Western sentinel. [volume] (Winston [i.e. Winston-Salem], N.C.) 1856-1886, 1886-03-18
THE SILVER DOLLAR.

gold nor silver is equal to that of iron
or lead. While it is true that if gold
and silver were both demonetized by
the world, they would still have a
greater value than iron or lead, and
that gold would still have more value
per ounce than silver, yet these would
be strictly arbitrary values, dependent
upon taste, or more correctly speaking
perhaps, upon fashion. The use of
these metals as money is not wholly
arbitrary, but their relative ualues as
money IS. The comparison between
the price of silver bullion and the
money value of the coined silver dol
lar, SO much relied upon by the enc
mics of the dollar.is utterly nonsense
cal. 1t is to ignore the power and
authority of the Government, or to
hold said power and authority subject
to the silly sophistry of the "intrinsic
value" argument.
Money, at best, is only, and only
need be, the arbitrary equivalent of IN
tr'snsie or absolute values, enforced by
the authority of the Government
Hence it is the interposition of this
authority that imparts to both gold
and silver nearly their entire value,
and that half perpetuated the same.
What would become of the social
ed intrinsic values of gold and silver,
fer instance, if the enlightened nations
of the world should repudiate the use
of them as money? Even gold would
become as vulgar as brass in the cir
cles of wealth and fashion and the ru-
by and diamond would scorn its COM
partnership. tits a matter of fact that the
barbarous and semi-barbarous tribes
and nations of the earth have always
impaired and still continue to impart
all the value to the so-called precious
metals which they possess beyond
what is accorded them by their auth
orized and accepted functions as mon
ey. Civilized nations derive great
commercial advantages from the val
ne placed upon gold and silver by
barbarous and semi-barbarous tribes
and nations, and to this eccentricity of
barbarism seconded by the consent of
enlightened nations is due the employ
ment of gold and silver as money. It
is fer enlightened nations to regulate
those standards and to do it, not upon
any false assumption of intrinsic met
alic values, but as an exercise of gov
ernmental authority and power. In
trinsic values reside solely in the end
less catalog of things for which mon
ey is merely an arbitrary equivalent
by governmental sanction.
In all transactions involving money
therefore, the exchange is between an
arbitrary equivalent, enforced by gov
ernmental authority, and intrinsic val
ues either real or imaginary. The
man who imagines that money is
worth more itself than the necessities,
comforts and privileges for which it is
made an equivalent and so lords and
hovers over it in rags and starvation,
is miser and a fool!
There is not enough of gold in the
world to meet the demands of its COM
mercial exchanges unless by thribbling
its value at the expense, practically, of
the labor of the world and of the poor
thereof. This is the scheme of the
goldocratic monometalists and it in
wolves furthermore the degradation of
silver to the level of mere CONNER
cial commodity. The Government of
the United States is Government of
the people, and properly administered
for the people. 1t would not be in the
interests of the people to give over to
the money power of the country, to
the sharks and sharps of Wall Street
the supreme control of the finances of
the country. its banking policy, and
the power to dictate values This is
exactly what is meant by the single
gold standard gentlemen. A monop-
oily in gold they have already; now
let silver be demcnetized and the
game is won; the benifcent of Far
mer Government will have passed in
to monied aristocracy. It is the
business of the people to see that this
design Is frustrated, it is for them to
say that their silver dollar shall re-
main, just as it stands to-day, equal to
the dollar in gold in every sense and
respect to permit even the fraction of
a grain to be added to It's weight
would be fatal concession. The in
trinsic value argument is delusion
and snare the comparison between
the coined silver dollar and the bull
lion from which it is made, is only
cunning way Of begging the question.
It is to ignore the authority of the
Government as com pletely as CONF
parison between finished reaping
machine and the material of which it
is composed, would be to ignore the
skill and labor of the artisan that FASH
ioned it.
IN ~ - ! L. TY.-,s II