The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-03-13
THE SILVER ADVOCATES,
They Reply TO President CIeveIand's
Letter on silver Coinage.

The friends of silver in the House Of Rep
resentatives issued a reply to President Cleve-
lands letter favoring the suspension of silver
coinage. Among the points Of their reply
are the following:
In the letter no distinction is made between
silver coinage and silver bullion. While 1t is
true that silver bullion, which is excluded
from coinage, and consequently from none
tary use, is worth lesS-in the ratio of 10 to
than So per cent. of the gold d Ollars, silver
dollars, silver coins which are admitted to
monetary use the same as gold, are equal
in value to gold coin. The silver dollar
will exchange for as much as gold dollar.
1t will even buy the gold with which a gold
dollar may be made. That silver
and silver certificates displace gold is true;
but only as treasury or bank notes displace
it. To the proposition that there
now exist, or ever have existed under our
constitution, obligations specifically payable
in gold, the silver men feel it their solemn
duty to enter their most emphatic dissent at
this very outset of the discussion of the queS-
ton. No such obligations exist or ever did
exist q The friends of silver concur
in the opinion that it is most desirable TO
maintain and continue in use the mass of our
gold coin, as well as the mass Of silver already
coined They agree, too that it Is of mo.
mentouS Importance to prevent the coin of
the two metals from parting company. But
the two metals, as metals, have already
parted company under the influence of silver
decentralization in other countries, and the
hostility of the treasury and banks to silver
in this. But that the continued coinage of
silver at the rate of S2S 0J0,OOO year will
drive gold out of circulation in the near fu-
ture, or force it to a premium, does not to
them seem to be sustained by facts or sound
reasoning -
1t is doubtless true too, that if population
and wealth in this country were at stand,
then the continued coinage of silver in sutfi-
cient volume would in time expe gold from
circulation; but as long as population and
wealth go on increasing, then the conditions
of the problem are changed In fact in order
to preserve n stable ratio between money
volume and population and wealth, an annual
increase of not less than $4,000 900 of cur
rency of some kind is now required y 4 AS
a matter of fact there is to-day more gold in
the country than there ever was before in its
whole history =
How it is possible for such things to take
place as are printed in the last paragraph of
the letter it is difficult to see. Gold is TO be
withdrawn to "itS boarding places" followed
by an unprecedented contraction in the &C
tual volume of our currency Such n con-
traction, it has beep shown, must be followed
by great fall of prices. What theni Would
not gold flow here as the tide flowsi Surely
it would come here as fast as ships could
bring i'll What would those who have been
boarding gold do with it then Labor" the
letter says, " already greatly depressed would
suffer still further depression by the scaling
down of the purchasing power OF every So
called dollar paid into the hand of toll Here,
in one sentence, we have gold boarded, 'un-
precedented contraction, fall of prices, and the
scaling down of the purchasing power of the
dollar That Is when these impending
calamites' come, prices are to fall-every'
thing becomes cheaper, and money become
less valuable at the same timel That is both
sides OF the balance go down together.