The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1895-06-05
Senator Sherman on the Currency.

On this subject the great Buckeye
senator speaks with the voice of mas
ter, and throughout the land men listen
to his words and accept his dictum. In
his speech at the Ohio state convention
last week, the senator said on this mat
ter OF vital and engrossing interest:
we are in favor of sound national cur
rency always redeemable in coin. All forms
OF money should be of equal purchasing
power For fourteen years after the resump-
ton of specie payments, while the republican
party was in power, we had such currency.
We had gold, silver and paper money, all
bearing the stamp and sanction of the United
States, OF unquestionable credit and of equal
value, passing current, not only with the
United States, but in all parts Of the COM
mercial world.
both gold and silver are indispensable for
use in the varied wants of mankind. Gold
is now and has been for ages the chief
measure of value in international COM
merce and the larger transactions OF domes-
tic exchanges. Silver, from its bulk and
weight, is not available for large payments
either at home or abroad, but it is indis-
pensable in thel minor wants Of mankind.
Gold, from its greatly superior value, can
not be utilized for such purposes. There.
fore it is that both metals have been coined
into money at fixed ratio. The enormous
increase of the production OF silver in the
United States, Mexico and Australia has
disturbed this ratio and has lowered the
market value OF silver precisely as a like
increase OF production has lowered the
price of other commodities. 1t is a uni
versal law that price or value is measured
by quantity. Under these conditions the ra-
tional and proper course would be change
of ratio, but this can only be effective as to
these two metals by concert of action
among commercial nations. Until this can
be accomplished the only logical way is for
each nation to coin both metals and main
tain the coinage OF the cheaper metal at par
by limitation OF amount and redemption
when in excess OF this demand for it. Such
is now the policy OF the United States, and
OF every great commercial nation, including
every country in Europe. Other nations
adopt the silver standard alone, not from
choice, but from poverty. 1 believe that the
policy OF the United StstesIadopted in 1858,
OF coming fractional silver coins in limited
quantities from silver bullion purchased at
market price and making them a legal ten
der for small sums, is the only way to pre-
serve the parity OF gold and silver coins at
fixed ratio. This is properly called BIZ
metallic money. / hope and believe that
the common interests OF commercial ma
tions will lead them, through an interna-
tional commission, to either adopt new
ratio based on market value OF the metals or
their present ratio.
1.-THE policy now urged by the producers
OF silver, and by men who wish to pay their
debts in cheaper money than they promised
to pay, is the free coinage of silver. This
means the single standard of silver and the
demonstration Of gold. This is the mono
metallic system. 1t is the degradation of
one dollar to fifty cents II applied to our
national bonds, 1t is Reputation of one.
half Of the public debt. 1t is the repudia.
don. ut -Inh -
favor on producers of any kind, whether of
the farm, the workshop or the mine, for il
they get nominally more dollars for their pro-
ductions, their additional dollars would have
only one,half the purchasing powers OF the
gold dollars. The great hardship of this
policy would fall upon workingmen, skilled
or unskilled, whose daily wage measured
by the present standard is higher than in
any country In the world. Their wages
will purchase more Of the necessaries of