St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-02-19

about 1874. That rise cannot be less
| than 40 or so per cent.
| 1t will thus be seen that gold does
not mako gOod measure of value. In
other words, the gold dollar Is not All
honest dollar. just now IT is at work
robbing DEBTORS for the benefit of credi-
tors, but from '49 to "a 1t was robbng
creditors for the benefit of debtors.
is the silver dollar any better? This
Is hardly practical question. for the
silver dollar has not been used as
measure Of value in the United States
since 1884.
But suppose the right to coin silver
freely had not been repealed by the
law OF 1873. What then? Why, just as
soon as silver could be produced at less
cost than gold, Just as soon as the great
productive, eaSily.wOrked mines of the
West began to pour their food upon the
market, then the silver dollar, having
become cheaper than the gold dollar.
would have driven gold out of cireula-
ton, and we should have had the single
silver standard instead of the single
gold standard.
Would this have done any harm? l
do not see that it would. Tho value of
the silver i'll the dollar has more nearly
Travelled side by side with the value of
other products of labor since 1874 than
has gold. or this no one can have a
doubt who will examine prices during
the past twenty years. If we had not
legally demonetiZed the silver dollar
We should have seen the following re-
suits:
l. Prices would not have fallen.
ii. Debts would not have increased.
Why not. then. restore the silver dol
lar of 1873. and remedy the evil?
1t would not remedy the evil. The
milk is split, and you can't pick it up.
Inc egg has dropped from the wall,
and, as the old rhyme has it, "all the
kings horses and all the kings men
can't put it back again."
No, as was shown in the last chapter,
evils that have been brought about by
changes in the value of the dollar can
| never be corrected by reversing the
process.
The debts of today are mostly of re-
cent contraction, and it would not be
just to pass law allowing them to be
paid in dollars of half the value they
were contracted In. They were con-
tracted In gold dollars of very nearly the
silver dollar of 41213 grains would be to
day those debts in dollars of half the
value they were contracted in. That
would be dishonest.
If the gold dollar keeps on increasing
in value. as it has done since 1874, it
will continue to be dishonest. Ii it
should decline very much in value, 1t
would still be dishonest.
What, then. can be done? How can
we get an honest dollar?
So far as the past is concerned. moth
ing can be done. A wrong once done
through dishonest dollars never can he
righted, unless possibly by sending the
case to the courts, as was suggested in
the last chapter. Then it would proba-
bly, cost more than it would come to.
Courts come high-''justice" is becoming
very expensive. and only the very
wealthy can afford to indulge in it.
Can we, then, ever hope to have an
honest dollar?-one that will rob neither
debtor nor creditor?
Never. until we can invent dollar
that will neither increase nor diminish
i'll value from year to year, from decade
TO decade.
hope the brain of man will prove
equal to the task, but such dollar has
never been found yet, at least it has
never yet been put into use.
G.. }. BUELL..