The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1894-07-09
The Question of Parity.

The Question of Parity.
The question Of parity" which seems
to be troubling number of editors who
desire to use the term as Il screen for
goldbuggery, is coming home to the peo-
pie.
Those who seek to confuse the minds
of the people in regard to parity" say
that the silver dollars now in circula-
tion-dollarS that have been coined at
the ratio of IL to 1-are kept at par
with gold because they are redeemable
in gold. But those who seek to weak
principle by such an argument as this,
forget that these silver dollars, coined
at Il ratio Of 16 to / are not redeemablc
i'll gold by law, but only us the result of
Il treasury policy put in operation in
1891 by Charles Foster the republican
secretary of the treasury, to enable the
banks OF New York to cart the gold re-
serve out of the treasury III order to
force an issue of bonds.
Neither silver dollars nor silver notes
We're ever redeemed in gold until
Charles Foster entered into corrupt
agreement with the New York banks
Even John Sherman, chief fugleman of
the single gold standard, obeyed the law
with regard to silver when he was sec
rotary of the treasury, and carried out
the policy of the people embodied in
the law He even strengthened that
against deposits of silver dollars. In
other words, even John Sherman felt
it incumbent on him to be honest enough
to maintain the vital and necessary
function of the silver dollar as debt
paying money-money of final redemp-
ton.
Right behind this question of parity"
Is the question of equity-justice Parity
means equality, and equality can mean
nothing more and nothing less than jus
tice and equity. What equity, Or justice,
or element of parity" can be found in
a policy which doubles the value of all
debts and at the same time destroys
more than half of the money in which
the debtor expected to discharge his
obligations? The chief function Of mon
ey, apart from its employment us
medium of exchange, is in the payment
Of debts. The real parity" OF money
is in the relations it bears 10 the
products of labor, for it is in these
tied. Money is simply the medium
through which these products are eX-
changed.
There is no parity now between gold
and the prices Of the products of hui
man labor. The farmer who, twenty
years ago, could discharge Il debt of
800 with one bale of cotton weighing
900 pounds, now finds that he must haul
three bales of cotton to market in or
der to purchase the 500 with which to
discharge his debt. In other words,
he must work three times as long
and three times as hard i'll 1894
than he worked in 1873 in order to
pay a debt of $100 1t needs no argu-
ment to show that the parity which
should exist between money and debts
between money and prices-has utter
" vanished under the single gold stand
ard
These facts were well known to the
men who framed the Chicago platform.
If they were honest and patriotic
which no one dOubtS-What else could
they mean, when insisting so strenuous
" on the parity of the dollar unit OF
coinage Of both metals, but that the
debt-paying power of the silver dollar
should be restored until it was on an
equality with gold in that respect!
knowing and approaching the losses
that the debtor class has sustained
since the republicans demonetlz2d Sill
yer in 1873, the honest and patriotic
democrats who framed the Chicago plat
form could have had no other inten-
tion when they insisted on the parity
of the dollar unit of both metals than
to announce that their party pledged
itself to restore the debt-paying quality
of the dollar unit of coinage Of silver to
an equality with that of gold. If parity"
in the platform doesn't mean that, it
means nothing. For the restoration of
the dcbt-paying power of the silver dol