Chariton courier. (Keytesville, Chariton County, Mo.) 1878-current, 1891-07-30
Senator Sherman aud Free Surer.
(From Chicago Herald.)


Senator Sherman's letter against
| free coinage of silver dollars is con-
spicuously a partisan deliverance,
and like nearly all such deliverances
it is conspicuously illogical and in
consistent. The senator says that
he can understand why heproducers
OF silver demand that the govern.
ment pay them 81 30 per ounce for
metal which for years has been worth
in the market of the world not more
than 81 an ounce on the average, but
hecan not understand why any farmer
or the producer of any article other
than silver should desire to have the
government pay for an article more
than its market value. 'The govern
ment should purchase the article it
needs he says, ''like all other pur-
chasers, at the market price. The
distinction sought to be made in
favor of silver is without founda-
tion.'
So far he is sensible and sound.
But he Immediately goes on to say
that the government now buys. more
than the entire domestic production
of silver "because it needs it for coin
age, and as the basis OF treasury
notes. l gladly contribute my full
share tc this measure, and would do
anything in my power to advance
the market value of silver to it's legal
ratio to gold.'' Here we have both
an untruth and an inconsistency.
1t is not true that the government
is purchasing 100000 ounces of
silver year because it needs it for
coinage, or for any other purpose. 1t
does not need one ounce of silver
more than it has, and is not likely to
| need any for the next ten years at
least. 1t has no use whatever for sill
yer except as the material from
which to make the fractional or tok-
en- silver coins, and it has enough of
| these coins and of trade dollar bull
| lion from which to make them last
| for ten years at the least calculation,
and probably for fifteen or twenty
years. The reason, and the only
reason, why the government is buy
ing 100000 ounces of silver q
year is because the producers of that
metal demand that the government
shall 90 into the market and bull the
price of them, and because men OF
| another class demand that the gov
! ernment shall give them the cheap
est dollars it can make with which to
pay their debts.
1t is fair to presume that Mr.. Sher-
| man knows that as well as any man
living. Everybody can draw his own
inference. 1t is simply not true that
the government is buying silver be-
cause it needs even an ounce of it.
Now notice the constituency.
Mr.. Sherman says he can not un-
derstand why any producer of any
thing except silver should want the
government to pay more than the
market price for that metal. He
says that the government should
buy only what it needs, and pay no
more than the market price. And
yet he says that he gladly did his
share toward the enactment of the
law making the government a pur-
chaser of 54 100000 ounces asyear
of metal which it does not need,
and making it also the biggest bull
in the whole silver pen. And he says
he would do all in. his power to bull
the price 20 per cent. at least, and to
force the government to pay $16,-
900, 900 year more than the mar
ket price for an article which it does
not need at all.
In such inconsistencies do men involve
themselves when they go to compro-
missing with what they know to be
wrong, and attempt to justify their
conduct upon principles OF right.
Ell