The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-03-22
COMING THE sErGNIoRAGE.

We have the best authority for the
statement that the Boston bimetallists,
as such, have petitioned President
Cleveland to veto the Bland BILL" so
says the Boston Transcript. There are
no end of papers which express the
desire that the seignoirage bill hsall be
vetoed. Whatever the President may
do as to this measure he win receive
unstinted censure from some quarter
If he signs the bin he will be as
sailed by the goldites, and some of the
silver advocates, as pandering to the
Populists and going back on the pol
icy which led to the repeal of the Sher-
man purchase law. If he vetoes the
bin it viii be denounced by the silver
men as playing into the hands of the
Wall street spectators, and as show
ing his deadly hatred of the white
metal.
The Bland bill, if it becomes a law,
viii not be pleasing to the extreme sill
yer fanatics, because it will probably
somewhat damage their doctrine that
an increase in the volume of silver
currency will Immediately revive bust
ness and raise the price of the coun-
try's commodities. And it will be
found that even with more silver
money in circulation, there will eEsue
the same kind of concentration of
funds in the hands 'of the few which
now exists, and the mere issue of more
dollars will not stop the tendency to
make the rich richer and the poor
poorer.
The bill is not what the west wants.
1t will not help the cause of the Silver
miner. 1t is not likely to ~aise the
price of silver as commodity to any
great extent. 1t may help general
business in a small degree by increas-
ing the volume of money, but it will
not start up the closed silver mines or
furnish profitable market for the
silver bullion or silver ores that can
not now be- brought out to pay.
1t is possible that it may as some of
its supporters expect, prove a step to-
wards the thing that is needed. But
it is temporizing with the great ques-
ton. 1t is but another makeshift, all
though it is not open to the objections
against the Sherman law. Nothing
short of free silver coinage at an
agreed ratio with gold. will either set
tie the silver question or revive the
dilapidated fortunes of the West.
The discussion of the silver question
occasioned by the Bland bill will 40
good whether the bill becomes law or
not. Bimetallism is forging ahead. The
bimetallists of Boston are opposed to
the Bland bill, we presume, because
of its makeshift character. For they
are doing good work in educating the
country to the necessity of both gold
and silver as money. And as evidence
of this they have recently ordered
from Chicago publishing house 5000
copies of Archbishop WaIsh's pam
phlet on bimetallism, which occasioned
quite stir "a short time ago.
The silver war will go on. Some
time it will gain the victory. This
will not be a triumph over gold. 1t is
not desirable that any such catas-
trophe shall be brought about. Gold
is as natural a metal for money as sill
Yer is. They are both needed for the
worlds uses in that respect. And the
silver men-even the most extreme
among them-do not want to put down
gold but merely to lift up silver and
place wher it belongs, by the side
of the metal which is it's natural com
panion.
If the Bland bill will help to do that
it will be of great benefit to the coun-
try. If not, but it shall be regarded as
all that is necessary to be done as to
silver at present, while it will put some
silver money into circulation and will
be that much Of good, it will be a
detriment rather than benefit to the
silver industry in particular and TO
the public welfare in general.