The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1894-08-09

ability OF tho government IAN incident %
tho change of administration, they Of
once procured tho redemption of these
notes in gold, and this gold was In its turn
hurried out of the country to Europe for
various purposes, especially to aid Austro-
Hungary to place itself, like the rest Of
Europe, on gold basis. This
, lM, Great Outflow Of Gold .,.sygf
was threatening the interconvertibility of
the two metals and was fast drifting us into
q state of silver recommendation, or exclu-
sive silver circulation. The gold was rush
ing out of the country faster than the sill
yer was rushing into the treasury. This
threw the financial and business world
Into panic. Money disappeared from
circulation and went into hiding. It was
as hard to borrow money for tho rich a. it
was for the poor. Under these conditions
and to relieve the tention, distrust and
alarm, congress repealed the purchasing
clause of the Sherman law-that feature
requiring the government to purchase
every month 4.50O 900 ounces Of silver.
This was not the decentralization of silver.
1t was, in effect, merely the suspension Of
silver coinage, or the enlargement of our
silver currency. It was for the purpose of
keeping up the equilibrium of the two
metals and to keep them from running
from each other. In other words, it was
for the purpose of keeping up the inter
convertibllity of our silver with our
gold, for, as have pointed out, we need
gold dollars to maintain and doat our so
cent silver dollars. ',f' 81 80
The moment silver dollar is not con-
vertible into a gold dollar, silver, now as
in the early days Of our nation, will en-
tirely usurp the place of gold and drive the
latter out of circulation and into hiding.
This would reduce us to state of mono
metalism, state of exclusive silver
circulation. Our $666 100000 of gold
would at once disappear from cir
culation. Instead of having combined
gold and silver currency, as we have to-
day, amounting to 81 ,313, 700, 600, we would
be reduced to an exclusive silver currency
of $647, 100000. Even with the free coinage
of silver it would take years to supply the
vacuum, and in the meantime the country
would be suffering under an immense and
extraordinary contraction of the currency.
The country would be in far sadder state
than it Is even today. We would all suffer
and be oppressed, except the owners Of
silver mines and silver bullion. They
would reapa big harvest, but it would be
at the expense of all the rest of us-of the
entire country. ... ~4
No, my friends, silver monometallism is
at least as dangerous as gold monometal-
!ism. No honest man, having the good of
his country at heart, wants either. We
want honest, genuine bimetallism. We
have 1t in measure and to q limited ex-
%nIn Ar,l h., >I>.ko III
statesmaDlike and the patriotic question
is, how to maintain and enlarge it, not
how to destroy it. We can, by ourselves,
sustain it to q limited and local degree, as
we have ever since the Bland act of 1870,
and as we never succeeded in doing be-
fore We can enlarge it to its greatest
limit and put it on all enduring basis by
international agreement among the lead
ing commercial nations of the world. The
former is bimetallism, the latter inter-
national The former rests on the prin-
ciple of interconvertibility, the latter on
mutual agreement. In the former case q
so cent silver dollar passes current because
1t can be converted at will into gold dol
lar. In the latter case the same silver
cause all great commercial nations have
with gold A free coinage which sustains
and upholds bimetallism is desired by all
friends of good government and honest
money. A free coinage which would at
one fell blow -
Strike Down Bimetallism
and reduce us to state of silver mono
metallism, not desired by anybody except
the most extreme inflationist and the
owners of silver mines and silver bullion.
The farmers of this country have no silver
to sell or to coin, and theirs would not be
the imitation harvest. Why, even the sill
yer monometalism of China is more honest
than the silver recommendation sought
here, for silver circulates there on its COM
mercial or bullion value and not on its
coin or token value. And yet, in spite of
this fact, silver has gone down in that
country from q value Of $1.67 per tael in
1871, to a value of 1914 cents per tael in
1893, and this in the face of an exclusive
silver circulation. rs"-s'
But it is urged that there is an INSULT
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