Mississippi leader. (Jackson, Miss.) 1892-1895, 1893-07-04
OUR FIRST DOLLARS.
A Review OF the History Of the Silver
Dollar from 1Tps to 1873.

half OF wOrklnRmen. bankers VINO
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 a 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 a fact that very many bankers
never study finance in connection with
political economy. 1t does not require
a phenomenal brain nor a profound ed
ucation to stand behind a counter and
discount notes. That is as far as tho
financial education of some bankers
goes. Those of them who have made
finance a 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 incalcula BILE injury to
the schemes of those great financiers
unless they can so mystify the subject
of finance that a majority of the people
will again PROSTATE themselves before
the self-constituted financial guardians
of the people.
People are being constantly hood
winked by agents of the great money
monopoly. That arch-demon, John
Sherman, had frequently given evil
dcnce 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
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 blishing a mint
became a law, April II, 1902. 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 a4714 grains OF
pure gold, which is equal to PAX grains
of pure gold to the dollar. The dollar
contained 371i4 grains of pure silver
and 4494 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 371k 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 tho
ratio of silver to gold at 15}S to 1.
Other European nations did or had
done the same. The United States at
that time had not attained that SUI
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 a premium, and it soon
disappeared across the Atlantic. The
secretary of the treasury reported in
1886 that there was not more than
81 ZOO, 900 of gold in this country, and
of that amount only trifle was in ac-
tual circulation.
BY the act of June %. 1884, the gold
eagle was made to contain only 232
grains of gold or 23.2 grains to the
dollar This regulation hxed the ratio
of silver to gold at about 10 to /. and
placed premium on silver. That
ratio still exists, and silver would still
command premium but for the legis-
lation of 1878 and the subsequent
botch-work of hireling congressman.
By the act of January Is, 1887, the
amount of alloy used in our dollars was
reduced from 4424 to Ala grains, thus
forming exactly one-tenth of our
standard silver. That reduced the
weight of our silver dollar from 416
grains to 4l2jz grains, but did not re-
duce at all the amount of pure silver
contained in the dollar.
Fixing the ratio of silver to gold at
10 to 1, while other countries adopted
the ratio at l5M to l. made our silver