Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-01-13
THE ISsIE OF sILyER COINAGE

placeQ the larlH as the issue OF the Qay.
That may be rather extreme way of putting
it; but there is no doubt that of all the
measures before the present session of Con-
gress, it will, if enacted, have the greatest
effect on the material interests of the country.
In discussing this measure, which has
been to a certain extent standing one for
the past decade, there is an apparent failure
to recognize its real factors. The Phila-
delphia Ledger declares it to be an i'll
advised attempt to lift silver to the level of
gold. The Press of the same city makes
the assertion, first, that it viii degrade the
currency to 80 per cent of its present
standard, and then goes on to say
that the difference between the commercial
value of the silver product of the country,
and its coinage value, being S17. 1896, ,464, the
measure will in addition make a present of
that sum to the silver mine owners. The
impossibility of at orce degrading the cur
rency to the commercial value of silver and
raising the silver product of the country to
it present coinage value, should have re-
strained the Press from such an argument.
But it has a certain excuse in similar con-
fusion of ideas on the other side. For,
while the advocates of free silver coinage
urge it professedly in the interest of the
debtor class, they claim that it would not
send gold to premium. But if silver re-
mains at par with gold how would the debtor
class receive any benefit which they do not
get from the present monetary system?
Free silver coinage would not raise the
price of silver to a par with gold. That
has been the aim of the limited silver coin
age acts Of the past decade or two, and
owing to the strength of the United States
Treasury the attempt to make a. certain
amount of silver circulate at par with gold
has been successful. But when any owner
of silver bullion can get it coined
into legal tender dollars the inevitable re-
suit will be that the silver dollar Will have
exactly the value of the silver bullion con-
tanned in it. Consequently, as soon as the
effect of free coinage can make itself fully
felt, it will send gold to premium which
THE DISPATCH has heretofore given its
reasons for calculating at the neighborhood
of Is per cent.
The effect of such change will, beyond
the friction of readjustment of prices to
standard Is per cent lower than formerly,
be confined to the debtor and creditor classes.
1t will take Is per cent less labor or prop
erty to pay a dollar of debt than before, and
what the debtor gains by the change the
creditor will lose. The property owner who
belongs to neither class will. not be ma
terially affected by it; for while his prop
erty will nominally appreciate 15 per cent
by the change, the purchasing power of the
enhanced price of his property will be no
greater than the purchasing power of the
lesser price on the gold basis. The one i'm
portant effect of the change therefore will be
to scale down debts existing at the time of
the change BY a percentage estimated at 10
per cent, and to take exactly that proportion
Of their claims away from the creditors
Those who urge free silver coinage,
avowediy as benefit to debtors, justify
this alteration of the standard by the claim
that tn. creditor class has, since silver was
demonetized, gained at least that percent
age by the steady appreciation in the pur-
chasing power of gold. There is some force
to this claim; but its cogency as affecting
its justice is seriously damaged by the
probability tina: the same people may not be
in both classes as formerly. The man who
was a creditor at the time that gold was ad-
vancing and cow has spread out in enter.
prises for which he has contracted debts,
would gain both ways; while the man who
struggled by industry and frugality to
pay his debts on the gold basis, and has
now reached the enviable position of being
creditor, would be, 10 borrow an appropri-
ate simile from the faro rooms, whip
sawed by the gambling chances of chang
ing monetary basis.
The proposition to favor the debtor class
gains popularity because it is generally
supposed to be for the benefit of the masses.
But this idea requires modification by some
gigantic facts which escape ordinary notice.
The entire mass of railroad corporations be-
long to the debtor class to the tune of
nearly $4,000, 100000 of debts. A large
share of the manufacturing corporations
and some Of the leading Wall street manip-
ulators belong to the same class; while the
banks belong to the creditor class only to
the extent of the excess of their assets above
liabilities. On the other hand, nearly the
entire mass of savings banks depositors, the
investments of widows and orphans in the
hands of trust companies and in railway
bonds are of the creditor class. There are
other debtors and creditors where the con-
ditions might be changed; out with regard
to these elements of the two classes, the ef-
feet would be to make the great railway
corporations present of Is per cent of
their debt, and take exactly that proportion
of their property away from the working
people who deposit in savings banks, and
the widows and orphans who have small in
vestments in trust companies, or in railway
bonds. This is the real issue involved in
the change of the monetary basis from the
bullion value of gold to that of silver. To
legislate so strongly in favor of the debtors
at the expense of the creditors is a very
doubtful proceeding; but in view of some of
the measures in favor of the monetary class
it is not surprising that it should develop
considerable popularity.
THE INDIANS SURRENDERING.