Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1893-08-10

ID
yer bullion, which cost the people OF
the Quilted States STA, ,920 and
is worth to-day at the market
price Of silver S1O3, All $50, thus show
ing a loss Of $40, SIS. 534 for which the
compulsory silver purchase act is main
ly if not wholly responsible. Every at
tempt to fix the ratio by statute
has proven a failure. As an ex-
change points out, while the
country had statutory free coinage
from 1892 to 1884, it was not practical
free coinage. Gold did not circulate at
first, because twas undervalued. While
the ratio then fixed ty law was Is to l,
the true ratio ranged from Is in 1893 to
1925 in 1913, and in 1s53-the year be-
fore the legal ratio was changed to 10
TO THE true ratio was 1898 to l.
After this silver was underYalued, and
while the law made sixteen ounces OF
the white metal worth one ounce OF
gold, in the market a smaller amount OF
silver was worth one ounce of gold.
That statutory free coinage cannot
affect the use Of the metals as money is
shown by the fact that in the eighty
one years during which it prevailed
only about eight million silver dollars
were coined. 1t was during few
wears only that more silver dollars than
gold eagles, half eagles and quarter
eagles were coined. Free coinage
amounted TO nothing so far as its effect
on the value Of silver was concerned,
because silver was coined in an lncon-
siderable quantity, and the silver dollar
did not circulate.
Nor is it true that during the period
Of free coinage the ratio Of 10 TO 1 was
maintained That ratio was fixed in
1884. From that time to the passage
the act Of 1873 the market ratio was
never l6 to1. Silver was worth more
than that. In 1885 the true ratio was
1880 to 1, in 1910 it was 14.62 to l, in
1915 it was 1882 to l, in 1850 it was
1870 to l, in 1855 it was 1888 to l, in
1850 IL was 1929 to 1, in 1865 it was
1874 20 /, in 1870 it was 1857 to l, in
1882 il was 1853 to l, so great were the
fluctuations.
As an ounce Of silver in 1884 was
worth S1313, in 1910 it was worth
S1.323, in 1860 it was worth 1882, in
1873 it was worth Sl29S.
So If the period Of statutory free
coinage was real free-coinage period,
silver on the whole went down instead
Of up as money metal. 1t was
because discoveries Of new mines
and cheapened production deprecated
the market price Of silver that the
mine owners insisted on the passage of
a free-coinage act in 1878, and finally
accepted the Allison purchase act.
This law increased the market for
silver by compulsiOn, and under it the
Government bought and coined more
dollars in a single year than it had
coined in the whole eighty-one years
preceding the passage of the act Of
1873. The exact number of silver dol
lars coined in the free-coinage era
was S,O31,93s, none Of which
we're in circulation. In 1878,
the year Of the passage Of the
first purchase act, there were coined
10, 500, $50 silver dollars. and under the
same act there have been issued in
silver dollars aud certificates S37S, 1885,
795.
Consequently the Silver-Purchase act
was seemingly better for the niue
owners that the old Free-Coinage act Of
1892. and if liberal coinage and en-
forced purchases could increase the
price Of silver, certainly the miners
should have been able to bless the act
OF ISIS. But what was the result?
The lowest price that silver touched
between 1894 aud 1874 was 81 297 in
1S43, and the highest price obtained
for it was s1.36 in 1859. When the act
Of 1878 was passed, silver was selling
at S1.152; the Government coined slO,-
500. $50. and the price fell, 10 1878, TO
slips. BY lsSg the Government had
coined more than 10000 600 silver dol
lars and the price Of the metal was 9315
cents an ounce. In 1890 the present
Sherman law was passed, doubling the
purchases, and the price is now about
70 cents.
Under free coinage silver did not cir
culate and the price Of the bullion about
held It's own. But what good did that
do people who wanted more money?
Silver was too valuable to be
used as money. In the first
years Of the century gold did not circu-
late because it was undervalued. Free
coinage at l6 to 1 before 1873 was an
differentiation OF silver-it would now
be an differentiation Of gold, leaving
silver in a worse condition as a money
metal than it is now.