The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1891-07-25
Plain Facts AbOut Silver.

The reconciliation of silver depends
entirely upon the action of the United
States. 1t IS only necessary TO make
the world understand that it is the
settled policy of this country to estab-
lish and maintain the double standard
of gold or silver. Let us look INTO the
matter n little. For nearly seventy
years England has been fighting silver.
She demonetized 1t early in the present
century, but silver was not affected in
the world nj large. Then Germany
followed with similar legislation, and
still silver held its own This is signi-
ficant. But mark the next step in the
history of this business. In 1873 the
United States demonetized silver in an
indirect manner, and then Germany
enacted her single god standard. SO
it will be seen that both England and
Germany were powerless without the
active aid of America
The question has been asked whetl er
this country by remonetizing silver can
bring the market value of the comm
dity up TO 129 cents an ounce and keep
il there without buying ali the ST rplus
NINSl olllti lttllOilS llilN NISu W
get rid of. We need not alarm our
selves about the surplus silver of the
rest of the world. North and South
America produce nine-tenths of the
worlds silver, and if they decide in
favor of the double standard there is
no danger that the outside nations will
be able to share enough silver 10 Hood
ps with II Silynr nnpnnpnt,znl j. nf
course, merely merchandise, fluctuat-
ing in value. When it is made full
legal tender circulating medium ii has
Il fixed value. At the last session of
congress, when the house passed the
free coinage bill, silver at once jumped
to l2lc per ounce, and its advance to-
l29 cents was only checked by the
failure of remonetization in the senate.
There can be no reasonable doubt that
if we had revived the double standard,
the commodity of silver would have
reached the fixed price of 1890 per
ounce and remained at that rate. For
eigners havs no surplus silver to ship
over here. They need it at home, and
will need still more when we give it
its proper place in the monetary world.
Why should England and Germany.
with their small output of silver, and
their combined population not SO much
larger than ours, have the power To
force the single gold standard upon the
world? Past experience shows that
when the test is made they are not able
to do it. IT should be rccollected that
all this activity against silver is COM
paratively Il new thing. For ages sill
yer money held its place alongside of
gold Even now in every land it is the
peoples money, and about six-scvenths
of the gold currency is already boarded
in bank reserves. This being the case
what nonsense it is to talk about the
sudden disappearance of gold in the
event of reconciliation! During the
seventy years of our double standard
we were financially at our best, and
we have been cncountering new evils
ever since we departed from it. The
attempt to outlaw silver after it had
been for many centuries the equal of
gold all the world over as a circulating
medium was in the nature of Il iinan-
cial freak or scheme. Certainly there
is nothing in history, and nothing in
recognized economic principles to
Justify it.-Atlanta Constitution.