Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1891-11-05
The False and tne True.

The Logan, o.. Democrat gives the
following lucid discussion of the status
/ of silver:
The cry against the silver dollar is
continued by all the newspapers and
stump orators of the g o. p, and every
/ one who does not agree to their doc
| trine is denounced as one who favors
dishonest money.
In this campaign we have heard little
else. since the clear dodge of the rob
Der tariff question" than the cry of
''honest money" 'the dishonest dol
lar, " the eighty-cent dollar, and kim
dred expressions. all of which are, and
are intended to be, misleading.
The question of the depreciation of
silver is as easily solved as any other
question of value, and in the solution,
the same rules apply.
We must bear in mind that all values
are relative, and the result of compari-
son, there being no such thing as abso-
lutte value. Commercial value is sim
ply the selling price of any commodity.
If wheat is selling for one dollar per
bushel and corn is selling at the same
time at forty cents, then corn and
wheat bear to each other the ratio of
two and one-half of corn to one of
wheat, but If by reason of a failure of
crop. the price of wheat advances to
S1.60, there being no change in the
price of corn the ratio would be four of
corn to one of wheat. Instead of say
tx1e hot yhaa ha1 -
and the price was kept at 81, and the
ratio price is to be stated as four to
one, then the price of corn must be
stated at IS cents, instead of 40 cents.
If the two grains named were all the
commodities in existence, there would
be no possibility OF determining wheth-
er wheat had increased in value, or
corn had decreased
Now let us add rye, oats and potatoes
to the list, fixing corn and wheat as be-
fore, at 40 cents and 81, and for con-
venience, place rye at so cents, oats at
S5 cents and potatoes at 80 cents. Now
let wheat change to sl.6O as before, and
the prices of the others remain as be-
fore, then no one need be at loss to
ascertain at what point the advance has
occurred.
Now let the reader apply this rule of
determining values to the case of the
two metals silver and gold, and apply
the facts.
Since the foundation of our govern.
ment, to 1878, silver has been on a par,
or at premium with gold at the ratio
of Is of silver to one of gold, and was
at premium of 8 per cent. in 1878,
when silver was partially demonetized.
Now if after the act of 1878 all COM
modities bore the same ratio to gold
that they did before the passage of the
act, and silver alone deprecated, we
may safely conclude that the shrinkage
was In the silver metal.
But the facts of history are other
wise, for after the demonetizing act of
1878, land, labor, cereals, merchandise
and silver each showed, in comparison
with gold, an average shrinkage of 80
per cent.
Two facts show that the shrinkage
was only comparative and not real. If
silver had Shrunk and gold remained
stable, 1t would not have disturbed the
ratio between gold and the other COM
modities named and second, if all the
articles Of traffic had shrunk, it is not
at all possible that the shrinkage
would have been uniform for the rea-
son that the depreciation would have
depended on different and independent
causes.
Therefore, the logic of the whole
matter Is first, that the shrinkage of
all commercial values, occurring as it
did Immediately after the passage of
the act of 1873 was due wholly to that
law and its influence on the currency,
and I'd, that the simultaneous and uni
form shrinkage of all values clearly in
dicates that gold was appreciated in
value while silver remained stable.
The premises considered, as lawyers
say, the whole cry of dishonest dollar, ~
''short dollar" "eighty-cent dollar, I"
etc, is but the dust kicked up by the
gold bugs, to hide their gigantic theft
of the money of the people