Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1892-05-05
DEMossrizlNo sInrER.
Thirty-eisht Years Wherein No siivei
Dollars Circulated.
philndelphia Ieduar.


Dollars Circulated.
Philadelphia Ledger.
According to the report of the direotoro of
the mint, the commercial value of the pure
silver in the silver dollar, on March 2sth,
1892, was 66 cents. In 1873, when the so
called decentralization" act was passed,
the commercial value of the silver in the
silver dollar was about 81 .03. For 80 years
previous to 1873 the amount of silver in the
dollar had always been of greater value
than the amount of gold in a gold dollar.
That is to say, during that period one
pound of gold would never buy 10 pounds
Of silver III the open market, yet this was
the ratio fixed by the law of 1884. As Mr..
Manton Marble said in recent interview :
Our discordant coinage ratio of 1884
had de facto abolished free
silver coinage in the United States for 30
years before those mythical scoundrels did
1t by law in 1873 Colorado will get the
news some day" Mr., Marble is an earnest
advocate OF bi.metallisni, and this lends
all the greater force TO his words
The appeal to figures amply substan-
tiates his views. MIR. Carson, the Wash
ington correspondent of the Ledger. in his
admirable summary of silver legislation in
the United States, published yesterday,
showed that from 1882 to lS06 the nggrc.
gate number of silver dollars coined was
only LAS, il7, and from 1906 to 1885 there
was no coinage whatever From 1895 to
1873 there were only 6.39l,l2 dollars
coined, and 1t is asserted on good authority
that not one of these remained in this
country in general circulation.
10 say, therefore, that the act OF 1875
demonetizcd silver is absurd. Silver had
| dcmonetizcd itself, and Congress adopted
the only logical course of abolishing a
useless non-circulating coin. The silver
men, as they are called, are in the habit
OF representing that the bill Of 1873 was
| passed by trick. that no one knew that
the silver dollar was omitted from the list
OF full legal tender coins until after It's
passage. The records of Congress com
| pletely refute these assertions.
The bill was introduced in June. 1868.
and was not finally passed until February
1873. In the meantime ii had been DIS,
| cussed in every session of Congress, modi
| fled, amended, reported back to commit
tees, which, in turn, referred it for the
| consideration of experts in this and Other
countries, and finally it was only passed
| by conference agreement.
A bill which required five years for it,
| passage, which was read 10 times
which had repeatedly passed one or III,
other House, and which only passed
finally in much modified form, can
scarcely be described as trick.
Moreover, at the time the bill was intro
duced, and until some time after It's pas
sage, Il silver dollar contained more than ,
dollars worth of silver. II is one of thu
disgraceful features of this silver agitation
that il was only when the price Of silyel
had fallen so low that IL became protitabl,
to coin it into silver dollars that anythinl
was said about rthc necessity of smell
coinage-a necessity which apparently hat
not existed for the 40 years before III,
period Of silver depreciation. 1t suggest.
that self-interest and not the good Of tn,
country inspires the demand FOL
free silver. Congress has met tn,
demand for more silver by TIL,
compulsory coinage of hundreds OF
millions of silver dollars, and has ISSUED
treasury notes for SS9602, 1875 more III,
| security for which, in the shane of silyel
| bullion, is stored away in government
vaults. The government is now com
| PEELED to purchase by law 81 900, 600 ounces
| of silver annually, which is within 4, 600 OOt
ounces of the entire silver product 81 h,
| United States, but ii buys at the markc
rate. What the silver men want is to rails,
the market rate, that they, and not tn,
government, may reap the benefit of til,
| difference between the market price anC
the value of the coined dollar. That differ
ence in 1891 would have amounted /,
ST., 685 S9S--a prize well worth struggling
| for. Not all silver advocates have sordi,
aims. Many honestly believe that silver
and not gold, should be the standard o
value i'll this country. Such should stud,
the facts and figures as presented b,
Major Carson in his careful and dispas
sionate presentation.