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but it must be settled by each man in the domain of conscience enlightened by patriotism. The interests at stake involve the financial future of this great people; they are the interests of country, and country is above all.

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CHAPTER X.

PRESIDENT CLEVELAND'S LETTER.

EARLY in the month of April, 1895, a committee o Chicago gentlemen invited President Cleveland to be present and take part in a meeting "in the interest of sound money and wholesome financial doctrine." In his letter declining the invitation, the President said:

"My attachment to this cause is so great and I know so well the hospitality and kindness of the people of Chicago that my personal inclination is strongly in favor of accepting your flattering invitation, but my judgment and my estimate of the proprieties of my official place oblige me to forego the enjoyment of participating in the occasion you contemplate.

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I hope, however, the event will mark the beginning of an earnest and aggressive effort to disseminate among the people safe and prudent financial ideas. Nothing more important can engage the attention of patriotic citizens, because nothing is so vital to the welfare of our fellow-countrymen and to the strength, prosperity and honor of our nation.

"The situation we are confronting demands that those who appreciate the importance of this subject and those who ought to be the first to see impending danger should no longer remain indifferent or over-confident.

"If the sound-money sentiment abroad in the land is to save us from mischief and disaster it must be crys

tallized and combined and made immediately active. It is dangerous to overlook the fact that a vast number of our people, with scant opportunity thus far to examine the question in all its aspects, have nevertheless been ingeniously pressed with specious suggestions which in this time of misfortune and depression find willing lis teners, prepared to give credence to any scheme which is plausibly presented as a remedy for their unfortunate

condition.

"What is now needed more than anything else, is a plain and simple presentation of the argument in favor of sound money. In other words it is a time for the American people to reason together as members of a great nation which can promise them a continuance of protection and safety only so long as its solvency is unsuspected, its honor unsullied and the soundness of its money unquestioned. These things are ill exchanged for the illusions of a debased currency and groundless hope of advantages to be gained by a disregard of financial credit and commercial standing among the na. tions of the world.

"If our people were isolated from all others and if the question of our currency could be treated without regard to our relations to other countries its character would be a matter of comparatively little importance. If the American people were only concerned in the maintenance of their life among themselves they might return to the old days of barter and in this primitive manner acquire from each other the materials to supply the wants of their existence. But if American civilization were satisfied with this it would abjectly fail in its high and noble mission.

"In these restless days the farmer is tempted by the

assurance that, though our currency may be debased, redundant and uncertain, such a situation will improve the price of his products. Let us remind him that he must buy as well as sell; that his dreams of plenty are shaded by the uncertainty that if the price of the things he has to sell is nominally enhanced, the cost of the things he must buy will not remain stationary ; that the best prices, which cheap money proclaims, are unsubstantial and elusive, and that even if they were real and palpable he must necessarily be left far behind in the race for their enjoyment.

"It ought not to be difficult to convince the wageearner that if there were benefits arising from a degenerated currency they would reach him least of all and last of all. In an unhealthy stimulation of prices an increased cost of all the needs of his home must long be his portion, while he is at the same time vexed with vanishing visions of increased wages and an easier lot. The pages of history and experience are full of this les

son.

"An insidious attempt is made to create a prejudice against the advocates of a safe and sound currency by the insinuation, more or less directly made, that they belong to financial and business classes and are therefore not only out of sympathy with the common people of the land, but for selfish and wicked purposes are willing to sacrifice the interests of those outside their circle.

"I believe that capital and wealth, through combination and other means, sometimes gain an undue advantage; and it must be conceded that the maintenance of a sound currency may, in a sense, be invested with a greater or less importance to individuals according to

their condition and circumstances. It is, however, only a difference in degree, since it is utterly impossible that any one in our broad land, rich or poor, whatever may be his occupation, and whether dwelling in a center of finance and commerce or in a remote corner of our domain, can be really benefited by a financial scheme not alike beneficial to all our people, or that any one should be excluded from a common and universal interest in the safe character and stable value of the currency of the country.

"In our relation to this question we are all in business, for we all buy and sell, so we all have to do with financial operations, for we all earn money and spend it. We cannot escape our interdependence. Merchants and dealers are in every neighborhood, and each has its shops and manufactories. Wherever the wants of man exist business and finance in some degree are found, related in one direction to those whose wants they supply and in another to the more extensive business and finance to which they are tributary. A fluctuation in prices at the seaboard is known the same day or hour in the remotest hamlet. The discredit or depreciation in the financial centers of any form of money in the hands of the people is a signal of immediate loss everywhere.

"If reckless discontent and wild experiment should sweep our currency from its safe support the most de fenseless of all who suffer in that time of distress and national discredit will be the poor as they reckon the loss in their scanty support, and the laborer and workingman as he sees the money he has received for his toil shrink and shrivel in his hand when he tenders it for the necessaries to supply his humble home.

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