The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-01-11
FREE SILVER COINAGE.

United States Senator Stewart is urging
free silver coinage for enactment. The
wonder is that anybody with intelligence
enough to read Understandings should not
see that free silver coinage is nothing but an
attempt On the part Of the owners of silver
bullion, which is now worth about So cents
an ounce, 10 get back the same price paid
more than twenty years ago, or Sl.29 an
ounce. Free silver coinage asks the peo-
pie Of the United States TO pay 100 cents
for 63 cents worth OF silver bullion, or 81
cents above the market. This 63-cent dol
lar is to be taken in pay of 100 cents worth
of past debts and in settlement of all fu-
ture transactions. Silver is cheaper than
it was twenty years ago, for the same rea-
son that pig iron, petroleum, wheat, corn.
hides. coffee, wool, etc, are all cheaper,
because their production has vastly in
creased.
John Shermsn's old question is q nut
that no silverite has ever cracked, viz:
'Is there any more reason why mine
owner in Colorado should be given law
putting up the price of his silver to its old
rate of 1870 and requiring people to take
it at the old price, than that a pig iron
maker should be given law putting up
the price of his iron to the old rate of 1870
and requiring people to take it at the old
price?" How would the mass of people
like to take in payment of current debts
iron or silver at the price of 1870 instead
of the price of today7 Of course no
honest man of intelligence can fail to ac-
knowledge the fatal force of Sherman's
searching criticism of free coinage, but
dishonest thinker and doer can answer
that free silver will do for the debtor class
what the greenback did for the debtor
class; it will compel every debter to che at
his creditor out of the difference between
the gold value and the silver value of the
mortgage.
Free silver coinage, like the greenback
imitation, would cause the price of COM
modities to advance, but what good would
this do the millions of wage workers, with
their wages paid in docked dollars; with
the purchasing power of their dollar de-
preciated2 The only persons who would
get even a transient advantage out of free
silver would be the minority of dishonest
debtors who are so anxious to cheat their
creditors that they are willing to enact a
wrong against all the rest of the people of
the United States. The wage worker of
the country would be met with higher
prices quoted in a deprecated dollar, and
between these higher prices and his fixed
wage his dollar would be ground away.
Silver passes today at par. though really
worth only about 63 cents to the dollar,
because there is believed to be not too
much Of it for our gold to carry. but
double the amount of silver or admit all
the worlds silver by free coinage and gold
will break down under the enormous sill
yer burden, and silver will have TO carry
itself and pass at its exact bullion value.
We repeat what we have said more than
once before, that 1t does not make any
difference whether your deprecated legal
tender dollar is deprecated coined silver
or deprecated paper, your deprecated
currency will put gold to flight. Gold took
to flight and left US with deprecated gov
eminent paper dollars during the civil
| war, and enact free silver coinage of g.
| cent dollars tomorrow and gold would
take to flight, and we would be face to face
with all the disastrous consequences to
labor that drop to the silver standard
| irnDlies