The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1891-08-21
Silver.

Silver.
New York Press: The silver cues.
ton is the most important one before
the American public to-day. The tariff
Is settled. the Mckinley bill is to have
q fair trial, and woe betide the party
that threatens the business prosperity
of the country by trying to unsettle It
and to shut up the protected factories
that are the market houses of American
labor and raw material, and the pay
masters on whom many thousands of
retail business and professional men
directly depend for their support. The
silver question, however, may be perth
nently restated thus: "What shall it
profit the American who gets twenty
dollars a week to be protected against
the foreigner who gets sixteen dollars
q week, il twenty o: the Americans
dollars are worth only sixteen of the
Europeans dollars?"
That is the silver question for wage
workers to answer. The Press knows
very we'll that the advocates of the free
and unlimited coinage Of silver will
deny this. 1t is in receipt of numerous
letters from free coinage advocates
more letters than it can Individually
acknowledge, let alone publishing or
commenting on every one-insisting,
as streneously as an asylum lunatic in
sists that he Is the president of the
United States because he says he is,
that free coinage of silver will make 80
cents worth of silver bullion advance
% per cent in value and become q dol
lar. It is admitted by these gentlemen
that 81. % grains of pure silver did not
rise in value so as to be worth a dollar
when the government began, in 1878, to
coin that quantity of pure silver into
legal tender dollars, and to pocket the
difference itself. You can buy 371.25
grains OF pure silver now, all the
silver there is in legal tender dollar,
for IS cents. 1t is not worth a dollar,
because congress says 1t is a dollar
Yet it is asserted that II free coinage
law were passed enabling everybody to
take 371.25 grains of silver to the mint
and receive in exchange for it dollar,
371.25 grains would rise in value so as
to be worth dollar instead of 70 cents.
1t is possible that this result would
attend the free coinage of silver If the
government had deep pit under the
mint. extending into the central fires
in the bowels of the earth and were to
throw each neN silver dollar into that
pit as fast as 1t were coined. In that
case the price of silver would rise, be-
cause the quantity would be reduced,
unless the miners mined more as fast as
it was thrown into the pit. But it is
not proposed to throw any silver
into any pit. 1t is proposed to put all
the silver dollars thus coined into cir
culstion; to give the country plenty Of
currency, and not to care straw IL all
the gold in the United States goes to
Europe and stays there. This Is pro-
posed for the benefit of languishing
silver mines as we'll as active silver
mines. AS there is no reason given
why there should be any increased de-
mand for silver for use in the arts the
increased silver production Is all to go
into dollars. There wouldn't he any
materially increased consumption OF
silver in the arts unless silver were
cheaper, and the free coinage people
say, OF course IL wouldn't be cheaper,
because IL will be dearer. So millions
and tens of millions of silver will be
coined into pieces of 37l.25 grains of
silver and ALPS grains of alloy each,
and called dollars" and forced on you
in payment of what people have
promised to pay you In dollars.
II there is to be limit to that sort
of thing, as there has been, it may not
do any harm. But how are you going
to set any limit to it without favoritism
lnder free coinage? What right will
the government have to--coin Senator
Stewards 81 .25 grains of oliver into a
dollar for Senator Stewart, and to re-
fuse to coin Senator Welcott's 371.35
grains into dollar for Senator VOL
colt? Where is it going to stop? How
is it going to stop? What is to prevent
it from coming $3.50, 600, 900 or $780,.
600, 600 worth of silver into 1000, 0Oo,-
600 alleged dollars II it is produced and
brought to the mint? And II silver
dollars don't decline In value when
there are very many of them around
they will be different from gold dollars,
green oacks, confederate notes, railroad
race horses, fish, building lots, houses,
turnips, potatoes, peaches or anything
else that there ever was in the world.
OF course the polite merchant will
not be so unkind or unpatriotic as to
say 81 won't take that dollar for more
than eighty cents" He will have to
take it. You can make him take it. |
Still he can transfer the ten dollar
ticket to the eight dollar coat,
and smile and smile, and
hold out his hand for the |
ten dollars without making any un-
pleasant remarks on the currency ques- |
ton. The landlord can notify you that
the rent of your fat goes up on the LIST
Of May. But will the eight dollar |
clerks salary be raised to ten dollars?
Will the skilled laborer who gets 81
q day be advanced to SO q day? Will
the common labor at $l.20 get S1.50.