The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-05-24
THE STORY OF SILVER
FACTS IN CONNECTION WITH THE
WHITE METALS USE AS MONEY.
Information of Value Relating to Financial
Legislation Before the Civil War-Call-
ing Down the Editorial Mouthpieces Of
ShylOckism.

Legislation Before the Civil War-Call-
ing Down the Editorial Mouthpieces Of
Shylockism.
Especial Correspondence
The New York Tribune was for many
years the ablest and most noxious enc
my of true money in this country. But
the eastern states have been so Mexican
ized-so subjugated by the gold power
that it has ceased to pay their lead
ing misleading papers to hire the best
talent to deceive the people about that
matter. The Chicago Tribune now &C.
cupies the bad eminence of being Shy
locks chief champion in America. There
fore it needs careful watching and an
swering Its screed of May l is a
specimen. The editor is affected be-
cause at the transmississippi convention,
where % states voted for silver, Patterson
of the Denver News said that the act Of
1873 struck from our credit system one
half of it's metal foundation. The Trib-
une makes the following assertions:
No silver circulated in this country in 1873,
and now $500, O0O, 600 is used in various shapes.
The act OF 1873 swept away nothing but the
prospective circulation of deprecated silver,
which was down to 80 in 1878 throughout the
world Europe). Silver resumption would have
swept away half the coin base, for gold would
have gone. The silver dollar the world over
would have been worth GA cents. as it is now In
Mexico, Central and South America. Have
this depreciation and debasement of their
hard money standard promoted their prosper
tty?" The crowd OF cranks and knaves loud
~ applaud Patterson's fool ravings.'' This
wise Daniel asks why we oppose putting dol
lars worth of silver in the silver dollar-why
we struggle so hard to destroy bimetallism. He
concludes by waiing over the 81, 40 600 600 that
would be lost to depositors in NATIONAL state
and savings banks If the 64-cent dollar got on
top.
So for The Tribune. In answer to all
this many columns might be written. A
few lines must suffice. In the first place,
the thorough money reformer never for
gets to say that he only uses silver as
shot to kill gold-has no special use for
either
An understanding of the silver ques-
ton can only be had by going over the
history of coin money from the landing
at Plymouth. In 1862 mint was set
up in Boston to coin silver into .sPine
Tree" money. The silver came mostly
from the West India trade. Our rulers
in England then as now only busted
themselves in stealing from US any good
money we could get hold of. Singularly
enough, we depended largely then upon
another class of pirates-the buccaneers
of the Spanish main-who spent most of
their plumber on our shores where were
the nearest civilized ports This was a
great blessing-''a blessed providence
to our Puritan ancestors apd the coin
money economists of those days.
In 1745 we had another blessed influx
of silver. Governor Shirley of Massa-
chusetts and his pious Puritans went
over and captured Louisburg, Cape Bre-
ton, from the French with fire and sword
and made big loot. This so tickled
Mother Britain that for once she sent us
lot of silver to ransom" Louisburg.
This enabled Massachusetts, to steal
away the trade of Rhode Island.
We come now to the coin money of the
last half of the eighteenth and the first
half of this century. Through ignorance
of it our silver folks are dismayed by the
fore 1878. The great point to be shown
is that we had no need to coin because
so much came from abroad! The way
metal money flowed here during the
wars between England and Spain reads
like fairy story. The treasures of
Mexico and South America passed
through here and gave much temporary
coin deposits. Then from the opening
of the Napoleonic wars till 1920 the most
of Europe was using paper money. So
coin came and staid here In fact, coin
staid back III our western wilds often
when it was scarce in our cities.
Through all smashes and wildcat times
western banks paid coin till 1920. They
were good times for planters on new
soil. The old Virginia planter in his
blue swallowtail coat with brass but
tons and his rufaed shirt always had
pile of doubloons in his desk. He didn't
know that European war and paper
money put it there.
The banks, warned by wildcat expe-
riences. grasped at coin as they do now
at gold. One bank sucked all there was
in North Carolina and owned the state.
1t was so plenty in the twenties in New
England that they shipped it to Europe
A point never to be forgotten by silver
men in answer to the gold mans state
ment about small coinage of silver is
that from the foundation of the United
States many laws were passed giving
legal value to foreign coins. Our mis-
taken ratio of 16 to l, instead of 154 to l,
made it usually useless for us to coin
silver when we could have plenty from
abroad that was legal tender.
One fact alone shows how immensely
we were using Cur own silver and foreign
silver and gold-viz, the panic OF 1857
was largely due to the decentralization of
our small silver and those foreign coins.
In 1858 congress demonetized all silver
halves, quarters and dimes in sums of
over S. Much of the reserves of the
banks was in these fractional silver coins,
which were full legal tender, and in gold
and silver coins of the United States and
Of other countries. The silver dollars Of
Spain, Mexico, South America and the
United States were worth a premium
over gold and were bought by the Roths-
childs' and sent out of the country
though they did big service while thew