The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1894-10-12
l,0No1As telegraph.
Silver Oatechism.

@ What Is meant BY the free coin
age Of silverg
A. That the United States minis
shall coin silver whenever offered free
Of charge, the same as gold, and shall
make the silver dollar just 16 times as
heavy as the gold dollar.
@. When was the free coinage
abandoned?
Al. In 1873.
q. What was the result?
A depreciation of silver bullion,
or an enhanced value of gold and
money.
O. Why SO?
A.-At least four-fifths of all our
silver was used for money, and to
exclude silver from four-fifths of its
former use would certainly depreciate
its commercial value.
O. Was there any occasion for thus
excluding silver form coinage?
A.-None whatever. Up to that
date the mines of the United States
produced eight times as much gold as
silver, viz:$l ,230, 000, 900 gold and $751;
100000 silver.
Q.-Why, then, what is done?
A.-The English and European
bankers saw that the production of
silver in United States was rapidly in
creasing and would add materially to
the volume of money in the world,
and thus relatively depreciate the
value of these securities, and worst of
all would eventually transfer the
financial center of the world from
Threadneedle street, London, 10 Wall
street, New York.
What did they do?
A.-The bankers and financiers sent
an agent to the United States who
professed great wisdom in monetary
matters, and who succeeded in persuade
ing the congress of the Unlimited States
to exclude silver from free coinage and
adopt the single gold standard of Eng
land.
OILS it absolutely certain that the
demonstration of silver caused the
commercial depreciation of silver bull
lion?
A.-As evident as cause and effect.
For hundreds of years, with free coin
age of both gold and silver, there was
no decline in silver bullion, and at
times nine-tenths of all the coined
money in the world was silver and
now only one-half of it is silver.
Q.-Will the free coinage of silver
in the United States be restored?
Withouta doubt. Senator ]. ID.
Cameron has already been nominated
in the west for president in 1896 by the
republicans on a platform of free silver
and protection. The democratic plat
form for the next president is almost
sure to be free silver and free trade.
Q.-What would be the effect of
adopting free coinage of silver by the
United Statets alone?
Practically all the silver is pro-
duced in America and it would be
worth $1.29 per ounce in the domestic
| currency of the United States. East
ern nations could only obtain it by
Ipaying this price. There would be no
use for gold abroad unless the balance
of trade was againsts us, and pre-
MUM was established on foreign eX-
change it would check importations
and thus keep the balance of trade in
our favor and gold at par.
| Q.-What would be the effect of free
coinage on our industry?
| Alt would build fire in every
furnace and turn the wheels of every
factory and insure our supplying the
| whole American continent with man
ufactured goods. 1t would have the
effect as the resumption of specie pay
ments in 1879. Croakers had boarded
their money and their gold, expecting
a great demand for it. They soon
| found that business and investments
were paying, and they used their
money as rapadily as possible. To-day
81 90 in money is worth $500 in real
| estate or merchandise at fair prices.
| Enact free coinage and business, real
estate and merchandise will be on a
par with money and capital will be
seeking labor instead of labor. seeking
| employment, and all the money there
is in the country will be put in active
use at ounce. !.
| Q.-Is it fact that gold is worth
$20.67 aud ounce, and silver 81 cents an
ounce simply because it costs this
to produce it?
| A.-No. This argument is an in
genious fallacy. Labor is a factor in
the production of commodities, but
money is creation of law. The
stamp of the government makes
money as effectually from paper,
nickel, or copper, as from gold and sill
yer. Without this stamp nothing is
money. Bimetallism is an impossi-
bility without the enactment of pos
tive law defining the relations be.
tween gold and silver. The cost of
producing the precious metals is more
Irregular than that of any other COM
modify. A single nugget weighing
hundreds of pounds has been found
on the earth's surface. In Virginia, at
the Whitehall mine, seven men in
seven days washed out of gravel pit
thirty feet square Sls7, 900 in gold. In
the mountains miners received So per
day and wood is s. per cord. In Vir-
gina wages are 81 per day and wood
81. % per cord. 1t costs just as much