Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1891-09-24
THE MONEY METALS.
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 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 million
more in the six weeks of 1S73 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 1899 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, 600, 900 coined,
and in the latter period of ten years,
but $45, 900, 900 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 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 1899 to 1878, when the principal
silver coins of the world, as well as
many gold coins, were, down to 1858,
legal tender for everything in the
United States? This being the case, it
a., 4IkA
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 money
standard, and together made up the
worlds stock of money, and the two
metals were equally available for the
discharge of the vast debts of the world,
and especially for the payment of the
debt of the United States, which the
war had imposed upon us, as well as of
all public and private obligations every
where.
The Judge says that silver was not
demonetized by the act of 1878, because
, the government continued to put out
fractional silver coins! This is the
smallest quibble have ever met with
, in the discussion of the. monetary ques-
ton. Because the government bought
a few ounces or few thousand ounces,
and made subsidiary coin of it, silver
was not demonetized! Such reasoning
is worthy only of a Lilliputian age.
Silver metal was demonetized by the
act of 1878 by being denied the right OF
mintage equally with gold, which had
: been accorded to it since the .founda-
tion of our government until 1878, and
for indefinite ages throughout the
world. And the demonetization of sill
yer did change the money standard
from gold and silver to gold alone.
There are two ways by which the
metallic standard of money may be al
, tered; one is by increasing the weight
of pure metal in the coin; the other
is to restrict the quantity of metal
r that may be coined. The one method
' is as effective as the other in
: diminishing the number of coins,
, and thereby increasing their value, and
p the one method is no more justifable
than the other.
, Suppose, instead of dollars to be coin
! ed from silver or from gold at the op
: ton of the debtor, which was the case
, in this country and throughout large
, part of the world before 1878, payments
r were to be made specifically in bushels
r. of corn or bushels of wheat, at the op
Y1tion of the debtor, at the rate of fifty
Z cents for corn and dollar for wheat
e and suppose then that our statesmen
u because corn happened to be worth al
g that tir three cents, while whea
stood had voluntarily surren
h. dere l1le the right to pay
- in the same time hat
q ayr should not be raised
i kon told can not be dug
!. afroI and therefore car
: Snot and, furthermore
n Sktha should stop using
! cor wheat, aHd that one
a Shun million more people
a &n O who had heretofore
@ use or wheat and corn
sho corn and use only
VIII d be said of such al
~ act body presume that i
a wo the relation of whea
and ould not erybody de
u