The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-07-26
As TO SILVER

A BOISE Democrat has an interesting and
Instructive communication in this issue OF
THE HERALD. in which he takes a sensible
view OF political movements in Utah. He
also conveys encouraging information from
Idaho, where the Democrats will put forth
an effort to recover what they lost through
the trickery OF the Republicans. Idaho is
naturally Democratic, and we believe that
If the party will work unitedly and har-
moniously one of these days they will over
throw the enemy and regain control of the
prosperous young state. But our CORE
spondent asks THE HERALD a question,
and that Is why we refer specially to his
letter. He wants to know what is this pa
per's position on silver: il we favor the res
olution Of the Denver congress declaring
for the free coinage Of American silver, o.
il we favor the free coinage of silver with
out regard to the place whence the metal
comes. Our Boise friend cannot have been
a close reader OF THE HERALD, or he would
notask these questions. When silver was
Demonetized by the Republican party, in
the interest of money lenders, eighteen
years ago, TEE HERALD denounced the act
We have always believed it was a crime,
and will never cease to so believe. The
HERALD never liked the BLAND law, which
did not restore silver but made it specu-
lative product, force the government to
become Spectator and compelled ii to &C
cept profit from its speculation TO which
it was not entitled, namely: the difference
between the price it paid for silver and the
value which it stamped upon the coin We
could never see that this was right, that it
was anything else than legalized robbery
of somebody. The law of 1890 we regard
worse than the BLAND act inasmuct as it
removed zone of the commodity" element
from silver, but forced the government to
become more OF a Spectator in that it was
required to purchase moro silver at such
prices as the manipula;ora should decree.
AS TO the Denver congress resolution il
is simply abominable; how intelligent men
could have assented to such monstrous
proposition is inexplicable upon any other
theory than that the Republican politicians
in the congress wanted to devise some
silver scheme which could be supported by
the Republican leaders who are all known
to be anti-s silver.
In few words, The HERALp's position
as to silver is the same that it always has
been-that the metal should be placed upon
an exact equality with gold in the matter Of
coinage. Anything more or less will de-
prive one or the other of portion of its
value and power, will reduce it to the con-
dition of product to be bought and sold in
a speculative market like copper, lead, cab
bages, beans, or any product OF the mine
or field. In short, one cannot be a fair
money metal while it is given an advan-
tage over the other ct the mints. We are
opposed to the government buying silver
or gold at one price, and putting stamp
upon it, and selling il at another and higher
price: the practice is dish onest, no matter
if it is sanctioned by law. The HERALD is
in favor Of the restoration Of silver to the
place in our coinage system which it occu-
pied previous to It's decentralization by the
Republican party; and this me ans that we
are in favor of the free coinage Of the sill
yer which shall be presented at the
mints, no matter where that silver was
mined.