The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1892-04-19
THE DOUBLE STANDARD FAIL
LACY.

The gold-bUgs say you cannot have
" two standards of value" They say
money is a "yardstick to measure
commodities AMI you cannot have two
yardsticks, one of gold and the other
of silver, because they would vary in
length according to the variation In
the price of the two metals. They say
that unless you can keep the two
metals in the same ratio of value all
the time (say 15t to y you cannot use
them both as money"
The price of silver measured in gold
has decreased and huctuated consider
ably since 1873 when it was dem Dnet
lied. The gold-bug points to the dimin-
ished value of silver (when measured
in gOld) and says, see silver is not fit
for a standard of value, it cannot hold
it's own with gold! But how has it
held it's own with wheat and cotton
and other products of labor which it
"measures2' They say i: has fallen
behind gold thirty cents when meas
ured in gold, but it seems to have gone
ahead Of cotton and wheat more than
twice thirty cents! A dollar of this
vile deprecated silver will buy twice
as much of the products of your land
and labor and twice as much of your
land and labor itself as in 1873 when
silver was demOnetized. This yard
stick" then which has been shortened
when compared with gold, which you
do not sell has been greatly heightened
in regard to some commodities which
you do sell A.! And the gold ''yardstick"
has heightened still more I. What is
it true that this immaculate standard
of value" this invariable 'yardstiCk"
has been stretched and filed out until
it measures off two or three times as
much as it used to of the peoples labor
though such measurement Is still called
by the same name-a dollars worth"
See how a dollars worth" has grown
and keeps growing. Aye, but there
lies the rub. The thing that Is eating
up The substance Of the people is not
the difference between the two yard
sticks" the gold and the silver. but the
increase of the length of both yard
sticks. Whatever be the difference
between them, they are Doth by far too
long, so long they cheat the people
cry time they a yard, hat is,
every time they are used in any trans
action. The pratlers who are forever
prattling of the relative lengths of
these two yardsticks Il. e. their length
compared with each other lose sight
entirely of the fact that it is TIE vari-
alton in their actual length q. e. their
length as compared with the cOmmOd
titles they measured which is cheating
the people in every transaction in
which they are used. When thirty
years ago the United States Govern
ment promised to pay three thousand
million dollars war debt, the dollar
yardstick in which the debt was to be
measured (paid) measured off two Oh
three times his cotton, wheat, labor
and land than now. Thirteen hundred
million dollars Of this debt has been
paid and yet the dollar yardstiCk this
immaculate invariable gold dollar stan
dard of value has increased so rapidly
that the debt paid in this measure as 1T
is being paid is far greater than 1t was
before any of the thirteen millions dol
lars had been paid on 1T. Think Of 1t !!
A credit of thirteen hundred million
dollars that you are not allowed even
to count III settlement of this Stupendi-
GUS debt This is because this invaria
BILE standard of value the gold dollar
has varied and keeps varying all the
time, varied when silver vas demOne-
tized, varied when the National bank
circulation was contested varied when
Jay Gould asked the banks to lock up
seventy-five millions in their vaults
and he would pay the interest on it till
he could finish buying bonds in a light
money market to sell in q loose money
market varied and varies whenever
Wall street boards money for specula-
ting purposes.
But money is far more than a meas
r of value, 1t is One equivalent of
value, so we are cheated not only in
actual measurment, but in the fact
that the measures belong to the meas
urers and they are allowed to be used
only on such terms as their owners see
fit. and they must be exchanged as an
equivalent for Our products to the ad-
vantage of those who control them and
see through them.
The discovery of Peru and Mexico
doubled the quantity of gold and silver
N circulation IN some countries every
year for a while. The stimulating eff
fort upon the business, industries, com
merce and thought was wOnC erful. All
the people paid their debts, and every
body could risk going in debt with the
certainty Of paying back. Consequent
ly men undertook every sort of new
enterprise and succeeded beyond their
most sanguine expectations. The fright
full slavery of universal debt was abol-
ished.
Gold and silver are measures of val
ue and equivalents of exchange, but
they or either of them cannot be called
fixed and invariable standard meas
ures of value because they are not in
creased o. varied in quantity accord
ing to the needs of business
w. ]. PEELE.