Morning journal and courier., 1885-12-24
COMMUNICATIONs.
D. tIae Dreadful SIIVAr nalIz

o, tfse Dreadful Silver Dollar!
 To the Editor of the JOURNAL COURIER:
 The cry of stop thief from thief in distress
 | It shouts from the platform, it groans from the | o, that dollar of fraud and unrighteousness!
 ! lis the cry Of the thief, though, nevertheless.
 ! It tells of the dishonest dollar aud of how | it imposes upon the hand of labor, and yet ! worse, makes most painful drafts upon the ! sympathies of their best friends among the wealthy. Now if there be some few who are ! really honestly possessed with such a view of the case we would honor their motive while we regret their mistake Note that we are not now upon the question whether we are coining our money dollar too largely Possibly so, possibly not so. But we de- nounce the cry that it is dishonest to have snch dollar. It is our money dollar-our American dollar. It's American history and it's quality manifest before us to-day do establish it 8 far better and more honest thing than our dollar-hater is It is as to weight and quality the very same dollar of our history a hundred years ago. It was our legal tender coin before gold was and even
 now after all the unwonted reproach and disparagement (which it's traducers have
 tried to kill it with and have injured it all they could) it is yet, simply for it's material value as old metal, worth intrir sically about
 eighty cents, and then our United States
 stamp upon it makes it money and full
 money dollar. What, then, is the matter
 with it! An! when we had asked the dollar
 phobist this question, did we not see him
 then? Is not this what's the matter, namely
 the way of those poor mems friends
 who are so eager to be richer that they cannot be honest? It is something else (and not the dollar) that is not honest
 All things Gas materiaD fuctuate some in market price. The greenbacks, however, were good money, but their material as for intrinsic value was not worth one cent
 Here now good silver dollar holds in it.. self, an intrinsic value of more than seventy five per cent. even now, and all this together with the nations stamp and responsibility So good is this dollar even now when the James and Jambres of politics and the Nam mon of wealth are so eager to strangle it as wants such money, and what can anybody do with it?' We'll, friend, it can buy about all the necessaries of life on earth that money can and it can pay debts, and taxes, and it can buy government bonds, and they are good p1operty-excellent for dollar except that the bonds bear interest But, furthermore, this good old coin, the American silver dollar, can pay government bonds too. And let us look at this The American people as nation owe for these bonds i've the American people, and there
 
 goyernmept5 ;I t5l indebtedness outstanding. And bonds and pay them. Why, man, think of it, vast amounts of our government bonds that fr1 1878 some sinister influence crspt in. to Congress, and persuaded vote then and there, and this same old silver dollar, legal tender law, was repealed! Hl-h1, was that an accident? Gold had been hundred per cent premium within some few years. And the bonds were payable in this silver dollar and in gold, at option of government, of course. Bonds of afiictions, what Q pile However, few years afterwards, another Congress (aroused by the people, saw the 'tcat under the meal' and restored day-and well it may stand. Are the people such fools as to tell their rep resentatives to repeal it againa Not quite we think. And now just another word or two about those bonds. Those issued on account of the war Ca very large amounD are by law exempt from taxation That was right; very, for the money must be had and the war be put through. But should they not be paid! Should they be outstanding for all time! This is a question interesting not to the bondholders only. How many millions of government bonds are there held in this city of New Haven! Don't knows l don't. l will guess twenty millions. Well, man, if the half of this sum should pay it's share of taxes, how much less would
 your tax be than it was when that
 large amount was exempts We object rot to
 the law exempting loans from taxation if
 loaned in such a time of deadly public peril
 But we may well object to demonetizing
 national coin to enrich individuals by impov-
 erisbing the public treasury. But in another
 view we might suppose another demonetiza- ton of our silver dollar and gold to become
 the only money of legal tender quality. And without check from any other money it would beyond doubt become subject to all the abuses of artificial eornerings, liable to ruinous premiums to the detriment of the government and to the extortionate exactions of individual capitalists. But l leave all about this to better hands, as we'll may. ORSERyER