Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1886-02-11
LET THEM WORK TOGETHER.

The newspaper organs of the capitalists
who, for their own personal gain, would
like to see silver practically driven from
its place by the side of gold, and the
latter metal made the sole standard OF
values in the United States, have had
the same sort of a time in trying to con-
vince the people of the South and West
of the reasonableness of their course as
the monkey and parrot had during the
progress of their traditional love feast.
The theory of gold basis has been
taught in many of the colleges of Europe
as an exact science, while history clearly
shows that the experience of all countries
has refuted the theory. The entire fabric
is based on a most stupendous lie, to-wit:
that gold has a fixed and stable char
acter, and is the exact measurer of
values; and this lie has been per-
sistently put forth in spite of the
fact that gold has fuctuated in value like
any other commodity. from time to time,
since its first discovery. We need not
60 beyond the experience of one day in
this country for a full and complete
refutation of the lie
On Black Friday, in New York, this
stable and fixed measurer of values
careered upward and downward between
twenty-five and sixty per cent al
ternately. The gold basis is and always
has been fiction, and all legislation to
reach a gold basis is delusion and
snare. The money-mongers and usurers
OF Change alley, in England, as long ago
as 1874, were desirous of increasing the |
purchasing power of their money, and
matured scheme looking to a contrac-
ton OF the circulating currency of Eng
land, which they called placing the
Bank of England on sound basis.
This scheme was embodied in the bank
restriction act of Sir Robert Peel, passed
in 1884. 1t gave to the bank new char
ter, and prohibited it from issuing anv
bank notes unless it actually held in
specie, live per cent. of which only to be
IN silver, sum equal to the amount of
the notes, except that it might issue
fourteen million pounds based upon its
other resources and securities. As was
intended by the money clique, the imme-
dlate effect of this restriction was the
of bank notes and discount
facilltles, an enormous contraction of the
life-blood of business, money
was enhanced in its purchasing power,
and the value of labor and its fruits re-
duced. So great was the financial and
social embarrassment that ensued, that
within three years the exchequer of Eng
land had to authorize the bank to disre-
gard the restriction clause of their charter.
the contraction and with
travail of discounts ceased, confidence
vas restored and business again fIour- I
shed. Thus it is seen that within three {
years the so-called sound basis broke t
Town of its own weight. t
Any proposed legislation in the line of il
lebasing silver will never receive the f
anction of the South and West. Those S
ectlons of the country recognize the fact /
hat our money supply is even now too s
mall, and they will be found unalterably
pposed to hostile legislation against sill "
er, because back of it simply lies con- a
raction ofthe currency. When money has C
een plentiful, the country has always t
een prosperous, and the volume of cir r.
ulation has been contracted only to be fc
'llowed by bankruptcy and distress all a
yer the Union.
Let the silver dollar continue in its C
lace by the side OF gold, where it of right Il
elongs, and let the two metals work to- b
ether as basis for our supply of that sy S
inch Will serve as a standard measure tt
account and medium of exchange. a.