Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-10-18

Senator Sherman on the Currency.
No American statesman is better posted
upon the currency question, or entertains
sounder views in relation to it than Senator
Sherman of Ohio. He possesses, too, IN
a greater degree perhaps than any other Of
our public men, the happy faculty of max
ing the economic principles underlying this
intricate subject clear to the popular IN
derstanding. In recent speech at Akron,
Ohio, Mr.. Sherman discussed the currency
question as follows;
What is meant by free coinage? 1t is
by law to confer upon any holder of silver
bullion the right to depostit in the treasury
or minis of the United States and to demand
and receive for it 81 for 81 Ia grains Of
pure silver, or 4I2 l2 grains of standard
silver nine-tenths fine. or, in case the silver
is not coined, the holder may demand a
note of the United States for 81, and both
the coin and the paper are money and a
legal tender for all debts, public and private.
Remember that 81 IA grains of silver are
worth in the markets of the world about 40
cents.
Silver may vary in price from day to day,
but the tendency is for it to decline. AS
suming it to be worth 80 cents IN our law
full money, the holder of the bullion may
demand and get 81 for 81 IA grains, and
that dollar is n legal tender. As ihe result
of this, one of two things viii happen.
Either all the silver in sight will advance IN
value TO gold at the ratio of lG to l, or the
purchasing power of the dollar Will be re-
dlced TO 80 cents of our money, and the
gold dollar will be worth two silver dollars.
Which of these is likely TO happen! The
experience of every nation in the world
proves that the cheaper money will fill the
channel of circulation, and the money
of higher value will be boarded or export
ed. This is a rule rs universal as the
movement of the earth around the sun or
the flow Of the tides of the ocean. No one
will pay gold when silver worth one-half IN
commercial value can be paid instead.
The amount of silver in sight in the
world is stated at 3 ,0CO, 900, 600 ounces,
each ounce containing $50 grains. The
annual production of silver in the world is
about 1911 900 900 ounces. the commercial
value of which is about Sl25 600 600, but
the coinage value at the present ratio is
now about 1928 900, 900. The vast hoard
of silver will be invited to the L nited States
in the hope to obtain more for 1t than It's
market value.
What benefit will this radical change in
our coinage laws, if made, confer upon the
people of the United States? 1t is said that
it will double the price Of all our produc-
tious, So il would nomnally, hut will it
no. also double the price of all you have to
buy? Foolish men may sell their farms at
higher price, but will the money they re-
ceive purchase any more or as much prop
erty of any kind as they sold?
The workman whose daily wages are now
payable in gold or its equivalent, will have
to receive silver dollars whose purchasing
mowers is but oue-haf of the money he re-
ceised now. If he demands higher wages
because of cheaper dollars he knows how
difficult ii is to secure a proper increase OF
wages. If the farmer gets higher prices
for his crops it will be in money OF less
purchasing power.
But two classes of men will be benefited,
the debtor, who cln pay his debt in cheaper
money, and the owners of silver mines.
The debtor gains by cheaper money, but Is
it honest TO borrow gold and pay In oliver
worth half what he received! The owners
of silver mines, generally organized into
great corporations, will get nominally more
dollars for their product, but If they are
lust to their moIkmen the cost of mining
will be increased. do not see how, III the
end, the silver miner will be benefited.
II the object OF this change is TO increase
the volume of money, why should not the
government buy the silver bullion at its
market price and issue its monay, coin or
paper, 10 the amount of the cost of the sill
yer? This would give us more money, and
we would have 10 the treasury enough sill
- cali prigas N red com
We tried that experiment in 1890. We
passed a law requiring the secretary of
treasury to buy the enorm lus amount of
4 800 900 ounces OF silver month at mar
ker price, and to issue in exchange for it
United States treasury notss. l voted for
this law, and il was Gale the Sherman
law" | voted for il with much doubt, up
on the confident assertion that this large
purchase of silver bullion would prevent
Its declining in value. But, in spite of
our purchases, the price of silver went
down, down, down, from los cents an ounce
to 50 cents, and this loss fell upon the gov
eminent. The experiment having failed,
Congress repealed the act of 1890 and
voted for that repeal.
What would be the newt able result of
the free coinage of silver now, when the
silver in the dollar is worth only so
cents? Does any man need to be told that
it will be worth only whai it cost?
BY carefully limiting the amount o
silver coins and coming only on govern
msnt accouns We can ri AlutSLn silver coins
at par with gold coins, just as we keep
paper money b. proms5 TO receive 1t as
money and redeem it ia gold if dem ,nied
Tha. IS what we did with nearly 500 000,-
600 of paper money in 1879. We accumu-
Z lated fund of gold; We promised TO pay
the notes in coin. The notes had been de-
preciated during and after the war. We
lifted them up by resumption in January
1879, and from that day to this they have