be taken from gold tomorrow by con
gressional enactment , it would not hurt
gold. Gold would remain as much de
sired by mankind as it is today , with the
legal tender quality affixed to it. And
the universal desire for gold by civilized
man makes a universal demand for it
and the universal demand makes it a
universal value. This value , however ,
is always relative , never intrinsic.
Nebraska may
FREED BECAUSE learn from Sweden
TREED. how to free itself
from taxation and
how to secure railroad and telephone
services with the same facility that
educational advantages are now extend
ed to all people. A , newspaper para
graph remarks :
"Utopia is now known to be located
at Orsa , in Sweden. The community
has , in course of a generation , sold
$4,600,000 worth of trees , and by means
of judicious replanting , has provided for
a similar income every thirty or forty
years. In consequence of this commer
cial wealth there are no taxes. Rail
ways , telephones , etc. , are free , and so
are school houses , teaching and many
other things. l
