The Forrest City times., 1893-09-22

The gold reserve dwiDdled from sI98 1000 ,009 to less than Sl00.0OO,OO0 because of republican extravaganza and the balance of trade against us. And perhaps, too. because the gold bugs were at work to manufacture this panic, The size of the gold reserve i'll the treasury had nothing in the world to do with the loss of confidence. The people lost confidence in the banks and in each other, and took possession of all tire "greenbacks aisi 55-cent sll- yer dollars" and buried them. If there had been any loss of confidence i'll the government s ability to keep this money at par with any and all other kinds of mdney. does any sane man think that the owners would hoard it. We think the proposition is plain that they would have presented tlIeir 'greenbacks aud 55-cent dollars" at the treasury Of the United States and demanded gold for them just us long as there was any gold in the treasury. But statistics show thst thls has never been the case, and on the contrary gold has been presented to the treasury ard silver requested ill exchange therefor. and the treasurer tells you that there was no silver in the treasury which he could exchange for gold.
 Talk about the purchase of 4;5G0, 900 ounces of silver bullion per month be- ing burden to the government, That amount of silver, no doubt, looks big to Brother Clarke, but the U. $. gov ernment can buy all the silver in the world and never feel it. "What if the Sl00, GOO 900 of gold reserve were with. drawn from the treasury. * then the government would not be able to keep the -65-cent dollar at par with gold" Now. the Index says there are 4l9 GOO, 900 silver dollars in circulation They are receivable for all debts due the United States government, the state, the ceuuty. the town, the school district. Does 'el.e editor of the Index have any idea how many of these silver dollars would be in circulation if there was no gold reserve whatever, and what they would be worth? Well, there would be just S4l9.000 ,000, and they could not be bought for fraction less hn q in n fact is self-evIdent. It matters not a particle about the gold reserve, so far as ful! legal tender notes or silver IS concerned, because as long as the gov ernment will receive suchmoney at the rate of one hundred cents on the dollar it is as good as any money can be, and the idea that there must be gold re- serve to redeem silver dollars, or that the goodness ot the silver dollar is de- pendent on the ability of the treasury to eXchancegoid for IL, is so ridiculous as to be absolutely ludicrouS. The sum of taxes, duties, etc, collected every year is several times larger than all the silver in circulation.
 Free coinage. will equaize the value of gold and silver, and the mo- ment silver is coined on an equal ity with gold-that is to say, with mo other restrictions than those under which gold is coined-that. moment will settle the so-called '55-eent dollar"
 The last assertion in the above non sense from the Index, like considsra- ble portion of the others, are mere speculations, and asserts something the Index man, nor any one else, knows nothing about--rnless he is in league with the editor of the Helena World. He knows