Who Changed?

The statement has often been made that the Hon. Albert Williams, of Ionia, has changed his politics and left the republican party and espoused the cause of free silver. But the "ollowing letter written by lu Williams in 1886 to the Ionia National conclusively shows he stood at that time. just vrere he stands today, although he was then, and up to the time whén the St. Louis convention offered the "gold cure" considered a good republican, "dyed in the wool." Judge Williams assisted in the formation of the republican party under the oaks at Jackson, and has lived to see it ilourish and rise to the zenith of political parties, and at the rate the party is now drifting will live to ee it sink to decay and obscurity, .iespised by those few who yet remain who assisted at its birth. No better evidence that the management and direction of the iolicy of the g. o. p. has been assumsd by the enemies of the people is needod than the words of one of the founders as published below: To the .Editor of the National: Early in December last President Cleveland was interviewed by a representative of the New York World. We are informeel that he talkcd ffankly, and amoñg other things he i.aid in substanee and nearly in languugre tbat members of congress take the same official oath as does the president; believes his is an executive office with prescribed duties to perform; re ■ i ds the flnancial question as the most important one before congress; thin: business of the country is now, to a e extent, in a cendition of uneertainty owing to the doubt as to what v.ill be done with silver, and that he wrote upon that subject in his message and does not see how even the extreme ates of silver can ask to have its coinage continued, while so mi: mains idle and there seems to be no soarcity of money. And quite reeently, on an important occasion, he said: il ii'-y becomes a government t. evade the spirit and letter of its own laws. It is, indeed, not a little inconsistent and surprising that one who has so clear and correct an idea of the duties of his office should, because of violating them himself thereby be the cause of uil the evils he complains of; and then, as it were, select so tough a stick as "it illy becomes," etc, to be punished with. We have what may be called our monetary laws. They were in tended by congress to give us a permanent public policy, making gold and silver money equal in the payment of all debts, both public and private, not only in theory, but in practice also. Had the president, ever" since entering that high office, faithfully executed those laws as he has solemnly sworn to do, sternly saying to all, Andrew Jackson-like: "By the eternal, they must and shail be executed, in their spirit and letter, so long as the: laws, without difference of payment between the rich and the poor," he would have renderecl the country a vaJuable and faithful service and had no need to regard the flnancial cuestión as the greatest now before congress, nor worry because of the unsettled and uncertain condition oL the business of the country, or on account of so much silver remaining idle in the public treasury. All such deplorable things and conditions are but the logical and natural effects and fruit of his own delibérate and culpable failure to justly and fully execute our monetary laws, thereby forcibly reminding us that it does indeed "illy become a government to evade the spirit and letter of its own laws." The silver in our national treasury s as much a legal tender as is the gold in payment of publi? debts. Laws made it so. and have taken and put it there for that and for no other purpose. As the president of the people, entrusted with their interests, he should have fairly used that silver in making all sueh payments, using thcrefore at least a due proportion of it, thus greatly reducing it and our national debt also, and so saving the tax payers millions of interest on that debt, instead of keeping so much, as he says, idle in the treasury. The public interests have demanded such use of that idle silver, still demand it, and ever will, so long as any such is there. As the president of the people, it is his duty to stand by all those interests, fostering no one of them at the expense of any other. In this land. where all are equal before the law and the government, it is not only his duty so to do, but it is demoralizing, mischievous and disgraceful to have one kind of money for the rich and another for the poor, the money if the latter being treated with contempt by the president and his treasurer. And he who. thus wars upon the silver coinage, the silver mohey and the silver interests of the country - greatvital and venerable as those nterests are and will be- can only be regarded to that extent, as worse than mistaken. One might as well war upm the wheat, corn, cotton, timber, gold. iron. oopper, coal, salt, or any other oí oui great interests, and still as well deserve to be treated as a friend or trusty statesman of the country. For these interests are all inseparable, have grown wlth our growth and strengthened with our strength, and, as it were, crystallized as one rock - the American rock of business. - and no man is fit to be trusted who would single out and injure or destroy any one of them. As a noble snip made up of strong parts, they have borne our people and government safely, swiftly and grandly to the front rank oL all peoples and nations. Theiefoie, let them alone, except it be to fairly stin:ulate and protect them all. In truth, a government that stores and bonds year by year, whisky by the hundred million gallons, cuts a sorrowful figure in complaining of idle silver in the treasury, simply beoause it won't pay it out. Don Quixote, in his maddest pranks, never excelled that. And the ahnoít fabulous increase of gold in the country since 1878, importing $18,000,010 more of it last year than we exported and exporting $17,000,000 more oL silver than we imported, the aggregate coinage of gild and silver last year beir.g nut much, if any, above the average of the last eight years, and no more than keeping pace with the increase of the business of the country, all show how baseless are the president's expressed fears and how unwise his recommendations to congress against silver coinage and silver money, which .s emphatically the money of the p In fact, the people have a gi-eat interest in their silver money, and even if there be a diffierence between them, greater than in gold. Indeed, silver money may be called the people's money. They receive and pay their dues in it. il jingles in their poekets. They liear its inspiring music. It cheers them in their houi-s of toil. It makes lightcr the. burdens of labor. It Iets in the shme of hope, suceess and happiness. It sings to íücm oí' a home and its comforts, be. au.-:e it houses, clothes and feeds l ones domiciled there. But not su of gold, for that they seldom see, and less seldom own. And, yet, atraii . fical, im-Amerk-an and ruinous as it is, the president wars on silver. He was elected for no such purpose. That policy oí' nis is as a mili stone abuut the neclc ofhis party and must be cut loóse, or it will sink it. Is m save it. It is a sowing of the wind. Lt those who tiiiss -- iw, reap the whiiiv, ind. And I will help ride the whirl as best I can. So pi