Daily Texarkana Democrat., 1893-07-13
REAGAN ON SILVER.
The Veteran Texas Statesman Strong
ly in Favor of the White Metal.

In a recent open letter to the press
Hon. John II. Reagan, Ex-United
States Senator from Texas and now a
member of the State Railway Com
mission, expresses, in part, the follow
ing unqualified views on silver and its
continued coinage:
n. Gold and silver have been the
money of the world as far back as we
know its history or traditions. Their
fitness for money is shown by the fact
that both metals possess in common,
and neither in any degree different
from the other, all the qualities which
are recognized as necessary for mon
ey. Silver enjoys, with an equal de-
gree with gold, the qualities of inde-
structibility, of divislbility, of mallea-
bility and of resistance to chemical
changes, thus demonstrating their use
fulness and fitness as regulators of the
volume and value Of currency and ex-
change
2. Gold and silver were made the
money of all the United States by the
federal constitution, which provides
act / section 10, That no state shall
make anything but gold and silver
coin tender in payment of debt
8. National bank notes and nstes
of other banks are not legal tender
money, and their value in all CONNER
cial countries was measured by gold
and silver coin, previous to the year
1873. These Great Britain made
gold the money of account in that
kingdom. In all the other CONNER
cial countries of the world gold and
silver was the money of account pre-
vious to the year 1873. These metals
were, up to that time, the basis of
banking exchange, and measured the
value of all the bank notes and ex-
changes; and controlled the value of
all property and of all bonds and 9th
er securities for money.
4. The contention Of the bond
holders, the holders Of gold and the
bankers, now is, that silver shall no
longer be part of the legal tender
money of the world. That gold alone
shall measure the value of the bank
notes, exchanges, property and labor
Of the world.
8. The amount of gold coin and
bullion In the world is about the
same as the amount Of silver coin and
bullion in the world.
6. TO demonetize silver and make
gold the only legal tender money of
the world would, by the destruction
of one-half of the legal tender money
of the world, about double the bur-
dens of all debtor governments, cor
porations, associations, firms and in
dividuals, and would vastly enhance
the values of all securities and credits
and of gold coin and bullion, because
of the reduction of the kinds and vol
ume ofmoney which might be used
for payment Of debts, and because the
gold of the country would buy SO
much more of labor and property.
Z. The free and unlimited coinage
of silver will secure for the United
States substantial monopoly Of the
trade with Mexico and with Central
and South America, and will greatly
enlarge our trade with China and
Japan. If the people of those coun-
tries could pay for the manufactured
fabrics and other articles of export
from this country with silver, which
is the money of those countries, and
should at the same time be required
to pay gold for such commodities in
the markets of Europe, 1t requires no
argument to demonstrate that they
would trade with us. This would
give us the control Of the commerce
of this continent, and greatly enlarge
our trade with Asia; and it would do
more towards transferring the center
of the worlds exchanges from London
to New York than any other one
thing | can think of. And it would
seem that this ought to arrest the at
tention Of our manufacturers and mer.
chants and others furnishing for ex.
port so those countries.
8. 1t would, while maintaining
gold and silver as the necessary basis
of the worlds money, enable the peo,
pie of the United States to utilize the
extensive deposits Of silver with which
our country is blessed. ! assume that
the people of no other country, in pos
session as ours is, of over 40 per cent
of all the silver mines from the earth
would tolerate the stupendous folly o.
destroying its quality and value al
money, and of striking down mining
interests in which so many people are