The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1893-10-10
The Danger of Cheap Money.

LA -. ", Oct. III, 1885.
The Danger of Cheap Money.
The passage of a bill for the free
and unlimited coinage of silver
dollars would cause immediate,
sudden and considerable appreci-
alton of gold. The more precious
metal would command a premium
of perhaps fifty per cent and would
of curse be hard to obtain at all.
But the debt paying power of silver
1t will be maintained, would con-
tinue and the unfortunate debtor
would be enabled to procure with
comparative ease enough Of the
debased coin to meet his obliga-
lions. Consequently, a debased
coin would for a time prove a great
gain to debtors, of whom the farm
ing class includes many. The
South being heavily burdened with
debt has nothing to fear from cheap
money. If the morals of the ques-
ton are disregarded, that is the
line of argument that a free silver
lite might be expected to take. AL
though it has a plausible look it
cannot bear investigation.
A vast majority of the mort
cages, notes and other obligations
of Southern people, if not already
mature, become due within from
sixty days to twelve months. This
Is the condition of things now, was
year ago and will be at any given
time.
Suppose, intelligent farmer, that
you held note on a brother farmer
for $1,000 payable in any kind of
legal tender on the LIST day of next
January. Suppose further that
you observed that silver dollars
were decreasing daily in purchas-
ing power and that you anticipated
their continued fall in value. In
the event that your debtor failed
on the day of maturity to take up
his note would you indulge him for
another year and allow him an OPP
portunity to accumulate silver with
which to pay 1T of-silver which
would buy a third smaller quantity
of bacon than the same number Of
dollars in gold? Or would you
compel your debtor to renew his
obligation STIMULATING payment in
gold, or upon his refusal, sue and
take Judgment or else foreclose?
Is not the latter course the fair, rea-
sonable and natural one which any
business man would follow? Is it
not moreover precisely what all
bankers and money lenders would
do?
, Now, if silver should %depreciate
it would require at least q num-
Der of months for 1t to become
plentifully disseminated among us.
1t could only come by the sale of a
crop. In the meantime it Is plain,
is it not, that every creditor would
be pressing hard for a promise to
pay in gold? at a time when it
might be impossible for debtors to
procure funds at all they would be
compelled to surrender any tenn
porary advantage to be derived
from cheap money and inflated
prices in order to drive the sheriff
or the wolf from the door. In
other words the prospect Of n de-
based currency would precipitate a
panic which would come with the
speed of a summer storm and from
which the poor debtor could not
hope to escape. Creditors in dire
extremity would be in no humor
to give quarter even to the honest
but weak. 1t is probable that
thousands of we'll doing men would
be forced to bankruptcy before the
ample streams of cart wheel dol
lars would even turn our way.
That is to say, the free coinage of
silver would threaten the debtor
class of the South with quick and
merciless disaster.
Friends of silver contend that
free coinage would not affect the
parity of the two metals. II, how
ever, 1t Is admitted that they are
wrong, what we have described
above is an accurate picture of the
lugubrious consequences that
would inevitably follow.