The Ely miner., 1895-07-24

legal tender for debts or anything
and Yet they are taken as readily as
any OF our money, because the peo-
| pie have confidence in them and know
they are good. He would not dispute the fact
that the government should regulate money.
The first law ever passed in the United States
on the subject OF money was when
congress July 8, 1885, directed
that the money unit should be one
dollar, and that smallest coin should be Of
copper, of which 200 pieces should pass for one
dollar. That congress did not state at all
what the dollar should consist of except that
200 copper half cents should be dollar, and
that was the first unit of measure that con-
gress established-200 half cent coppers. That
| is all the law there has ever been on the SUBJ
iect and all that has ever been said about it
anywhere. So we had first the money Of
the daddies" of copper.
Mr.. Harvey in reply said that what Mr.
| Horr had said about copper being used as
money during the continental days preceding
the adoption of the constitutions is too trivial
to be used in this argument He quoted the
| action Of the constitutional conventions at the
end of the colonial days in the adoption of Sec
| tion 10 which says: mo state shall coin mon
ey or make anything but gold and silver coin
tender in payment Of debts" It says gold
and silver, not gold or silver This is
the constitution. 1t took away from the
states the power to coin money or
to make anything tender in payment Of debts
| except those two metals. 1t is reserved to con-
gress the exclusive right to coin money. The
states were to have these two metals for legal
tender money, but congress would coin it for
them. Copper other metals could be
coined into money by congress, but the states
could not make them legal tender Congress
in good faith with the states has no more right
| to demonetiZe one of these metals than it has
to demonetiZe both of them without the consent
of the states. There was no discrimination
made in the use of the two metals except that
the unit of value to reside in the silver
dollar and that gold coins were to be of the
value of so many silver dollars This is the
exact language of the statute of the men who
framed the constitution and knew the con-
struction that it was intended that it should
have"
Both gentlemen discussed at great length
the orga mi iZation of monetary system, estab-
lishment of mints, ETC., by the statesmen of
early days, and finally Mr.. Harvey after quot
ing extensively from the ideas set forth by
Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson
claimed that Jeffersons recommendation that
the unit or dollar should contain 81 416 grains
of pure or 416 grains of standard silver
was adopted, the statute so reads and the gold
coins valued in that silver unit, and Ham
ilton's suggestion for two units. gold unit
and silver unit. was not accepted by congress
and only silver unit was provided for in the
act of 1892
Mr. Horr conceded that there was doubt
but that congress in 1872 established unit Of
value and fixed it in silver at 3714 grains pure
silver, but what they also did was to attempt
to esta abliSh bimetallism. They aimed to fix
it so that we would use both measures of value
and both coins as money. He then read a letter
from Jefferson to Hamilton in which the for
mer said he thought the unit should stand on
both metals, and the two statesmen finally
agreed that the exact ratio between the two
metals thould be Is to 1. We did have the sill
yer standard in this country up to 1884 In 1888
new ratio fixed, the gold unit
that is the eagle-was reduced After that
gold commenced to circulate and we lost our
silver, and the people of this country, when
they talked about dollar after that, always
meant gold dollar; they never meant silver
dollar.
Wednesday.
CHICAGO, July 19-The second session Of the
Horr- Harvey silver debate began at 2 o'clock
p. M Wednesday in the auditorium of the
Illinois club before the same limited audience.
Mr.. Horr began by quoting Hailam's
fallacy of Mr. Hlrvey's statements in his book
regarding the degeneracy of the world COM
mercially in the fifteenth century a result
of the depreciation of silver. He cited from
Prof James E. Thorod Rogers to re-
flute the statement made by Mr.. Harvey
| from his book that the price of wheat
had fallen in that period and that the lot