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Investment Co.'s securities $10,000 in cash; the company has tried to make me surrender the $10,000, and because I did not think proper to do so, sundry efforts have been put forth to make me do so by blackmail; the case was tried before Judge Vailiant, and I won, In his opinion, he said that my actions in this matter could not be successfully attacked from a legal, business or moral standpoint. The case was appealed, and is now in the supreme court. I propose to protect the bondholders, who scattered all over our state. and will hold every dollar in my possession until the courts order me to give it up. In trying to do my duty in this case, God only knows the abuse I have had to stand. I learn also that my administration of the Fifth national bank trust does not meet with the approval of Mr. Lewis' personal St. Louis organ, just at this time. In looking over the list of stockholders and depositors of the bank, I do not see that any of them are interested, and possibly their dissatisfaction should not be considered, but my work as receiver of the Fifth national bank has been indorsed by Comptrollers Trenholm, Abrahams and Lacey, the comptroller's office counselors, the depositors and stockholders' committees in the city of St. Louis, the St. Louis press, without a single exception; also of ex-Gov. Francis, Col, C. H. Jones, Hon. Nathan Frank, Col. J. B. Mc-Cullagh, Hon. Carl Daenzer and hundreds of others qualified to speak. When the bank was turned over to me by Examiner Foreman-and let us state here, I made no fight for the receivership-he said: "Lon, God have mercy on you, it's the worst mixed up affair I ever saw: if you get anything at all out of it you will surprise me." He did not. when seriously speaking, think I could realize over 33⅓ per cent. out of the wreck: in two months I paid the depositors 50 per cent. on their claims, and in a very short time paid them 96 per cent. In the great excitement attending my taking hold of this work, it is strange to me that I did not offend many, but as far as I know I made an enemy of but one depositor, and I accomplished this by simply trying to help him; he had a claim of $5.000 against the bank; he had lost in the failure of the old Butchers' and Drovers' and was almost mad. When he learned of the collapse he drove to the home of the late Mayor Overstolz, president of the bank, rang his bell and shot his home full of holes. I knew he was desperate ani almest crazy, and I took special interest in him, all the time keeping my "eye on the gun." He wanted to sell at 25, then at 30, then at 40. then at 50, but I prevented. I went to Boonville to spend the Christmas holidays. While here he wired me or wrote me he was offered about sixty, and I told him to wait until I returned before selling. When I reached St. Louis he had sold his claim. He was the happiest man in St. Louis when I saw him; I never met him, but he wanted to "take something" with me, but when I reached a point beyond 60 per cent. his ardor cooled and he turned against me; many of my friends told me to be armed and ready to protect myself against him. He claimed Nelson, my brother-in-law, bought indirectly his claim, and intimates we divided the profits. Well, Nelson never bought his claim; he never bought any claims against the bank. I don't want to be held responsible for anything Nelson does; he is old enough to take care of himself; he is as independent as a hog on ice, and if any man has anything he wants to say to him, he can always be found doing business at the old stand: don't come to me with Nelson's business. I have as much of my own as I can attend to. As to my record as receiver of the Fifth national bank I am willing to stand or fall upon that. Enough of the personal for the present. # THE NATIONAL PLATFORM. The democrats in national convention assembled have given us a platform upon which every democrat, upon which every friend of humanity can stand. a platform which sys what it means, and which means what it says; a platform in which there is not the slightest semblance of a compromise or straddle upon any of the important issues of the moment. They have given us in the boy orator of the Platte and the shipbuilder of Maine standard-bearers who are platforms within themselves. Democrats who have spent many years of their lives in fighting the battles for the masses as against the classes, and for the restoration of our fathers' money to the position it occupied in the monetary system of our country before it was struck down at midnight by a conspiracy that was both foul and damnable-silver was struck down with the dagger of an assassin are asked by the republican party to indorse a standard of crime. The fruits of this crime have been summed up as follows: It has given the homesteads of thousands of toilers to the creditor; one-third of our railway mileage is in the hands of receivers; it has given idleness to four millions of would-be toilers in shop and field; it has given creative capital no scope for use, and little or no returns for risks assumed; it has given the silver miners ruin: it has given nakedness, hunger and cold to millions of men, women and helpless children; it has produced a sea of tears, and volumes of groans and prayers for succor; it has blighted hope and blasted aspirations in a million homes; it has produced mobs and riots and the calling forth of armed forces of the nation to check and control: it has produced over two hundred millions more of government bonds, which are so many financial fetters to shackle the feet of industry; it has filled 10,000 graves with despairing suicides: it has robbed the farmer of hope. it has darkened his once happy home, and filled his and his family's hearts with fear and anxiety for the future; how any man with a heart, who loves humanity, and who loves his country, can look upon this sad picture of woe and misery without a feeling of indignation arising in his throat against those responsible for it, without determining anew to do all in his power in the great fight for financial freedom from England's and Wall street's greed and avarice, and for the restoration of the people's rights, is a mystery to me; the settlement of this question can no be safely much longer delayed. My friends, what confidence can you have in the candidate for public favor who will attempt in the mannerism and dialect of the clown, to tell you, in your anxiety and distress, that you are the most prosperous and happy people on earth, that you should let well enough alone. etc. Is he not your most dangerous foe? Is he not a dangerous leader? Mr, Lewis, in his Chillicothe speech, says: "The people will not take silver." Have any of you fellow-citizens ever refused to take any of it? Who won't take it? He says it won't cost any express to get Carlisle to ship you some; but, great God! the express is not a consideration; it is not a drop in the bucket. If we could only get it we would pay the express willingly and a great deal more. Every cent in our country of silver is in use, and doing the work for which God Almighty and the constitution designed it. Mr. Lewis to the contrary notwithstanding, and there is room and demand for more. Mr. Lewis says, with almost cruel heartlessness, "send in your paper money and get silver. You don't need it, help yourselves, etc." This is like a wag conducting a poor, starved man up to Delmonico's Broadway restaurant, showing him piles of tempting bread. meat and fruits, and telling him to help himself. etc. It is thus we are wronged and robbed, and then taunted because of our hunger an