The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1877-11-22
NINETY-ONE CENTS ON THE DOL
LAR,

Gates of the silver dollar. 1t is possible
that some of them made up their minds
to RECOMMENDATION" because they really
believe is good thing, but the vote on
the Bland bill seems to show that most
of them have taken up this hobby for
no other reason than the necessity for
doing something and the ignorance
as to what should be done. 1t is
| doubtful if even small proportion
| of the majority in the House have
| any adequate conception of the gray
ity of Mondays vote. Years ago,
when gold and silver had maintained for
considerable time tolerably stable ra-
| ito of value, the United States coined
dollars in gold and silver, the weight OF
each conforming as nearly as possible
with this ratio, one grain of gold being
accounted equal in value to about fif-
| teen and a-half grains of silver. After
awhile the value of silver, relatively
| with gold, began to rise, not only be-
cause of the discoveries of the latter
metal in California and Austrilia, but be-
cause of the increased use of silver i'll
the arts, and the silver dollar, which was
never very popular, went out of circula-
ton and the mint ceased to coin it, ex-
cept as a convenient form for bullion.
After this coin had been almost forgot
ten the great silver mines of the South
west were opened and silver became
plentiful and cheap, and for the past
ten years its market price has huctuated
greatly, but with downward tendency,
until 4124 grains of standard silver that
forty years ago were equal in value to a
gold dollar of the United States, have
now value in the market in the world
of only a fraction over 81 cents. This
| downward tendency has been helped by
| the fact that such nations as Germany,
recognizing the impossibihty OF main
| tanning q fixed relation between two
| mmodities-or, in other words, a
| double standard-have given up the at
| tempt and abandoned the coinage of sill
yer. Where they leave off we are to be-
| gin. But we are not only to attempt an
| experiment which the world has con-
| demned as impracticable; we are to do
| worse than that. A double standard is
| manifest absurdity. There will be on
ly one standard, and that the cheapest,
and VIII at the Bland bill proposes is to
substitute for the gold dollar, which
bears a fixed relation to the monetary
standards of every civilized country, a
new unit of value, having an unsettled
and continually varying relation to these
standards, and which, at this time, is
worth but little more than min e-tenths
of the gold dollar, which is the actual
basis of all our financial calculations.
It might be thought that step SO i'm
portant as this would be taken only with
the greatest elaboration and with the
fullest understanding of the consequent
ces involved. But there is no evidence
of anything of the kind. OF all of the
unreasoning agitations of recent years
the demand for ''the dollar of the faith
ers" has been unreasoning and absurd.
In fact, this sentimental catch phrase,
which has been the battle cry of the
movement, expresses its absurdity full
ly What Mr.. BANDS bill proposes is
simply to re-enact an obsolete law of
forty years ago, without any reference
to the changes which forty years have
brought about. 1t would have been
perfectly possible and reasonably honest
to direct the coinage of a silver dollar of
a weight increased to correspond with
the diminished market value of the met
al, thought the objections to double
standard would still apply, unless the
the weight we're altered every year. But
their never was any honesty in the move
ment from beginning to end, whatever
honest men may have been carried away
by it. There are people whose one aim
in life is to find some trick by which
they can pay dollar in something that
is not worth dollar. They must have
''cheap money" of some kind, and when
buCy SOuItl IOt SCt CLiOtlp SlSSuOsChS
they hit upon silver as even a cheaper
thing, and 'th1 dollar of the fathers is
to be put through with a shout. If the
country is not already tired of this per-
niciols nonsense it will be before long.
1t is hardly possible that the United
States will now take up the cast off ideas
of the world and establish the silver
| standard; but if this should be done, to
the unsetttling of all values and the re-
newed disturbance of our whole fnan-
cial system, another Congress would not
meet before the demand for an honest
dollar would be heard louder and deep
er than any campaign cry for ''the dol
lar of the fathers. "-EG.
The large retail dry goods store of
Field, Letter & Co., Chicago, was dis
covered to be on fire at about s O'Clock
on the 18th inst. Before the flames