UNLIMITED IRREDEEMABLE PAPER MONEY. The silver question is not the only issue affecting our money in the pending contest. Not content with urging the free coinage of silver, its strongest champions demand that our paper money shall be issued directly by the Government of the United States. This is the Chicago Democratic declaration. The St. Louis People’s Party declaration is that “out National money shall be issued by the General Government only, without the intervention of banks of issue, be full legal tender for the payment of all debts, public and private,” and be distributed “direct to the people, and through lawful disbursements of the Government.” Thus in addition to the free coinage of the world’s silver we are asked to enter upon an era of unlimited irredeemable paper currency. The question which was fought out from 1865 to 1879 is thus to be re-opened, with all its uncertainties, and cheap money experiments of every conceivable form foisted upon us. This indicates a most startling reactionary policy, strangely at variance with every requirement of sound finance; but the declaration shows the spirit and purpose of those who by combined action are contending for the control of the Government. Not satisfied with the debasement of our coin which would inevitably follow the free coinage of silver at sixteen to one, they -would still further degrade our currency and threaten the public honor by the unlimited issue of an irredeemable paper currency. A graver menace to our financial standing and credit could hardly be conceived, and every patriotic citizen should be aroused to promptly meet and effectually defeat it. APPEALS TO PASSION ARE A MENACE TO OUR LIBERTIES. It is a cause for painful regret and solicitude that an effort is being made by those high in the counsels of the allied parties to divide the people of this country into classes and create distinctions among us, which, in fact, do not exist, and are repugnant to our form of government. These appeals to passion and prejudice are beneath the spirit and intelligence of a free people, and should be met with stern rebuke by those they are sought to influence, and I believe they will be. Every attempt to array class against class, “the classes against the masses,” section against section, labor against capital, “the poor against the rich,” or interest against interest in the United States, is in the highest degree reprehensible. It is opposed to the National instinct and interest and should be resisted by every citizen. We are not a nation of classes, but of sturdy, free, independent and honorable people, despising the demagogue, and never capitulating to dishonor. This ever recurring effort endangers popular government and is a menace to our liberties. It is not a new campaign device or party appeal. It is as old as government among men, but was never more untimely and unfortunate than now. Washington warned us against it, and Webster said in the Senate, in words which I feel are singularly appropriate at this time: “I admonish.the people against the object of outcries like these. I admonish every industrious laborer of this country to be on his guard against such delusion. I tell him the attempt is to play off his passion against his interest, and to prevail on him, in the name of liberty, to destroy all the fruits of liberty.” 8
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