Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1883-07-06
THE TRADE DOLLAR RAID.

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any other world doubtless where they use
coin). have hard time of it. Those peo-
pie who deal in money are always devising
some trick by which to make. it scarce and
high, just as those who deal In wheat, are
always trying to tie up enough grain in q
corner and then sell on high market
The same sort of tricks are played with
C bin, and in both cases the poor are the
sufferers. As usual, in the new raid on
the trade dollar the headquarters are at
New York. 1t has not been eighteen
months since the same cruel raid was per-
petrated and the spectators made
thousands before it blew over. AS mat
ter OF fact the trade dollar is worth more
in Intrinsic silver value than the stand
ard dollar. 1t contains seven and a half
grains more Of silver than the standard.
If the New York spectators can
buy them at eighty-five cents and get them
recoined at the Philadelphia mint at
one and a half per cent. they will make a
handsome profit. The brokers are buying
them with that expectation, or the more
golden prospect that the government will
redeem them. We give the same advice
TO our readers now, that We did at the
former rald-not to submit to shave by
anybody, but to hold on. The advice
is bassd on the common sense idea that it
is impossible to destroy intrinsic value.
Its purchasing power may be impaired by
a panic, but it will soon reassert itself.
The great wrong of this sort Of cut-throat
speculation is that the poor people cannot
hold on, but have to spend their little earn
ing as fast as they get them. There are
not five millions of trade dollars now
afloat in this country IN the whole volume
of our currency, nearly six hundred mil
lions, and the scheme to single them out
is the sheerest piece of speculative rascal
ity, and will last at most but few days.
We will take the trade dollars at their full
value Of one hundred cents at this Office in
settlement CT all business transactions.
Those who do not propose to submit to the
discount in making purchases of goods
need not submit, for there are plenty of
merchants who will soon take their trade
dollars at par.
It is the old story; the New York bro
kers make ring with the New York
banks, the same set in other large cities
follow suit, the country banks without
being in the ring are forced to follow in
line, frightened merchants contribute
their share to the scare, and the poor who
have no reserve fund submit to have their
fleeces shorn. The further one gets into
the country. the worse the scare. Great
stores in New York are taking trade dol
lars at ninety-fve cents if the purchaser
buys twenty-five cents worth of goods, or
at par if more than that sum is spent /;
while in some of the country towns the
trade dollars are rated in business circles
as low as seventy:fue cents.
There is little doubt that the next Con-
gress will 1egislate so that no man who
can hold trade dollar till it meets will
lose single cent on it. Nor have the
New York brokers any doubt Of this.
Their idea by this raid is to clear up the
country of trade dollars before Congress
meets. by a panic which will throw the
bulk of them into their hands, at from
seventy five to ninety five cents on the dol
lar, according to the fright produced, thus
yielding them handsome profit. They
we'll know that the working people can t
afford to hold their money and must sur
render it. And 50 it is that we say that the
poor people in this world have hard time
of it.