The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1880-02-11
ISSUES OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CaETlSS
The Financial Question in Congress.
The Scheme to DemOuetize 6reenbacks
and to Stop the Coinage of Silver.
Extract from the Speech of Senator
Coke, of Texas, January %, 1850.

Currency, for they have all strongly recon-
mended II. as well as the decentralization o.
greenbacks, viii be 10 stop the coinage of sill
yer To do this will as surely be followed b.
renewed decentralization Of that metal ths
destruction Of the greenbaek notes viii fron
striking down their It gal tender quality. The
very recommendation, coming from the source
il does, Is well calculated 10 aepreeiate silver
All those engaged in the advocacy Of the
scheme for demonetizing legal-tender notes
and for stopping the coinage of silver were
opposed to the reconciliation OF silver, even
10 the limited extent it Is row coined, and
soughtst to make gold the only standard OF
value and the only lawful money Gold and
national bank notes viii be our only currency
if they succeed in the measures proposed.
This is the honest money, the hard
money" of which we hear 80 much. The sill
yer dollar of the United States-made in the
ratio OF Is of silver to ! Of gold, while the
ratio of France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy.
Spain, and Germany is 13lz Of silver TO l of
gold. and the ratio OF Holland Great Britain,
ireland and Portugal is 10 clio of silver to l
of gold. and of Austria 10 70 of silver to l of
gold. and of Russia is Is $40 silver to l of
gold-a silver coin which contains higher
proportion Of silver than the coin of any other
country in the world, which has been the
standard of value from 1892 until this time,
except for the short period it was demonetized,
and United States legal-tender notes, redeem
able on demand in coin, at par with coin and
preferred by the people to coin, are denounced
as 'soft" dishonest" money, and why? Be
cause the bondholders and national bankers
know that contraction such as will result
from the destruction of silver as money, and
Of legal-tender notes as money, viii lower all
values Of property and labor, and at the same
time increase in the same proportion the pur-
chasing power of the gold interest received
on their bonds, and of national bank notes
with double circulate n, while consolidating
and centraiizing the vast money power of the
country into a supreme and irresistible force
in the affairs of this Government and people.
Why stop the coinage of silver? The pro-
duction of silver is declining, as reported by
the Director OF the Mint. The worlds produc-
ton is estimated at S8l, 81, 800 per annum, md
the United States produced Of that in 1879
$40, 812 132, having declined from $40 PSI, 3S5
the preceding year. The great mines of Ne
vada which in 1873 were officially reported to
have yielded S47 076, S63 of both gold and ST.
yer, fell in 1879 to a product of only $780,
473 81 of both metals. During the l. st invent y-
five years the Director Of the Mint reports
that India and China have annually absorbed
an average OF $4T,000,O00 of silver, with no
prospect of an abatement of the demand. He
says further that Europe and America con-
sumo in the arts and ornamentation from
twenty-five 10 thirty-fve millions of silver.
Add these demands together, and to the result
add a fair per cent of the whole stock OF sill
in the world Tor loss aud for abrasion
from of silver coin. and it will be found
that the amount will exceed the world 5 an
nual production.
To repeat the question in another form. why
should the United States adopt the single
gold standards There is no dispute about the
fact that the world 5 annual yield of gold has
been declining since 1886, when the highest
point of its production was reached, the
amount being placed by the Director of the
Mint at Sl34 00O,00O for that year. de gives
table showing the annual product fora number
of years, commencing with 1893 and conclud-
ing with 1879, for which year the product Is
given at $50, 359, S3S. The United States pro-
duced of that total S3S 500 532 against SOL, 300,
800 produced in 1878, showing a decline of
nearly thirteen millions in one year in this
country alone. Scientific men, who have
made the question the subject of profound
study, estimate that the annual production of
gold is only 2 per cent. OF the stock of gold III
existence, while the annual loss from abrasion,
accldent, anu use IN the aftS Is estimated at
from to per cent; that the actual supply
of gold is supposed to be diminishing, not
withstanding the annual produce, which itself
is rapidly declining. The yield of gold de-
clining and of silver inadequate or not more
than adequate to existing demands, yet human
numbers increasing and commercial and
industrial developments are advancing and
extending with IA pidity unparalleled hereto
fore. The world must have money to grow
on, and trade and commerce cannot be extend
ed nor industries increased without money,
and money the world will have, for civiliza-
ton cannot exist without 1t. IT deprived of
silver margin is left for more bank paper.
Leaving out the silver in Asia and Africa
which is not supposed to affect commerce, the
estimate of Mr.. Fawcett, in his work on Gold
aud Debt is that there is OF metallic money
in the world s., l50,0OO0O0 of gold and s. $50
0000C0of silver, almost equally divided, but
with slight prepondcrance OF silver. To de-
monetize silver means, then, to destroy one
halt of the worlds money to the great
hancement in value OF the other half, and the
spondending increase of the burden of
debts and depression of labor:
England, holding the bonds of the world,
and owning her public debt at home to en-
nance the value of her credits and the annual
interest on them demonetized silver. Ger
many, whose capitalists hold the bonds of
every country in the world. fer the same rea-
son followed in describing silver. After the
enormous public debt OF the United States
securely funded in bonds, silver, without
the knowledge of the country and Tor the most
part, of the Congress which passed the law
and of the President who approved it, was de
mOnetized in the interest of the holders OF
bonds. The power of the bonds rep
resenting the public debts Of the
world, procured the decentralization of silver
in order that its millions of annual interest
should be increased in value. These bonds are
chiefly in the hands of the worlds bankers,
and they also saw in this decrease of metallic
money enlarged for the operation OF
bank paper. 1t was done in the interest of
the few and to the oppression of the many.
Recent events have gone long way to disclose
to European thinkers and statesmen that the
people who produced have been burdened
more heavily than they can bear for the bene-
Fl of the privileged and mOneyed class. La
hor strikes, land agitations, and threatened
famine, communism, socialism, nihilisms, and
all the other isms which express human
misery are rampant there, and the Legitimate
of enormous public debt lnten- |
sifed in their burden by the destruction of
one-half OF the money in which they ought TO
be paid, and the sBagnation for all Industry f
for the want of money thus destroyed TO salts 1
fy the greed of a few of the nobility and men of
wealth. Seeing these things, European opin- /
ion is undergoing radical change. Germany t
has suspended the sale of her discarded silver. /
and some of her leading statesmen are deny +
ing the wisdom eff having demonetized it I
while some of the best thinkers and ablest /
financial writers in England are advocating
return to bimetallism, notably Mr.. Henry /
Hucks Gibbs, late Governor of the Bank of
English Government at the Paris conference, /
who ioined his colleagues in the adverse re
port made, but has since, in view of the pres /
ent condition of European industries, publicly I
The patent fact is seen and ae-
knowledged by all that depression and
stagnation sat upon the United States like an /
incubus until gold was drawn here from Eu- /
rope, and that the withdrawal OF gold from
Europe produced the same distress in Europe
which it relieved here, and the governing
classes Of Europe are being made to see by the
logic of events what the practical
of the American people has COM
pretended since 1873. that the commerce and /
of TIE word in its marvellous growth I
and extension and the immense burden of
debt TO be paid, demands more money than the +
gold in existence will furnish, and that the t
single gold standard cannot be maintained, |
except by loading down all industry TO point
where the danger of revulsion and general re- /
pudiation hecomes imminent.
In view OF these facts it is significant that
at this critical junetuFe the enemies of silver /
in Europe should be rein