Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1892-01-11
4AA60~&AH
SILVER.

Mr. Morrill, addressed the senate Jan.
in opposition to the bill for the free
and unlimited coinage of silver. He
was now and ever had been, he said,
in favor of maintaining both gold and
silver in circulation, and silver to the
extremist boundary that could main
tain it on parity with gold. 1t would
be real JOY for him to have silver in
crease in actual value. He was not
unwilling to strain point in order to
satisfy his silver friends, but they ap-
peared to demand too much, and some
seemed unlikely to be long restrained
from demanding more or the whole
earth
The national bank notes, he thought,
were rapidly being made to step down
and out, to give room to silver paper.
Like Naboth, they had a vineyard
which Ahab wanted, and therefore
were stoned and killed. The original
United States notes, or greenbacks,
were likely to be the next sacrifice de-
handed and stoned in order to give
the whole field to silver paper. No
expedients had been untried and no
cost withheld to push or carry silver
dollars into circulation; but it had
been demonstrated that no more than
about $50, 900, 900 Of over $4OO,O0O,OOO
coined could be coaxed or kicked out
side the treasury. There was in the
treasury Jan. 6 in silver dollars and
silver bullion over twelve thousand
tons, which even burglars had almost
ceased to covet, and only express
companies appreciated its value When
they logged it across the continent,
but the government was requested to
hold and guard it night and day, to-
gether with all forthcoming monthly
additions Was this, like the river of
the poet, to run on forever? And
should this inundation be further ag-
gravated by unlimited free coinage.
No silver certificates Or treasury notes
issued for silver bullion has been pre-
scented for payment in silver, but they
were paid in gold when SO demanded.
How long they could be thus kept
on a parity with gold was already
matter of public and profound con-
Germ, and largely dependent upon an
honest and proper Interpretation of
the law and the courage and skill Of
the secretary of the treasury. When
ever the gold in the treasury should
vanish (and it might vanish under a
cloud Of silver as we'll as under
cloud of adverse exchanges), these
certificates and notes could then be
paid only in standard silver dollars,
and these, as money, were known to
be not worth their face value.
AS security for silver certificates or
treasury notes, which were to circu-
late at par with gold, they were noto-
riously Inadequate, as 1925 grains of
silver, nine tenths fine, would fetch
no more than "A cents. 1t will be
hardly less safe, and certainly equally
honest, to base such certificates and
notes, and circulate them as good
money, upon iron or copper, or upon
wheat or tobacco, purchased and ac-
cumulated in like manner, at SO
per cent, above the market value, as
to base such circulation upon the So
called standard silver dollars under
free coinage.
Mr.. Morrill, thought the experiment
which was now being made to have
the government purchase, on compul-
sion, fixed monthly amount Of silver
had complicated or more or less re-
tarded any international compact rel
alive to silver, and perhaps contribut-
ed to the degradation of it's value by
country alone, and by the practical
exclusion Of any popular demand from
any other The menace Of unlimited
coinage with the swelling accumula-
lions of coined and uncoined silver in
the treasury, which might in some fl
nancial contingency be thrust upon
any or all other markets, not only
tended to perpetuate it's present un-
certainty Of value, but might further
tend to sink it to a lower depth. Ger
tainly unlimited coinage would indefi-
nitely postpone all hope of an inter
national compact.
The total output of silver, including
the large increase in Mexico and Bo-
livia, Australia and the United States,
has more than doubled even since
1873, while the legitimate demand for
it, though intrepidly and ostentatious
~ promoted by the United States, ap
peared to have fallen off elsewhere
more than one half. The law of de-
mand and supply was as autocratic as