Birmingham age-herald., 1895-04-21

and abetted in this process of dissertation by the holders of silver themselves, who have always furnished the number of ounces of silver required to procure the ounce of gold. Under these changed con- ditions the free and unlimited coinage of silver becomes quite a different question and Senator PuGh, while maintaining his consistency in name, has evidently changed quite radically in principle. Many of us in Alabama. Senator Pugh among the number, I believe, favor the construction of the Nicaragua canal, but of the sacred white metal make a short country is subject were to make it's con- struction impossible or were to cut natural ship canal through the country, none of us, I apprehend, would claim the jewel of consistency by continuing to ad vocate the construction of the present proposed canal
 This reference of Senator Pugh to his free coinage record and the implied in- ference that his position has been pecu- liarly and exclusively democratic, and the frequent and unblushing assertions of democratic free-coinage advocates generally that the democratic party has always been the exclusive patron saint review of the coinage history of the United States proper. From the founda- tion of the government in 17S9 to 1861, the democratic party had almost uninter- rupted control of the administration of affairs, and if it ever showed any marked infatuation for silver it must have been during that time.
 Prior to 1792 there was no authority for any coinage by the United States. By the act of April ?, 1792 the coinage of gold and silver was authorized at a ratio of about 151a to 1, making all gold coins and silver dollars only full le- gal tender By this act of June'2S, 1884, this ratio was chaned to about 16 to l, The mint began operation in 1793, and from that time to 1906 there was coined 1.4S9, 517 silver dollars. There was then no more silver offered at the mint until 1836 when 1000 silver dollars were coined and in 1899 300 more. In 1S40 silver be- gan to come actively into the mint and was coined without interruption until 1873, but up to 1873 the United States had coined less than S.000000 silver dollars,
 The ratios adopted, as above described, proved after 1S0e to be too high, and the holders of silver bullion did not find it profitable to have it coined.
 It will thus be seen that from 1906 to lS40 the democratic party, controlling the gov ernment almost without interruption, kept silver from the hints by the ratio 1t had fixed. It is manifest, then, that during that period the democratic party did not display any marked 1nfatuation for silver and that silver was not. as has been so often asserted, the money of the people. In fact, from 1793 to 1873 the date of the great and still unavenged crime, the gruesome details of which we hear so movingly recited whenever two or three populists gather themselves to- gether, the United States coined about 5000 900, ,000 dollars in gold and something less than 5000, 900 in silver dollars. Since the perpetration of the great crime to which have alluded it has increased it's gold coinage to about 1,600, 100000 dol lars. and the coinage of it's sill yer dollars of full legal ten
 der quality to about 300, 900, 900. Tn other words, of all the coinage of gold by the United States one-third was T T the silver dollars coined one-sixteenth was prior to that tragedy. The democrat ic party has always regarded both gold and silver as means and not as an end.i Whenever the parity of it's moneys could be maintained with the free coinage of both it has favored that course, and when that parity has been threatened by free coinage of silver it has opposed it. It has al- ways been the party of the people. It has favored economical and honest ex- penditure of the public moneys. It has opposed a system of taxation by which the earnings of labor have been exacted to swell the holdings of the rich, but perhaps the brightest jewel in its crown is that it has always favored honest money. It has never been willing for the government to isue a debased dollar with which the wages of labor could be paid and the poor and ignorant be jug gled out Of their earnings.
 Senator Pugh complains that certain reckless persons accuse him and those of his cult of being enemies to the party. I would not repeat that accusation. The services of the senator and many of his associates to their party have been too long and conspicuous to allow any such suspicion, but so long as they continue their efforts to lead the party into pol icy which evidently, as it appears to me, must eventually be repudiated by the American people the suspicion must sug- gest itself that they are that character of friends to the party for deliverance from whom the prudent man Is accus- toned to pray. Respectfully,
 SAM'L A. PUTNAM.
 Washington, April IT, 1895.