St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-03-23

ent time.
We have not been disposed to be
particularly proud of our house of
representatives, but its action of
yesterday will raise it several de-
grees in the public esteem.
SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED.
The correspondent to whom we re-
ferred the other day in an editorial
under the caption 1T Is Boom
erang," writes again saying that he
and many of his neighbors, Repub-
licans as we'll as Democrats, have
read a pamphlet being diligently
spread by the advocates of free coin
age called Coins Financial School"
and that he and they have been in
fluenced by it's adroit and attractive
reasoning. He expresses himself as
being anxious to be right on this i'm
portant question, and suggests that
no better service can be done than
an analysis of the work showing its
fallacies. From many other sources
we learn that this book is influence
ing the minds of men, and convert
ing them to a belief that free coin
age of silver at 16 to 1 is the only
panacea for the financial ills.
Any discussion of this question
must proceed on the assumption that
the parties to it are honest in their
beliefs and sincere in their conVlc-
lions as well as sure of their facts.
While we know that the real inter-
ests back of the movement are pure
ly selfish, desire of the silver pro-
ducerS to have the value of their
product restored to it's former place,
we are confident that the mass OF
those who have accepted their soph-
isms are honest and sincere in 1T.
To them we owe a similar honesty
and sincerity in any discussion OF
the question, and we shall give 1t
to them 'uninfluenced," word used
by our correspondent, which betrays
a suspicion having, we regret TO ao-
nit. too much ground, that neWSpa-
pers do not always thus discuss pub
lie matters.
Not now entering on discussion
of the phamplet to which our cor
respondent refers, we Will answer
some of his questions. Are you a
gold monometallist? he asks. have
we not been on a gold standard
since 1873? Can there be any BIZ
metallism that does not give Tree
coinage to both metals" These
questions do not go to the bottom oI
the matter, but have a bearing anu
deserve a frank answer. AS we
sense the term gold monometallism,
the exclusive coinage of gold, the de-
NAL of silver to coinage, save IN
subsidiary forms, such as our halVes
and quarters and dimes, we are
not. In the sense that gold IS the
standard which measures the Value
of every product, including Silver
and that, as such standard, 1t is
preferable to silver, we are a gold
monometallist. Nor are we alone IN
this, for the very men who demand
free coinage of silver at a ratio OF
sixteen to one admit that the silver
is measured by the gold, and that the
latter is sixteen times the more val
liable metal. The difference of op1n-
ion between us is that they insist
that gold is only sixteen times as
valuable, while we insist that, at
this writing, it is thirty-two times
as valuable.
We have made our position so
plain that repetition seems needless.
We still adhere to the plan suggested
by us in 1891, then approved by Mr..
Cleveland, and recently embodied
in part by Senator Jones in his bill
that had a majority in the senate.
Exchange at the minis standard dol
lars for silver bullion on the basis OF
the market value of the latter. Re-
tire treasury notes and silver GER
tificates equal to the dollars thus is
sued. Retain the "seigniorage," or
difference between the market and
coming value of the bullion in the
treasury as a fund to be used when
silver shall have attained and held
a steadiness of value which war
rants a recoinage, putting gold
dollars worth of silver in the stand
ard dollar.
We have been on a gold basis not
ony since 1873, but, strictly, since
1884, when the number of gold grains
in the gold coins was decreased for
the purpose of keeping our gold at
home. The effect was to undervalue
silver, making it worth more in the
markets than at the minis, and
driving it out of circulation. No
man whose memory goes back be-
fore the war can remember of seeing
a silver dollar of out mintage. Mex
lean and Spanish dollars and smaller
coins were all that we had until 1854,
when the halves, quarters and dimes
were debased for the sole purpose
of preventing their export or being
melted down. The silver producers
then avoided the minis as they now
seek them, because then silver was
worth more elsewhere, just as now
it is worth less.
There can be no bimetallism-ex-
cept on some such plan as that we
give above = with free coinage of
both metals. AS silver refused to go
to the minis when the ratio made it
the more valuable metal here, so
gold would refuse to go there to be
coined for use as a medium of ex-
change if silver were given free coin
age at anything but it's commercial
ratio. 1t might be coined for the
purpose of getting the certificate of
value the mint's die gives it, but it
would not be interchangeable with
silver.No manwould give ten gold dol
lars for ten silver dollars when the
metal in the gold coin was worth
twice that in the silver. With free
coinage at anV arhitrar1r nnd CT.