Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-09-04
TIE SILVER QUESTION.

TIE SILVER QUESTION.
Ii Congress does not stop the coinage of
silver as soon as the session opens, there
will be national disaster of the most tre-
mendous kind before long, The increase
of silver in the Treasury vaults is proceed
ing at rate which renders it inevitable
that the crisis cannot be postponed much
longer. As the silver grows the gold di-
minishes. For example, the total OF gold
in the Treasury last November was Sl60, :
443, 436. The total of silver then was
500, 594, 1872. In July last the total of gold
was 1923, l26, 645, and the total of silver was
SIT, $50, Isl. The ratio of silver to gold
had therefore risen during this interval
from 1914 to $500. And what is the
tendency and the object of this persistent
silver coinage? Nothing can be clearer
than the fact that the people do not want
the silver dollars. They have steadily re-
fused to take them. When paid cut they
have been swiftly returned to the Treas
ury. They are in fact doubly objection
able. They are exceedingly cumbrous and
they are oyer-valued. II, however, the
coinage goes on as it is going, time must
come when the silver viii be forced
into circulation, and then it will
drive gold out The inferior currency
always and of necessity expels the su.
perior. II the silver dollars ever get
afoat they will drive all the gold
out of circulation. Then the value Of the
greenback, being no longer sustained by
the gold, viii fall to the value of the silver.
Now the present value OF silver dollar is
about 673 cents, and consequently every
man who held greenback for one dollar
would find that it had deprecated in his
hands l211 per cent. Do the people under
stand what that means? Do business
men, and traders, and workingmen think
that it will benefit them to reduce the
purchasing powers of every dollar in the
country l23 per cent. ? When silver had
become the sole standard of value, it would
still be necessary to measure great many
things according to the gold standard,
because gold is the worlds standard, and
all our foreign Liabilities would have to be
paid in it. Foreigners, OF course, would
refuse to take our silver save as merchan-
disc. They would not recognize any legal
tender value in it. They would take our
silver dollars at discount of l21 per cent,
or whatever the amount Of depreciation
might be. The effect of this would be a
general rise OF prices. Our merchants
would mark up their goods to protect
themselves against the depreciation Of the
currency, and az always happens they would
leave margin for huctuation. If the de-
probation was Is per cent. the rise
in prices would probably equal 20 per
cent. That means that when the working
man received his wages on Saturday night,
he would be unable to buy more than
eighty cents worth OF goods with every
nominal dollar. The loss would fall di-
rectly upon the wage-earning classes, as it
always does in such cases. The producers
would also suffer heavily, and the specula.
tors alone would make money. The pre-
MUM on gold would be restored, and every
day the folly and disgrace of the country
would be paraded through the significant
quotations which told the world how far
short of par value the moneyof the American
nation was at that time. These are some
of the results which must inevitably fol-
low the refusal of Congress to stop the
coinage of silver There never was a more
imbecile, fatuous or suicidal measure than
the bill which provided for that coinage.
The nation had been struggling ten years
to secure resumption of specie payments,
and when this seemed within reach at last
a cowardly and stupid Congress thought it
necessary to pass law which contained
within it the absolute notification of re-
sumption, and the relegation OF the country
to all the evils it had been so long In escap-
ing. There is not, and there never was,
one single respectable argument for the pas
sage of the silver bill. Nobodywantedsi
dollars. Nobody has ever used them ex-
cept under protest. Nobody whoseopinion
is worth anything has ever imagined
that the substitution of silver for gold
could ever be other than calamity. The
talk about remonetizing silver has never
been anything but an exhibition of the
gross ignorance and obstinate perversity of
| those who have madeit. The truth is that
the country was in a fair way to permanent
resumption when this pernicious and idi-
otto bill was passed. Had Congress pos
sessed the intelligence and the courage to