Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-06-21
OUR FIRST DOLLARS.
a Review of the History of the Silv,
Dollar from 1793 to 1873.

Calculating the silver question in be-
half of workingmen. Bankers who
are responsible for every financial
enactment since the death of the great
Lincoln, and who have brought the
present misery upon wealth-producers,
are now showing how utterly unjust
our present silver law is, and are de-
termined to extricate laboring men
from the woeful pitfall into which
they have fallen, by digging deeper
and nastier pit beneath. They claim
that our present silver dollar, so soon
as our little gold is run out of the
treasury, will have only the purchas-
ing power of sixty-four cents, and that
the poor fellow who thinks he is re-
ceiving two dollars a day is really
only receiving one dollar and twenty
eight cents.
1t is fact that very many bankers
never study finance in connection with
political economy. 1t does not require
phenomenal brain nor "a profound ed
ucation to stand behind a counter and
discount notes That is as far as the
financial education of some bankers
| goes. Those of them who have made
finance study have made their wealth
by the use of such knowledge They
| have learned to transfer wealth to
their pockets from the producers by
| legal methods, and they have no desire
to kill the goose which is constantly
depositing golden nuggets in their we'll
feathered nests.
The great people are now studying
| finance. knowledge thus gained is
! destined to do incalculable injury to
the schemes of those great financiers
unless they can so mystify the subject
| of finance that majority of the people
will again PROSTATE themselves before
the self-constituted financial guardians
of the people.
People are being constantly hood
win1ed by agents of the great money
monopoly. That arch-demon, John
Sherman, had frequently given evil
| dence of being wholly soulless in con-
cocting schemes to rob the people.
When he brought forth the so-called
Sherman silver law the people were de-
ceived in him and believed he had at
last bill in the interest of the people.
| His bill more than doubled the amount
| of silver to be coined, and it looked
| well on its face, but so soon as we could
fully realize the spirit of the bill we
saw that it was framed with the full
| intent to debase silver and create a
premium on gold. 1t gave to Wall
street agents secretaries of the treas
ury) a legal right to stop coinage
entirely, and that is what they did.
Our mints are virtually idle, while
the people are, suffering loss of
property and courage for want of
money. Limiting silver coinage had
| the effect the schemers knew it would
of reducing the price of bullion. I'm
limited coinage would restore the orig
inal price of silver, which was higher
than the price of gold, till Wall street
| got hold of the machine
1t may be interesting here to briefly
review the position silver has occupied
| since the adoption of our national con-
stitution. An act esta ablishing a mint
became law, April IL, 1892 1t pro-
vided for the coinage of eagles. halves
and quarters of gold; dollars, halves,
| quarters, dimes and half dimes of sill
yer; cents and half cents of copper.
The eagle contained 2471z grains of
| pure gold, which is equal to 24s4 grains
| of pure gold to the dollar The dollar
| contained 371A grains of pure silver
| and 44% grains of alloy, making the
dollar of our dads weigh 416 grains of
the then standard silver. Fractional
parts of the dollar contained their full
proportion of silver. There was at that
time no short weight in our fractional
silver. The coinage at that time was
at the rate of fifteen of silver to one of
gold.
The reason for adopting 3714 grains
of silver for the dollar was because pre-
vious TO our own coinage the Spanish
milled dollar was the standard currency
| of this country. Alexander Hamilton
was secretary of the treasury. He had
those Spanish dollars assayed and they
were found to contain just that amount
of silver; hence that amount was adopt
ed for our own dollar. The act above
mentioned provided for the free and
unlimited coinage of both gold and sill
yer.
In 1903 France established by law the
ratio of silver to gold at 1515 to 1.
Other European nations did or had
done the same. The United States at
that time had not attained that su-
premacy among nations that would en-
able her to maintain her standard
| against the world. Our adopting a
lower ratio than Europe for silver,
| placed gold at premium. and it soon
disappeared across the Atlantic. The
secretary of the treasury reported in
| 1886 that there was not more than
81 .O0O.o 900 of gold in this country, and
| of that amount only trifle was in ac-
tual circulation.
By the act of June 2s, 1854, the gold
eagle was made to contain only 232
| grains of gold or 23.2 grains to the
| dollar. This regulation fixed the ratio
of silver to gold at about Is to l, and
| placed a premium on silver That
ratio still exists. and silver would still
command a premium but for the legis-
| lation of 1873 and the subsequent
botchwork of hireling congressman
By the act of January Is, 1897, the
amount of alloy used in our dollars was
reduced from 443l to Az grains, thus
forming exactly one-tenth of our
standard silver. That reduced the
weight of our silver dollar from 41e
| grains to 4121S grains, but did not re-
duee at all the amount of pure silver
contained IN the dollar,
Fixing the ratio of silver to gold at
16 to 1, while other countries adopted
J the ratio at 1511 to /. made our silver
/ dollar desirable to export. Compare
! lively, we had now an abundance of
| gold, while our silver was rapidly
vanishing. We had nothing but silver
with which to make purchases less than
one dollar. and that subsidiary coin
left the country SO rapidly that an act
was approved February 81, 1853, reduc-
ing the amount of silver in dollar's
worth OF subsidiary coin from 41ak
grains to 3s4 grains, thus taking from
each dollars worth of subsidiary coin
241s grains and reducing IFS export
galHe nearly. six per cent. The result
! of this legislation was to retain our