The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1890-12-04
FREE CoiNAeE OF SILVER.
The Effect Of the Present Law in Ans.
wering the Demand for More
Currency.

There are very few men in the coun.
try, and surely none in Congress, who
know more about silver, it's production
and uses, than Congressman Horace F.
Bartine, Of Nevada. In the first place,
Mr.. Bartine comes from one of the great.
est silver producing States in the Union,
and in the second place. he has made
silver scientific study for many years.
He is an able lawyer, and has had wide
experience in financial affairs. Speak.
ing of the new silver coinage bill he
said:
II am one OF the most enthusiastic
supporters OF the free coinage of silver,
but l am very we'll satisfied with the
operation of the present law. It is a
great step toward free coinage, and am
sure that it has worked wonders in re-
lieving the financial distress OF the coun-
try, and it is going to- do a great deal
more. 1t requires the circulation of
about $42, 200, 900 year to keep up with
the increase of population and present
ratio of circulation per capita. We have
in this country less amount of money
per capita than almost any other coun-
try in the world, and very much
smaller circulation per capita than France
and other powerful nations of Europe.
The present law will give us about $685.
100000 a year. placed directly in the
hands of the people, and this, you will
see, adds about $4,000, 900 year to the
increase of circulation per capita over
the present. Of course, it would take
a long time to bring up our present cir.
culation, of about $22 per head, to that
of France, which is more than twice the
circulation we have per capita. But it
will give US great deal more and make
the increase much more rapid than we
have been getting.
81 do not know what financial lock we
would have gotten into had the condi-
ton OF affairs which arose under Presi.
dent Cleveland continued. Certainly,
with the failure of crops in some por-
tions of the country and extremely low
prices for farm produce, the people in
the country were being greatly embar-
rassed in financial way. When silver
is on parity with gold we will have,
practically, free coinage. About the only
difference between the present law and
absolute free coinage is this: Free coin
age would have instantly brought silver
to parity with gold, while it will take
some time for it to run up to gold
standard under the present law.
"No one can calculate the benefit
which our free coinage law has been to
the farmers. The operation of the law
has, more than anything else, run wheat
up to the high market value of to day,
and has advanced the prices of all kinds
of grain, live stock and other productions
of the farm. A depressed grain market
always indicates premium on gold, and
the only way to keep up the price of
farm products is to keep down the pre-
MUM on gold by proper recognition of
silver. We never could have secured
the adoption of the present silver law
under a Democratic administration.
President Cleveland would have vetoed
such bill, and is on record in the
strongest possible way against free coin
age or anything that approaches it. Had
the Democrats control of both branches |
of Congress and the Executive, they |
would have been compelled to depend |
upon Republican support in order to
have passed any kind of coinage bill |
better than the old one, and that was a |
clear demonstration of silver. We are
now sure to have purchased four and |
one half million ounces of silver bullion |
every month, and as long as it is needed |
for circulation it will be coined. To my
mind the silver was the most important |
legislation we have had in the past
twenty years, and surely the people will
feel its good effects more directly than
they will the entire law we have adopted
since the war.
"You may be sure that the produce of
the country will always follow the price
of silver, and whenever silver is down
and gold is up, productions of the farm
will be down. The farmers have already
seen the effect of the silver law, and real
estate has also appreciated in proper
ton"