The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-06-04
SHALL WE LIMIT SILVER COINAGE
TO THE AMERICAN PRODUCT.
To the Editor Of the Eagle.


To the Editor of the Eagle.
If there is one thing more than an
other for which the American people are
noted, it is for their patriotism and their
love of country. This feeling or senti-
ment has been carried to such extremes
that inscriptions persons as well as po-
litical parties have found it possible to
make unfair use and to take unfair ad-
vantage of our people, in order to adj
vance their own personal interest and
satisfy their own selfish greed.
The world perhaps offers no other such
striking example as that presented by
our own people, in taxing themselves
almost beyond endurance, for the bene-
Of favored few, in the delusive belief
that by so doing they were protecting
home industries against foreign invasions
and foreign competition.
The few that have been thus favored
at the expense of the many are no fools.
They have made their money by their
wits, and the people have contributed
to their wealth, not by compulsion, but
by their own acts and their own free
will. 1t is the old, old story of the fox
and the crow, and it is again about to be
repeated, in that if we must have free
coinage of silver, that it be limited to the
American product.
This sentiment appeals at once to our
patriotism and love of country, and has
therefore in it an element of strength
hard to overcome, deceptive though it be
and in this case really is.
If however such law is ever passed,
it would not be twety-four hours there
after before every silver mine
in this country would be
owned and controlled by trust, and
there would not be an additional silver
dollar coined, and put in circulation,
until every business interest in this
whole country had become paralized and
bankrupt, and all kinds of property
made almost worthless, if not quite
Then these men would buy up this prop
erty thus made worthless, initiate the
circulation, and sell out their purchases
at boom prices. Then the squeeze would
be re-enacted as before. Give me
the power that silver coinage limited to
the American product would give to the
owners of silver mines, and | will guar
antee you, to own this whole country
inside of twenty years, and reduce every
one in it to the condition of a pauper.
This country has already had enough of
this kind of business. Our present sys-
tenn of protection is breeder of mo-
nopolies combines and trusts. This be-
ing true, we shudder at the though of
total prohibition and exclusion of even
one product. Limiting silver coinage to
the American product is nothing more
nor nothing less than total prohibition.
Silver now pays tax of about go cents
on the dollar before it is allowed to
come into competition with gold, Now
this is worse than tariff on imports. be-
cause American silver is taxed before it
can become money, while foreign gold
or money is admitted free. This is dis
against an American prod
uct in favor of the foreigner. That is
to say the foreigner with his gold dollar
can buy more of our products by about
% per cent than can the Ameri-
can with his silver, in our silver
dollar To illustrate this point more
fully, suppose our government should
repeal the tariff tax on wheat, and in
stead. should levy an internal tax upon
all wheat produced in this country. In
such case as this a bushei of foreign
wheat would buy more of our products,
than would a bushel of American wheat,
by Just the amount of tax levied.
Now our government, under our pres
ent coinage laws. levies what might be
called an internal tax upon silver money.
That is to say before any silver can be
coined into money, every silver dollar
pays tax of about twenty cents TO the
government Repeal this tax by a free
coinage law, and then 31l4 grains of sill
yer becomes at once worth one hundred
cents. instead of eighty cents as now.
From what has been said we must
then for reasons already given enter our
earnest protest against limiting silver
TO the American product, be-
cause we can not afford TO place the
finances of this country in the hands and
under the control OF few silver mine
owners, in order to protect an American
industry, no matter how patriotic this
may sound Neither can we
afford 10 put an internal tax upon Ameri-
can silver in favor of gold. as we are
now doing. a tax ike that increases
the relative value of money, Just ike a
tariff tax increases the price Of imports.
The one Is in the interest of the capitalist,
the other In the interest of the manufac-
turer, while in both cases the masses get
il in the neck and under the ear al every
turn. Truly Yours,
A. II. LOCKWOOD.