The herald., 1893-09-28
Lucid Financial statement.

EDrroRs HERALD: 1t 10 said that the
proposed amendment of Senator Faulk'
ner to the repeal bill for the purchase
and coinage OF So, 000, 900 worth OF silver
per month until the total amount OF
coined silver in the country amounts to
$500, 900, 900, and the retirement OF all
paper currency under $40, has devel-
oped considerable strength.
This is strange proposition: but as
with many others which, like scum,
have come to the surface during the
present upheaval, 1t implies an obliv-
iousness OF fundamental principles that
is most discouraging, especially as IT
comes from q senator who is now called
upon to act upon this grave question
which affects not alone the material
well-being of the people of these United
States, but of the civilized world.
Why should the limit of standard
silver money in this country be fixed ut
$500, 900, 900 or at any other sum? Why
prevent people from using properly
guarded paper representatives OF specie
for any sum below $40, If they prefer
that kind of currency to specie? Those
are not at all the serious questions ct
issue.
The great, oyershadowing question oi
all at the present time and throughout
all time is, in view OF the everlasting
fact that all standards of value perpetu-
ally fiuctuate or rise and fall, to what
shall the unit of value be attached; how
can its inevitable variations be most
effectually minimized?
Our forefathers, with a profound wis
dom that should put their descendants
to shame, attached the standard by free-
dom OF mintage to the universal masses
OF silver and gold at fixed ratio which,
like the great ocean, have a steadiness
of level that mere artificial ponds, de-
pending on eccentric supply and de-
mand, can never have. The overwhelm-
ing floods which flow from great water
sheds, often unexpectedly, into small
lakes, whether natural or artificial OF
course are bound to violently disturb
their level, whereas, az was said of old,
all the rivers in the world flow into the
sea, and it is not full; in other words,
they do not perceptibly change its level.
The fathers OF the republic aimed to
provide that we might measure values
by either the silver or the gold dollar,
tied together at q fixed ratio by free
coinage, which would give to each the
Identical value that the same quantity
of the universal mass of silver or gold
respectively would have, whether coined
or uncoined. This would give (and did
give for over so years) steadiness to
our standard OF value which has been
altogether unknown during the last 20
years, because our coined silver dollars
have been cut off from all vital or
automatic connection with silver in
general, thus thwarting the wise and
beneficent intent OF the, founders of the
republic. Although we have bought
dollars since 1878, those same dollars,
in reality, only constitute an artificial
reservoir, which ia wholly segregated
from the universal mass; and each and
every one of them have an unnatural
value entirely distinct from their simple
value; in other words, they have been
tied to the gold dollar and through the
gold dollar to the universal mass of gold ;
and, inasmuch as the burden which has
been thrown on gold as money during
the last 20 years. has been nearly
doubled. The relative value of the gold
dollar has been almost doubled, and
consequently tine silver dollar being
yoked to it, has been nearly doubled
along with it, the daily quotations in the
HERALD letterly, OF the silver value oi
the gold dollar Gas we'll as of the artifi-
cial gold value OF the silver dollar), hav-
ing ranged between $1.70 and $1.85.
This is certainly an anomalous state
OF affairs. and the sooner it is remedied
the better. But the adding OF $780,.
100000 more to our present stock oi
standard silver and stopping there, ia
not going to remedy the matter. What
is wanted to steady our standard is to
bring it back to vital connection with
the universal mass OF silver and to bring
both gold and silver into vital connec
tion with each other, by the legal and
constitutional right Of unlimited coinage
of both metals, as that right existed fol
more than so years prior to 1873, when
that unholy and revolutionary attempt
was made to bedevil our standard by
changing it from silver and gold to gold
alone. The appalling rise OF gold since
that date has caused shrinkage ol
values such as was never known during
any other 20 years since the world be-
gave. Let us have done with subter
fuges and straightforward intelligent
methods, get back to frat principles.