The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1892-04-27
To the Editors Of the News

Is meant by free silver" will be of service 10
the young people, and will greatly oblige
A CONSTANT READER OF THE NEWS.
This is a request with which the NEWS
is very glad to comply. A bright gram
mar school boy or girl can easily under
stand the essentials of the silver ques-
ton, though the history of the coinage
problem in this country, and the tangled
underbrush of details and complications
that has grown up about it would fill
more columns than the fourteen-year-
old of either sex could spare time from
baseball or jump rope to read.
Now then, John or Mary, you have
studied your geography lessons carefully
enough to find out that certain of our
Western States and Territories possess
rich silver mines. To sell their silver to
the best possible advantage is Of as much
consequence to the mine owners as it is
to the farmer to get good prices for his
hay, grain or potatoes. Silver is the
mine crop, and the bread and butter of
the workingmen in the mines and the
well being of the trades and industries
clustering about the mines depends on
the silver sales in the same way that the
welfare of the mill operatives of Rhode
Island depends on the state of the cot
ton and woollen goods market.
The States which have silver to sell
want to see silver used in as large guam
titles as possible, and the government at
Washington which is bound to look out
for the interests of all parts of the coun-
try alike, also wishes to see silver used
so far as may be right and reasonable.
Now one Of the important uses Of silver
is as money, and it is the only use over
which there is any dispute.
The sellers of silver are not satisfied
to have silver used as an assistant metal,
like the copper that goes into our cent?
or the nickel in our Scent pieces; they
make the demand upon the government
that it treat silver just as 1t treats gold.
This is, roughly speaking. what you hear
talked of, John or Mary, as the demand
for " free coinage" and it means that
the producers Of silver ask to be allowed
to take at any time and in any quantity
what silver they have on hand to the
United States mints. and to receive ia
return for it its full value at fixed
standard in coined dollars.
This does not sound, you, John, will
say, or you, Mary, like anything SO very
dreadful, and, indeed, it need not be
under proper circumstances and condi-
tions though 1t is more Of boon than
the farmer or mill owner ever thought
of asking of the Government that it buy
up all the wheat or tartan ginghams
offered to it, and return bread or summer
frocks in full quantities, But there are
two troubles with the free coinage propo-
sition. One Of them is that the people
who say they are asking the Govern
ment to treat silver as ii treats the other
money metal, gold, are not really ask
ing any such thing what they are trying
to do is to get silver treated great
deal better than gold, for when they
take silver dollars back in exchange
for their bars of silver they
ask to receive a great many more dollars
than they ought to have. II you have
got over as far as proportion in your
arithmetic, you will understand what
the NEWS means when it says that the
value Of silver to the value of gold is, as
coined by the rest Of the world, and in
round numbers, about as one to twenty
two, while the silver people want to be
paid about as If it were rs one to six
teen. Perhaps you do not Mt first see
what difference this makes, except
that the silver people want to
overcharge and make as much
money as possible, like all the
rest Of the world. But IL you think
minute you will see that if the silver
man get silver that ought to make only
$40 stamped into s22, there isn't silver
enough for honest value in any one of
his coins, and if they were to 60 cir
culating about the country they would
be simply making believe be dollars
when they were not dollars mt all. People
might take them for certain length of
time because they had the Government
stamp upon them, but nobody outside
this country and not subject to its gov
ernment would accept them, and so the
result would be that all the debts our
merchants and bankers owed to Euro
peans would have to be paid in gold,
taking that metal out Of the country
and leaving us nothing at all, but the
cheating silver. Pretty soon as business
men would have 10 have gold to buy
goods from abroad they would have to
buy the gold first before they could buy
other things, and pay more than dollar
Of silver to get good gold dollar TO
trade with. This would put gold at
premium, as 1t Is called, and would
mean that the man who worked for