Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-11-22
TIME TO ACT.
The Duty of Citizens to Unate to P,erent
the Contamination of Hayes Plot against
Our SiLUer COINAGE.

IHe DHty or Citizens to U1lat6 to PTeeent
the Contamination of Hayes Plot against
Our SiLUer Coinage.
Chicago Tribune Editorial.
We have already referred to the semi
official announcement that the President in
tends to recommend to Congress the enlarge
ment of the silver dollar, to make it CORES
pond with the price of silver in gold. We
have discussed this matter, and it was dis
cussed by the whole country year ago, more
thoroughly perhaps than any other question
was ever discussed in the United States This
recommendation of the President is founded
upon deliberate denial of the fact that the
American dollar has never had, and was never
intended to have, a legal or fixed value in
gold, or silver, or wheat, or corn, or land.
The American silver dollar has always con-
sisted of 3714 grains of pure
silver. This weight of silver is
the dollar, and has always been
the dollar, no matter whether it was equal to
$l.5O in gold or 80 cents in gold. In like
manner, the gold dollar has never had any
legal or fixed value in silver or in any other
commodity. A certain number of grains of
pure gold is the American dollar. The IDOL
lar is represented by certain established
weights of silver or of gold, and the purchas-
ing power of these weights of the two met
ais in no sense enters into the character of
the dollar. ALI debts are and have been pay
able in dollars of these weights, and the at
tempt to establish an equal purchasing value
between the gold and silver dollars is to at
tempt an impossibility, and is so absurd that
it has never been attempted even by nations
which have yielded to the widest notions of
6atism.
The recommendation of the President,
under all circumstances, is to resent the set
ting aside of his Veto 1t is recommends
ton that the country shall abandon the silver
dollar, and accept his theory that gold alone
shall lie the exclusive legal coin of the United
States; that all the contracts including all
the debts of the government now payable in
silver or gold at the option of the debtor,
shall be abrogated and by force of law all
made payable in gold exclusively.
The enactment of such law would depre-
ciate all private property 20 per cent, and
subject the property of the American people
to confscation and ruin. OF course, the
whole moneyed interest which opposed the
reconciliation of silver will applaud and
support any recommendation by the Presi-
dent TO destroy the use of silver as money,
and to make gold-scarce and dear-the OK
elusive coin of the country.
1t is we'll, therefore, to meet this PROPOSE
ton and any and ell others having the pur-
pose to again demonetize silver, By a firm
and active opposition now. Congress must
remember that, if there be any question on
which the American people are united, it is
that the silver dollar shall not be dishonored,
that 1t shall not be degraded and shall not be
demonetized. The people submitted to the
limitation on the coinage of the silver dollar
because, at that time, it was considered es-
sentlal to do SO in order to overcome the
Executive veto, and because it was consid-
cred that the law would be fairly
executed, and because it was
represented that the law admitted the coin
age of all the silver which the minis could
turn out each year. It is time, therefore,
that the country shall again make itself
heard on this subject. It must not only
oppose and protest against the recommends
tlons that silver be again practically demon
etlzed, but it must formulate it's own de-
mands. 10 protect the rights of the people
two things evidently are essential:
l. That all restrictions upon the amount
or number of silver dollars that may be
coined shall be repealed; and that the coin
age OF silver dollars shall be as unlimited as
is the coinage of gold pieces.
2. That the government shall cease to fur
n1sh the National banks with special cur
rency with which to redeem their notes;
and that the National banks, if they
adhere to the issue of notes cir
culating as money, shall be compelled
to redeem those notes on de-
mand IN the same manner as the govern
ment does-in gold or silver. ALI bank
notes must be made redeemable, as the
greenback viii be, in coin, and if the banks
will not use silver for that purpose let them
use gold. The banks must be made to bear
their own share of the burden of resumption
of specie payments, and not compel the
government to protect and carry its own
paper and that of all the banks in addition.
Let us have specie payment at the treasury,
but let us have it at the banks also. Every
private debtor will have to pay his debts in
coin; let us, therefore, have no exemptions,
and no special privileges, but have the banks
all advocate specie payments
deem their notes on demand in coin.
Let the friends of silver coinage in Con-
gross and out of it not content themselves
with mere opposition to any disturbance of
the coinage Of silver dollars, but let them,