Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1891-04-05
COINAGE OF SILVER.
ANOTHER INTERESTING LETTER
FROM JUDGE ROBERT W. HUGHES.
The History OF silver Droasht Down to
the Passae. Of tho bland
Act.
To me Editor Of ne Dispdtca'
In all discussions Of money and its phe-
nomena we painfully encounter


CHRONIC AsTAoomsM.
The farmer who has o note of $50 TO
pay in bank has usually to sell some sort
of property for the means of paying it. II
money Is easy and I'm free circulation he
can Get the whole amount from the sale Of
a sound young horse. II money Is scarce
he must sell not only the horse, but COW
or two. to make up the sum needed. de
is interested in IN easy money niarket
On the other hand, the banker gets the
e1Sn due. whatever be the state of the
money market. IL money be scarce, he Is
able TO buy with il when received more
property than the sum would command II
money were plentiful. he is interested in
making money scarce. This antagonism
between money-holders and property
holders on the question whether money
shall be scarce and dear, or plentiful and
CHEAP. is universal and chronic.
II need not and ought not to be so.
Verify. if the mass OF the community IL
made prosperous by abundant money the
bankers will share in that prosperity more
LARGELY than If, by continually tightening
the money market, they enable themselves
to get hold of property at sacrificing
prices. But the banking class take the
other view, and are never content except
when money il scarce and are never SO
costiye with discounts as when property:
holders most need liberal advances OF
money.
THE LINE OF BATTLE.
Fnlareinp our view of this subject, we
ace presented a grand array of adverse
forces:-the two great creditor nations OF
the world, England and Germany, rem
forced by the powers dominated by them
in Europe, and by the banking and pond
dealing classes in America, on one hand,
trying to make and keep money scarce ana
dear: and, on the other hand, the united
States. full of enterprise and OF borrowers,
aligned with the property-holders,. the
crop-producers, and the laborers OF the
world. demanding q pleDary supply OF
money. with full prices for property and
constant work at liberal wages for labor.
What is the history of finance in New
York but continual alterations OF
straitened and relaxed money market
with periodical recurrence OF panlcs and
collapses2 In the uDremitting ehort OF
capitalists to pinch the money market,
thew every now and then make money so
hard To Get that the bitter gets bitten; and
then Wall street calls upon the Govern
ment at Washington TO help its big opera
tors out of the trouble they have brought
upon themselves.
OUR GOVERNMENT ON THE WRONG SIDE.
With shame be 1t said, for more than a
decade past, our Secretaries OF Treasury
have been as prompt as they have Oeen
servile in bringing the resources OF the
1fovernment to the relief of Wall street
whenever exhausted of money. and IN peril
OF collapse from "corners" and financial
heart-failure.
The sytematic game of catching the I'M
wary and capturing their property AT
sacrifice of price by producing acute pc
RODS of high interest and scarce money
qoes continually on in Wall street, thus en-
couraged by the national Government. II
goes on in the interest OF the master mil
lionaires who dominate the stock tx
change. who gamble with loaded dice, ana,
sure of protection in pinch. are always
able to determine how much robbery they
will infict upon their victims. A necessary
condition of success in these operations Is
a limited supply of money in circulation.
This is necessary to the success OF the
chiefs of the Stock Exchange, where de-
ception has high prerogatiye, where re-
morse is q stranger and alien, where the
hatchery of values is the daily study and
the special business in hand, and where
the surging flock of lambs" are heeced
and slaughtered sectindem dTtem by their
own trusted shepherds.
Dear money and tight market are the
creed Of the money-dealine class, and their
morbid horror of a plentiful silver cur
rency is akin to that of the Prince Of Dark
ness for consecrated water. 1t has already
been shown how and with what motive
England and Germany have striyen, by
discrediting silver and making gold Their
only legal tender, to carry out their policy
OF dear money and high values for gold
bonds.
A mortifyine sequel to the measures they
took in this behalf is furnished by the con-
Guiding paragraphs of the following
HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN DOLLAR.
The convenience and consensus of man.
kind at large determine what shall be the
worlds money and also command that il
shall be gold and silver. 1t belongs, how
ever. TO the prerogative of each soyer.
eipn power to prescribe the manner oil
coming the two precious metals within Its
own jurisdiction and to endow these coins
with the legal-tender function.
The Constitution of the United States
divests the individual States of this sover.
eign power, and bestows it exclusively
upon the national Congress. The Language
in which it creates this trust, for it is Q
trust, of the power of coming gold and sill
yer, 10 as simple as exhaustive. 1t pro.
yides that 1.-THE Congress shall have power
to coin money, regulate the value thereof
and of foreign coins, and to provide fol
the punishment of counterfeiting the sc.
curities and current COINS of the United
States.n IL provides that mo State shall
com money, emit bills of credit. or make
ANYTHING but gold and siirer coins tender
in payment Of debts" Article l., sections
and 10.
Anterior to the ratification of the Consti
tuition, the old Congress of the Confedera
ton had adopted. in 1885, the silver dollar
then current as the unit of account, fixing
the weight of pure silver it was to contain Al
371h grains, of alloy at lie; and thus of the
American dollar of standard silver at 4l211.
grains. No subsequent Congress has evel
changed the weight, thuslestablished Dy
the fathers, of the silver dollar of the
United States.
The legislation of 1875 required that the
gold dollar should contain 24s4 grains Of
pure gold and thus made the ratio o.
weights between the pure gold and the
pure silver in dollar, as to Is. In 1889
the weight of pure gold in the dollar wal
made % Is grains, so that it then bore the
ratio to the silver dollar in weight o.
making 23H grains Of pure gold th'
amount to be put IN the dollar. thereb,
fixing its ratio in weight. compared Will
the silver dollar. at l TO l6, or to speak &C
curately, at to 1888.
II viii thus be seen that in the whole
history Of the United States the weight o
pure silver in the silver dollar has neve
been changed, while the weight of pur,
gold in the coins of that metal has beer
! changed twice.
Gold and silver have been money in thi
country since its first settlement, by fore,
| of the English Common Law; and the Con
stitution of the United States recognize
and fixes them as money by the provision
prohibiting the States from making any
| thing but gold and silUer coins tender II
payment of debts. Congress cannot de
monetize either gold or silver as agains
this reserved power of the States.
THE SEVERAL RATIOS OF GOLD TO SILVER.
Congress has not been judicious in il
regulation of the amount of gold to be pu
| into the gold dollar and other gold coins
The ratio of weights established by Eng
land in the coinage of India is to Is
| The ratio maintained by France. not onl,
| for itself but for all Europe, is to 1511
Thus the fact appears that we make ou
gold dollar and other gold coins wortl
| sixteen times their weight in silver CONS o