The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1891-09-23
THE MONEY METALS.
The Change of the Money Standards by the
Republicans.


The Change of the Money Standards by the
Republicans.
Gen. A. j. Warren, ex-congressman
from the Marietta district of this state,
in response to an attack by Judge West,
of Bellefountaine, makes answer to the
judges sophistries in the following
forcible manner:
First-The burden of Judge Vests ar
gument is that the free coinage of sill
yer would benefit nobody but the own
ers of silver mines. This is an attempt
to shift the question to false ground.
The silver question is not merely one
of profit to anybody. 1t is a question of
money supply, and of what the money
standard shall consist, which concerns
everybody, and none more than the ag-
ricultural and other producing interests
of the country. There is no more rea-
son for the claim that the free coinage
of silver would benefit only the silver
mine owners than that the free coinage
of gold benefits only the gold miners.
Judge West tells US that he addressed
a letter to the director of the mint
sent all the way to Westinghouse get
certain information about the coinage
of silver dollars which can be found in
any of the recent treasury reports, and
which probably almost any of his
neighbors could have furnished him.
But the Judge does not tell, and the di-
rector of the mint does not seem to
have told the judge, that as silver be-
gan to decline under the influence of
restricted coinage in Germany in the
latter months of 1872, over one million
silver dollars were coined at the Phila-
delphia mint, and nearly a million
more in the six weeks of 1878, preced-
| ing the passage of the act demonetizing
| silver Nor does the judge tell us, nor
| does the director of the mint seem to
have told the Judge, how much gold
was coined from 1892 to 1850, before
the returns from the gold fields of Cali
fornia and Australia began to come in;
/ or from 1868 to 1878. In the former
period there were but $76, 900. 900 coined,
and in the latter period OF ten years,
but S45, 900, 600 out of all the immense
output of gold during these years; and
much of that of the former period, and
practically all of that of the latter
| period, was exported. Would this fact
have been a good reason for demonitiz-
ing gold?
But what difference did it make with
bi-metallism whether little or much
silver was coined in the United States
from 1892 to 1873, when the principal
| silver coins of the world, as well as
many gold coins, were, down to 1888,
legal tender for everything in the
United States? This being the case, il
made no more difference whether the
coins were minted in Spain or in the
United States than it does now whether
they are minted in Philadelphia or New
Orleans.
The all important fact is that silver
and gold were both equally money
metals, and the mass of the two, wher
ever coined, constituted the none!
standard, and together made up th'
worlds stock of money, and the TIVE
metals were equally available for th'
discharge of the vast debts of the world
and especially for the payment of thu
debt of the United States, which tn,
war had imposed upon us, as well as o
all public and private obligations every
where.
The Judge says that silver was no
demonetized by the act of 1878, becaus
the government continued to put ou
fractional silver coins! This is tn
smallest bubble 1 have ever met witt
| in the discussion of the monetary ques
ton. Because the government bough
a few ounces or a few thousand ounces
and made subsidiary coin of it, silve
was not demonetized!! Such reasonin;
is worthy only of a Lil1iputian age
! Silver metal was demonetized by tn
= act of 1878 by being denied the right Q
mintage equally with gold, which ha
= been accorded to it since the founda
ton of our government until 1878, an
s for indefinite ages throughout tn
# world. And the demonstration of 81
yer did change the money standar
! from gold and silver to gold alone
There are two ways by which tn
: metallic standard of money may be a
e tered; one is by increasing the weigh
!, of pure metal in the coin; the othe
is to restrict the quantity of meta
/. that may be coined. The one metho
~ is as effective as the other i
g diminishing the number of coins
g and thereby increasing their value, an
!. the one method is no more justiiabl
than the other.
Suppose, instead of dollars to be coir
9 ed from silver or from gold at the OF
o ton of the debtor, which was the cas-
in this country and throughout larg
part of the world before 1878, payment
were to be made specifically in bushel
v of corn or bushels of wheat, at the OF
ton of the debtor, at the rate of fit
cents for corn and a dollar for whea
and suppose then that our Statesmen
because corn happened to be worth g
that time fifty three cents, while wheS
stood at dollar, had voluntarily surre1
dered for the people the right to pa
n in corn, and at the same time ha
agreed that wheat should not be raise
on corn land-as gold can not be du
from silver mines, and therefore ca
not be increased-and, Furthermore
r that this country should stop usin
u corn and use only wheat and that on
hundred and fifty million more peopl
y in other countries who had heretofor
used only corn, or wheat and corr
:. should stop using corn and use onl
= wheat, what would be said of such a
q act? Would any body presume that
would not affect the relation of whes
and corn, and would not everybody d,
+ nounce the perpetrators of such an az
rs either scoundrels or fools? But tn
- Is precisely analogous to. and is on a
fours with the demonstration of silve
|. in '73 and IA in this country an
Europe. By these acts recourse to 81
Ser as a source of money supply, her
tofore open to everybody equally wit
. gold, has been shut off; at the sam
time the production of gold has d
clined from near $3.50, 600, 900 to abor
S1OO, 900, 600 annually, while its use
the arts and dentistry has largely il
creased, and while fully one hundre
Ind fifty millions of people who use
silver entirely or together with gol'
prior to 1878, have since then adopte
Ehe single gold standard, and now us
gold alone. To say that this moneta1
revolution has not altered the none
, standard or increased the value of go
is to deny the light of the MONDAY SUI
That intellect must be in a state of ''i
nQcuous desuetude'' which can not cor
| T1r,ehand If and no one NOT in q state ,