San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1878-03-02


need not recite to you, for you know
it, the high and honorable place of sill
YER in our history-how it formed the
original American dollar-how it ap-
pears iu the Constitution, in the laws,
in the judicial decisions, in the speech.
90 of the public men now attempting IN
the Senate to degrade it-of Senators
who are succeeding 10 stultifying thsm.
selves and eating their own words,
though as square and solid. as the sill.
YER bricks Of Nevada. #l
Why this raid upon silver just nowY
What harm has il done the eminent T.
anclers-ths scheming spectators
who are making war upon it that they
may answer the description Of money.
changers +? IL it the fair thing to got
rid of silver as a preparation for re-
sumption in coin? Have the Ameri-
can people demanded anything Of that
kiud2 Do you dream that they are
roius to submit to such an imposition?
There are few foolish newspapers
| in the Mississippi Valley aiding the
gold experimenters, but the people who
are not resolved to restore the sill
YER option in the payment Of all debts,
public and private, not specifically pay.
able in gold, are few and far between.
The reason is. the coin debts were
made payable in two metals; and the
people know it and do not intend to be
tricked, driven or abused into paying
in one metal. The ailyer option is the
thing. 1t was and is to be. .
Silver is to be restored absolutely
The outory about reputation and
cheap money is despised because un-
warranted. The people will maintain
their right-iucluding the silver op-
tion-and they would be the hewers of
wood aud the drawers Of water. for
taskmasters If they did not. How is
silver to be restored? Simply, there
is tn be unlimited coinage Of silver dol
lars Of 4l24 grains, 900 fine, to legal
tender without limit. That is what
was, and the watchword of the silver
policy is restoration-silver in the coin
1
age and the standard as it was.
The advocates of silver restoration
do not propose to limit the coinage and
then trust to an untriendly department.
That would be to prepare failure.
The friend of silver who consents to
that must do so in ignorance of the
most important part of the question
viz: that the silver dollar must be the
equal in value with the gold dollar
the equal in all respects under the ra-
tio-and that this equivalency cannot
be successfully asserted without abso-
lutte equality under the law.
Silver, under the ratio Of ID to
must be as it has been in the laws,
equal to gold, or any pretended resto-
ration will be inadequate to the occa-
sion and practically fraud. We de-
maud an adequate law or none. The
rugged issue is to be made ragged edg-
ed.
No matter how many silver dollars
are coined. There cannot be too much
real money. Imitation does not belong
to realities. 1t Is false money only that
makes mischief. The Rag Baby is not
related to the Goddess of Liberty on
the silver dollar. Under the double
standard no discrimination against Ell
ther money metal can be tolerated, tor
that would destroy the harmony Of the
system. Hence the coinage of silver
must be precisely as free as that OF gold.
In this way the supply OF silver dol
lars will be regulated, not by Congress
or the Secretary Of the Treasury, but
by the demand and by free coinage We
prevent speculatiops in the metal, avoid
placing temptations in the way Of the
officers of the Government-give oil
packages and assortments of silver an
equal chance to be coined-thus max
| ing the metal money instead Of mer-
chandise, and restoring to it fully the
dignity and Office formerly belonging
to il.
We also avoid by the free coinsge
system the increase of the nationel
debt, and give the people themselves
the onportuni,y 10 furnish the actual