St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-02-21
BLAND's DELUsIyE DOLLAR,

In the majority report upon the free
coinage bill now pending in the house
there is concealed an ingenious attempt
to confuse the minds of the people re-
gardlng the significance of the word
dollar" The term is juggled with in
manner calculated to convey the er
roneous idea that the value of an Amer
lean dollar is decided by special Iegis.
latlon of the congress of the United
States. The majority report is quote d
as follows:
''Sllver cannot fall below the value which
the government gives it at the mint, because
the mint is an open market for all of it at the
fixed price,"
Now the cold truth which stares free
coinage advocates in the face is en-
braced in the fact that the United States
government is powerless to impart COM
mercial value to any commodity, be it
gold, silver. copper or dandelions. The
GLOBE knows what the constitution of
the United States says upon this SUBJ
ject, to wit:
''Sec. s. The congress shall have power to
coin money, regulate the value thereof and
of foreign coin, and fix the standard of
WelSuIS anu measures.
Like some intricate texts of Scripture,
this section, for the benefit of silver
Missionaries. needs explanation. The
words regulate" and "give" cannot be
tortured into synonym. The widest
silverite will hardly claim that the gov
ernment of the United States is author
lied by its constitution to ''give" value
to foreign coins. Government-any gov
eminent in the worId-can no more reg
ulate the value of money, as understood
by the silver men, than it can regulate
the multiplication table.
A dollar-an American dollar-is SIM
ply a piece of money so named by the
government of the United States as the
unit OF its own particular circulating
medium. England has her guinea,
France her franc, Germany her thaler,
India her rupee, Spain her peso. The
American dollar is stamped at the mint
with the governments guarantee that
it contains 4121s grains of silver, or
20 $40 grains of gold. Then the Ameri-
can dollar goes out into the world to do
business. The markets of the world
fix its vaiue-its relative value-with
the money of other countries. We, as a
government, have nothing to say about
it. Government is one thing; COM
merce another. We have said it is a
dollar. The world says, "All right: We
will take your dollar in exchange for so
many French francs, or we will give
you an English sovereign for so many
of your dollars" Thus the foreign silk
merchant or wine dealer will treat our
dollar. They care nothing, only to
know that the governments guarantee
regarding its fineness is good, and that
ii is genuine.
But suppose; for Illustration, the
United States government decides
which it can constitutionaIly-t
206A grains of silver shall constitute an
American dollar. What then? The
world Of commerce again says: "All
right; we will then give you only one
half as many francs for your dollar,
and you must give us twice as many
dollars for all English sovereign"
From this it will be seen that, so far
as giving value to American money, as
is claimed by the majority report on the
BLAND bill. the government does
nothing Of the kind. 1t is powerless to
do so. 1t can only certify 20 the world
the amount of gold or silver in an
American coin. In other words, it
presses its stamp on piece of money,
and the great world of commerce does
the rest,