The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1893-06-13
THE ADVOCATE.
"lDIoTlc."

contemporary, the Constitution. The
Courier-Journal can discuss the finan-
cial situation without dealing in vitu-
peration. When we find that we can
not we hope that we shall be able to
recognize the fact that the financial
situation is not subject which comes
within our province.
"Idiotic" is the title of the following
delectable remarks by our Atlanta CO.
temporary:
"The Courier-J ournal, commenting
on some remarks of far Western pa
per, has this to say:
at has never dawned upon this lu-
minary that for the Governme mt to
redeem its coin notes in silver when
gold is demanded would be to do the
very thing for which it is now abusing
Secretary Carlisle--to discriminate
against and debase the standard silver
dollar
SIN order to understand and appre
ciate to the full extent this idiotic ut
terance-there is no other phrase that
will describe it--let the reader go
over it again and take it in. Here is
a declaration that to use the silver
dollar as money will be to discrimi-
nate against .it--that to pay it out as
money will debase itp
We protest again that we do not
characterize this uniqe article of our
Atlanta cotemporary as an "idiotic ut
terance." According to our under
standing of the word, an idiot is nat
ural born fool, whose defective intel
aectual powers preclude the possibility
of his being anything else. The writ.
err of the foregoing editorial is not
therefore, necessarily an idiot; he may
be simply ignorant; and ignorance,
where not based upon idiocy, can be
cured.
Z But il is incomprehensibly strange
now such absolutely primitive igno-
rance could gain access to the edito-
rial page of journal of the Consti-
buttons character, and especially in the
discussion of monetary questions.
Dear old Uncle Remus at his best was
, never so amusing as this financial ex-
position which appears in the columns
that he made famous.
The point on which our Atlanta CO.
temporary is SO ludicrously befuddled
can be made very clear, to those who
know as little about as the writer of
our cotemporary's "Idiotic" editorial.
If Uncle Remus had two one-dollar
bills and one-dollar debt to pay, and
If one of those bills was badly mutt
dated, Uncle Remus would certainly
pay that debt with the mutilated pill.
He would fuse" that bill, "pay 1t out
as money" and to the extent he did
so in preference to using the other
bill he would discriminate" against
the mutilated bill. Having less conf
dence in one bill than the other, he
would use the first one in which he
had the least confidence. |
Again, if the writer of the Consti-
tution's "Idiotic" editorial should in
cur debt of $4,000 in the purchase
of library containing few of the
the things he doesn't know about the
first principles of mouey; if he had
$4,000 in gold and $4,000 in silver,
aSad for some reason, whether justifia-
Die or not, he should have less conf
dence in silver than gold, would he
not pay for his library in silver, and
would he not thereby, "using" the
,silver in preference to gold, "discrimi-
nate against the silver in favor of
the gold, the effect of the discrimina-
ton being to "debase" the less valua-
BILE metal?
Now take the case of the Secretary
of the Treasury, stronger even than
these illustrations. ."...
The Government issues coin notes,
payable either in gold or silver, at the
option of the Secretary of the Treas
ury, under the injunction of maintain
ing bi-metallic parity. The holder of
these notes presents them for redemp-
zion, and demands gold. If the Sec
rotary refuses to pay gold, he pays sill
yer instead, against which metal is he
discriminating, the silver, which he
4'uses," OF the gold, which he keeps
And when it become known that the
Secretary thus discriminates between
the two metals how long would it be
before confidence in the Governments
ability to maintain gold payments
when demanded would disappear and
silver would be "debased" in value
relatively to gold, thus destroying the
MARTY which If ia the object of the Cow