SOME BRYAN ARGUMENTS

Cortland Evening Standard, Monday, October 26, 1896.

PAGE TWO—EDITORIALS.

Some Bryan Arguments.

   Mrs. C. M. Nickerson who spoke for Bryan at Taylor hall [in Cortland] a few evenings since condensed her argument into the following summary: "Double the amount of money and you double the price of your products; divide the amount of your money and you divide the price of your products. Double the amount of money and you divide your debts; divide the amount of money and you double your debts.''

   Four more glaring falsehoods and more transparent fallacies were never uttered. If Mrs. Nickerson had said: "Make a dollar worth only fifty cents, and you double the number of dollars you will get for your products," she would have been stating a truth, but she ought to have added, even then, to make the truth complete, that a hundred bushels of potatoes sold for fifty-cent dollars would buy no more goods at the store than if they had been sold for half the number of hundred-cent dollars.

   So of the statement that doubling the amount of money divides debts. If the law should authorize a man who owes a hundred dollars to pay that debt by making fifty good dollars into a hundred so-called dollars worth only 50 cents each, and compelling the creditor to take them, his so-called "money" might be doubled and his debt paid by scaling it down one-half, but the debtor who did this would be a thief—and would know it. Double the apparent amount of money and decrease its value one-half—in other words, cheat some one 50 per cent—and Mrs. Nickerson's arguments on this point are true, provided the creditor can be forced to take the clipped coin.

   But how about debts due in gold and held in foreign countries? Would American debtors be any better off as far as paying them is concerned if, instead of the present hundred cent dollars, we should have twice the number of fifty-cent dollars? The only way to help out this kind of debtors would be to put Tillman, Altgeld, Debs and some of their associates on the bench of the supreme court of the United States, and have them endorse repudiation and tell the gold creditors to take 50-cent silver dollars or nothing.

   Silver dollars have been coined and silver certificates issued by the hundreds of millions since 1873. Does Mrs. Nickerson claim that this increase in our money has raised the price of products or divided debts? Money was recently loaning in London on call at half of one per cent, it was so plentiful. Were any one's debts cut down on account of it?

   Equally silly are the claims that dividing the amount of money divides the prices of products or doubles debts. Actual money plays a very small part in modern business. Confidence and credit make its life blood. If every transaction had to be made in actual money instead of notes, checks, etc., business would stop. Look at the New York Clearing House, with its hundreds of millions of dollars of business done and only a few thousands of dollars of actual money changing hands.

   When credit and confidence are shaken then every one wants money, it is hard to get and debtors are compelled to pay up or are closed out. This is not because there is any less money, but because there is less credit and confidence. Wipe out half the actual money and double credit and confidence and the country is thousands of times better off than if you destroy half the credit and half the confidence and double the amount of actual good money. A man who owes a hundred dollar debt would owe it just the same if the amount of gold and silver now in circulation were doubled, provided the dollars of the two metals were kept at a parity. He would owe it just the same if the amount of gold and silver were reduced one-half.

   If Mrs. Nickerson's statements were true, and she believed them to be true, she would be playing the fool by supporting Bryan—unless she is a ''plutocrat" or belongs to the so-called "creditor class." For the first effect of Bryan's election, according to her theories, would be to increase debts—by decreasing the amount of money in circulation. The free coinage scheme proposed by Mr. Bryan would not increase the money in circulation, but would cause violent contraction of the currency by driving out the $612,000,000 of gold now in the circulating medium; the $610,000,000 of silver coin and certificates would lose half their purchasing power; the $475,000,000 of paper money would be redeemable only in silver, and hence would fall to one-half its present value. Net loss to circulating medium, $1,154,500,000.

   If Mrs. Nickerson wants clipped coin, token money, dishonest dollars, to do business on, she should say so. If she meant to refer to good, honest, hundred cent dollars in what she said, she ought to study the first principles governing money—and we can conceive of no school so primary or kindergarten that she could not attend it with marked benefit, provided she is capable of being taught. She is now simply another specimen of the average free silver speaker. She has wheels in her head. She doesn't know what she is talking about.

  

Clarence Lexow.

GRAND PARADE AND RALLY.

Cortland, Oct. 31—Address by Senator Lexow—Grand Parade In Evening—Everybody Invited.

   Saturday of the present week having been designated as flag day, the Republican county committee has arranged for a mass-meeting in the Opera House at 8 o'clock in the evening to be addressed by Senator Clarence Lexow of New York whom every one will be glad to hear. Arrangements are nearly perfected for a monster parade previous to the address of visiting McKinley and Hobart marching clubs and citizens, the line to be headed with a cavalcade of horsemen.

   A committee has been appointed to assist in carrying out the details of the parade. It is earnestly hoped that every Republican and advocate of sound money will make an effort to assist the committee in making the parade a fitting close of flag day. Those who can furnish one or more horses for the occasion are requested to, if possible, notify some member of the committee at an early day. If inconvenient so to do it should be borne in mind that the horsemen are to assemble on Court-st. at 6:30 P. M. sharp, the hour for the marching clubs to meet the horsemen for the parade. It is the express desire of the county committee that there shall be no display of fireworks until the column counter-marches on Main-st. This will avoid all danger of frightening horses.

   Residents along the line of march are respectfully requested to decorate their residences or grounds. If any citizens, either horseman or those who will march in the column, have lanterns with red or blue globes it is hoped the same will not be overlooked, but brought out to mingle with the white ones, and thus form the emblem of the American banner.

   The parade column will start at the corner of Court and Main-sts. moving

south on Main to Union, to Owego, to Tompkins, to Port Watson, to Church, to Grant, to Main, to Madison, to Homer-ave., to Lincoln, to Main, to the Messenger House, where the column will countermarch amid a grand display of fireworks, and residents of the county should endeavor to be present, participate and make the event one long to be remembered.

   Any further information can be obtained relating to the parade by conferring with Messrs. S. N. Holden, Z. H. Tanner, J. W. Strowbridge, H. M. Phillips or G. W. Fisher of the committee.

   C. H. DRAKE,

   S. N. HOLDEN, marshals.

BREVITIES.

   —Mr. Leslie H. Tucker shot a large crane on the Tioughnioga [river] this afternoon.

   —Potatoes are said to be rotting, which indicates an increase in price.—Ithaca Journal.

   —The ceiling in Stowell's bargain house is being painted white to-day by

Loucks & Petrie.

   —E. W. Carpenter paid a fine of ten dollars in police court Saturday for public intoxication.

   —The Normal football team is being coached this week by White, formerly of the Cornell team.

   —The Harvard football team defeated Cornell at Ithaca Saturday afternoon by the score of 13 to 4.

   —The Eureka dancing club meets tomorrow night in Empire hall.

   —The express car of the Cortland & Homer Traction company appeared this morning in a coat of red with lettering in white on its sides.

   —Dr. E. M. Santee this morning hung a flag bearing the names of McKinley and Hobart over the street in front of his residence on Groton-ave.

   —"Happy Bill" Daniels and his full orchestra furnished nice music for a large number of dinners at the armory Saturday night and every one had the usual good time.

   —New advertisements to-day are—C. F. Brown, don't neglect your roof, page 8; Case, Ruggles & Bristol, cloak opening, page 6; Warren, Tanner & Co., ladies furs, page 4.

   —The semi-annual meeting of the principals of the Normal schools of New

York state will be held with the Cortland Normal next week beginning on Wednesday, Nov. 4.

   —Messrs. F. W. Collins and James Dougherty address Democratic meetings at Truxton to-morrow night and at Scott Wednesday night. Thursday evening Hon. Thomas Carmody of Penn Yan and Mr. Collins speak at Marathon.

   —Mr. John Wesley Andrews died Saturday afternoon at his home at Malleryville in the town of Dryden from cancer in the stomach. He was 70 years of age. The funeral will be held to-morrow morning at 11 o'clock from his late residence. Burial in Cortland Rural cemetery.

   —The large water tank on Prospect hill, which was injured by the recent severe wind storm, has been sprung back into position. Boiler makers from Syracuse were here last week and patched the cracks and will be here again this week to put in angle irons to strengthen the walls of the tank.

   —The receipts at the Lyceum last night were over $800 and at the Harvard-Cornell football game to-day about $2,200. This does not bespeak hard times.—Ithaca Journal. The entertainment referred to at the Lyceum was an amateur operatic extravaganza presented by the Ithaca Choral club.

   —A dispute of long standing between members of the local sporting fraternity for supremacy between the East Side and the South Side as to the belligerent qualities of certain dog flesh was settled yesterday at a place known as the "Pine woods." After a forty-seven minute bout, witnessed by about thirty-five interested parties, the South Side was declared the winner. Considerable money is said to have changed hands on the result.

   —Some people had supposed that it was perfectly safe to handle a dead specimen of the genus Mephitis Americana, but the porter of a local hotel learned his error yesterday and all the hoarders and others who happened to be in the vicinity found out about it too.

Keator Opera House, third floor, Barber block.

HOMER.

Gleanings of News From Our Twin Village.

   The Popocratic mass-meeting in Keator opera house on Saturday evening was largely attended by citizens of all shades of political faith. Mr. Lincoln of Buffalo, who made the first speech, said in closing that he was not an orator, but his admission was in the minds of many of the audience not quite broad enough. He did not seem to be even a logical speaker. Mrs. Nickerson was a very enjoyable speaker as far as elocutionary ability is concerned. Her address from a Popocratic standpoint was an excellent one. The difficulty is that not many people will grant her premises, and without that her conclusions will not follow.