Mexico weekly ledger., 1895-08-15
JUDGE NORTON ON SILVER.
He Explains Thoroughly Why This
Country Should Not Adopt
Free Coinage.

nation like OURS, for upon it the pros
perity of all our people depends
There is q large class of persons who
are agitating the silver question, and
contend for the free and unlimited
coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to /,
although the commercial ratio is to-
day 80 to 1.
Their contention is that ssit is the
true policy of this country to give the
right to any person to deposit silver
of any kind at a mint of the United
States and have every 37114 grains
of pure silver NOW worth in it's I'M
coined sGate about 50 cents) stamped
free of charge "one dollar" which dol
lar shall be a legal tender rs its face
value in the payment of debts and
obligations of all kinds, public and
private, in the United States"
Our financial system is now on a
gold basis, and the free coinage OF
silver advocates propose to change
this and make the silver dollar the
standard, although the silver con
tanned in a dollar is only worth, com
m~ercially, about 50 cents, thus putting
this country on a silver basis.
While l favor the use of both gold
and silver as money SO long as the
silver dollar is maintained on q parity
with gold, I am uncompromisingly
Annnoa1 10 thu fpnn on1 unlinoifa
coinage of silver at the ratio of 1t to 1.
| oppose it because, if adopted, its
first effect would be, as admitted by
Mr.. Harvey, the author of "Coin's
Financial School," to drive gold out
of circulation, which would necessarily
result in a contraction of our cur-
rency to the extent of the gold coin
now in circulation, which amounts to
something over $500, OOO, 900, being
about one-third of our money now in
circulation, and reduce our per capita
circulation from S24 to $40.
If all the mints in the country were
put to work to supply this deficiency
by coming silver dollars, it would
take over 10 years to do it, as our
minis only have a coinage capacity of
$40, 00O, 600 q year. Such a contrae-
ton as the above in our volume of
money would necessarily and inevita-
bly, inaugurate a panic such as we
have never witnessed, destructive to
all manufacturing, agricultural and
Industrial pursuits, and from which it
would not recover for 20 years.
/ oppose it because it violates a
principle laid down by both Jefferson
and Hamilton in 1892. Mr.. Hamilton
in his report of the establishment OF
the mint said: 'nThere can hardly be
a better rule in any country for the
legal than the market proportion"
Mr.. Jefferson said: "Just principles
will lead us to disregard legal proper
tons altogether; to inquire into the
market price of gold in the several
countries with which we shall be
principally connected in commerce,
and take an average from them.
The proportion between the values of
gold and silver is a mercantile prob
lem altogether" The rule laid down
by these distinguished statesmen is
entirely ignored by the advocates of
free coinage, and, instead of taking
the commercial value of silver, which
is 80 to /, by which to fix the legal
ratio, they propose to fix arbitrarily
the legal ratio at 16 to l, and put in
the dollar silver, worth commercially
50 cents, and call it 100 cents.
While our country has been under
the gold standard for more than 20
years, seven times as much silver has
been coined during that period at our
mints, each dollar of which is equal
in debt paying power to the gold dol
lar, than was coined from 1892 to 1873,
at which later period, it is claimed,
silver was demonetized. Ninety one
out of every hundred silver dollars in
circulation to-day will be found to
have been coined since 1873, and to
be dated on their face since that
period, all of which, under existing
laws, are to be kept on a parity of
equal footing with gold. Let each
reader of this article examine the
dollars in his possession, or which
may come into his possession, for a
verification of the above statement,
and he will not be likely to find a
single dollar coined anterior to 1873.
1t is estimated that since 1878 we
have coined over four hundred mil
lions of silver and issued silver
certificates, which circulated as
money, and which being added to the
silver coined gives us a silver circula-
ton at the present time aggregating
six hundred millions, which gives us
a silver circulation six or seven times
greater than the entire circulation
and volume of silver money from
1892 to 1878, a period of 81 years in
our history. In view of this it cannot
be said that the necessity for the free
and unlimited coinage of silver arises
out of the scarcity of silver money.
While it would be a good thing for
the silver mine wne to have the
Government say to them: Bring
your silver, worth in the commercial
world So, cents to III mints and we
will coin it free of charge, and for
each 81 cents worth of silver we will
return you a dollar worth 100 cents"
we fail to see where the people would
be proited or the credit of the nation
sustained. This would be class legis-
lation, which the Democratic party
from the days of Jefferson to the
present time has always in its plat
forms condemned. Gold, as before
stated, has been our standard for 20
years, and those who favor the free
and unlimited coinage of silver pro-
pose to change this, and make silver,
instead of gold, the standard.
In am opposed to this change for the
reason that if made it would place us, 80
far as financial system is concern
ed, on the same basis of such coun-
tries as Mexico and China, in which
silver is the standard, and with which
our commercial relations are limited,
and i'm none of which gold ~circulates