Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1893-07-14
The Situation.
Keep Cool, for we Are Not sinking, but
CIear-Headed Judgment is Needed.

Keep Cool, for we Are Not sinking, but
CIenr-Heoded Judgment is Needed.
From the New York Tribune
Silver coin is legal tender and on
parity with gold. There has been no
change in the situation in that regard
since 1890. The government has been
buying, and is still buying, silver bull
lion at market rates and issuing its
notes therefor. Not even the owners of
silver mines, who are under the strange in
fatuation that the most important function
of government is to take their products OIL
their hands at prices which will give them
handsome profits, have any reason as yet
to complain of anything that the govern
ment has done or left undone. They are
dissatisfied with the price, but the govern
ment does not make the price. That is es-
tablished in the markets of the world by
the memorable law of supply and demand,
and the mine-owners have no more right
than wheat-producers or cotton-growers to
ask the government to pay higher than the
market price for their products. II the
cost of production exceeds the market price
it would seem to be good business sense to
stop producing and diminish the output
until the relation of supply to demand
should be changed so as to affect prices in
the only natural way and make mining
profitable.
If silver producers have no real grievance
certainly nobody else has. A great number
of people in various parts of the country,
chiefly in the West and Southwest, are
indulging in wild talk on this subject with
apparently no understanding of it, and no
definite purpose except to make the most
of an occasion to work off their surplus
energy and push themselves into proni-
nence. The causes of the present disturb
ance are not so obscure but that they can
be comprehended by the simplest intell-
gence. Very little coin or actual money is
used in business transactions. The vast
bulk of them is carried on upon the credit
system, the foundation of which is conf
dence. Men do business with each other
TO the amount of millions of dollars year
without ever exchanging a coin. The be-
lief, of course, is that there is an actual
dollar in coin underlying every dollar of
credit in check draft or note. When dis
trust enters, and the creditor doubts the
ability or disposition of the debtor to re-
deem his promise in current coin, he in
sists upon having the coin, credit shrinks
and disturbance follows. When this dis
trust extends everybody doing business is
! -. H. M.
existing prevail.
That is what has happened. The cause
of it is simple enough. Creditors began
some months ago to suspect that their
debtors might pay in silver instead of gold
and the purchasing power of silver in the
countries with which we trade is only little
more than half that of gold. Foreign
creditors took the alarm and called in theil
credits. This of itself produced stringency
= Then the distrust became general and We
found ourselves in the present financial dis
tress. The first step toward restoring con
fidence naturally seems to be to reassurt
foreign creditors, who first took the alarm
To convince them that there is no danger
; of their being paid in coin of inferior value
to gold, it is thought to be necessary to re
2 peal the act under which our government
is buying silver bullion and issuing III
r notes therefor, the inevitable effect of thos,
: continued purchases being to bring tn,
, country to a silver basis and eliminate golC
entirely. Suppose this act repealed; doe
I it furnish any reason for excitement or pas
: sion? Why should our friends in the Yves
, and Southwest get so hot about il? VIII,
indulge in threats and try to stir up ba,
4 blood? What earthly advantage can it b.
I to Eastern capitalists, business men, none,
. lenders, bankers, spectators, traders o
: what not to have the government adop
financial policy which will be oppressiv
n to the people of any section? The peopl
/ of the West and Southwest are not NOR
e anxious to have money in plenty and b
5 prosperous in business than the Easter
= capitalists are for them. This is not phil
anthropy, either. 1t is cold-blooded bus
n ness. For we cannot get ahead at the Eas
/ unless the communities of the West an
!, , Southwest are prosperous. If there wa
= ever a time for GOODNESS and patience it
: now. We are all in one boat. And W
s. are not sinking. But we are in stress
:, weather that calls for clear-headed judg
e ment, GOODNESS, skill and careful pilOtape