The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-28
THE SILVER BILL.

least its postponement until December,
who fear that the commitment of their
party to free silver coinage would destroy
its chance of success in November next,
are anxious to postpone the vote on the
bill until December, when the presidential
election will not be affected by the result.
The Republicans, from the ground of
party advantage, would be glad to force
the Democracy of the House to take
ground for free silver today; force the
Democracy in the Senate, including David
B. Hill, to show their hands. If the bill
passed the Senaee the president would veto
it and the Republican party would be
strengthened In all the doubtful states of
the East.
The Democracy are evidently beginning
to feel the pressure of public opinion and
are disposed to think discretion the bet
ter part of valor. The managers of the
party cannot be blind to the fact that if
free-silver bill passes the House the DEM
ocratic party is fatally handicapped for
the campaign; no platform adopted at
Chicago would obliterate the memory of
the damning fact that the popular body of
the national legislature, Democratic by
large majority, voted for free silver. The
Republican party stands on the existing
silver law as the extreme concession to be
made in the direction of free coinage,
pending an agreement between nations on
a common ratio between gold and silver,
and insists on the issue of 100-cent silver
notes rather than the coinage of Bland 10
cent dollars.
Bland today, as in 1878, favors unlimited
initiation through the free coinage of sill
yer. What these free coinage men want
is not more silver in circulation but more
paper promises to pay. These free silver
men insist on coming silver which they
know will never get into circulation; and
they refuse to conine coinage to Ameri-
can silver, because it is part of their plan
that all the silver of other countries should
be free to come here, and thus put more
paper promises into circulation. A de-
based currency is a dishonest currency,
and it was Andrew Jackson, who, in his
eighth message, said that that "a de-
probation of the currency is always at
tended by loss to the laboring people"
A coined dollar is worth no more than
the bullion it contains. Those who re-
member the war know by experience that a
paper promise to pay one dollar may mean
less than one dollar for practical uses, even
if it be made legal tender for debts. If the
DaDer il worth 5O capts On Tho doll.r . o,,-
greenbacks were the last year of the war,
people who have anything to sell will
charge twice as much for their goods, and
precisely the same calamity falls upon labor
from deprecated legal tender coinage as
from deprecated legal tender notes.
Bland and his free silver friends are try
ing to make the Democratic party father
silver imitation, just as they tried between
1874 and 1879 TO make the Demo-
cratic party father greenback infa-
ton and resist the Republican pol
icy of resuming specie payment
These silver infationists do not believe
that enacting free coinage would raise the
price Of silver and make 20 cents worth a
dollar, by bringing silver to par with
gold and keeping it there. If it would,
why object to giving pensioners and work
ingmen the right to choose which metal
they will be paid in, gold or silver? Some
of the silver men propose to forbid con-
tracts for payment in gold. What do our
Pacific states say TO THAR All the Pacific
states provided by law for the payment of
debts in gold when the war flooded Us
with deprecated legal tender government
| paper. How much better would we be off
with food of deprecated government
legal tender silver?
In spite of the Bland act, or any other
statute, dollar definitely means in the
| commerce of the world the value of o. s
| grains Of standard American gold, that is,
| gold nine-tenths pure. 1.-THE United States
should authorize the coinage of a piece of
gold weighing twenty grains and by
statute call such coin a dollar, nobody
would receive it as of equal value with the
honest gold dollar. So the value of the
Bland 7O-cent dollar" cannot be made TO
stand as dollar in the markets of the
world, nor to buy real dollars worth Of
commodities in the United States until the
ratio of the commercial values of gold and
silver become Is to l. In the present state