Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1895-07-03
The Fahacies Of Free siIrer

What does unlimited coinage of gold
and silver mean? 1t means that by law
the United States Treasury shall coin into
dollars all the gold and silver brought to
it. But this is not enough. You must
vote the coinage at the ratio of 16 to 1.
This means that for every 292 grains of
gold that you bring to the Treasury the
government is forced to give you back
one gold dollar, and for every 371f
grains of silver you bring it must give
you back one silver dollar. But SIT
grains of silver, uncoined, will buy only
about 1913 grains of gold, uDcOined,
whereas at the present day silver dollar
buys a gold dollar any where.
As soon as the silverites have gotten
the 16 to 1 forced coinage laws passed
just take lump of silver, say 971i
grains, to the Treasury and receive back
one silver dollar for it. Now 60 TO the
banker or the money broker and get one
gold dollar for your silver dollar. For
the gold in your gold dollar any mine
owner, money broker or jeweler will give
you 742l grains of silver. Again take
this silver to the Treasury and you get
two silver dollars for it. Again go TO the
broker and get two gold dollars. Again
go the mine owner and get l, ,4S5 grains of
silver. Now go on to the Treasury and
get four silver dollars. By repeating the
process often enough you can become as
wealthy as you please.
But if everybody tries to get 742!
grains of raw silver for one gold dollar,
what will be the result? The whole coun-
try wants to get gold dollars with which
to buy silver. Every man, woman aud
child goes around trying to exchange one
silver dollar for one gold dollar. The
poor man must pay out his dollars Of all
kinds for food the corporations pay out
the silver ones and keep the gold. The
result is that gold disappears it is ship
ped to other countries to buy silver or TO
buY goods to be sold for silver. In for
eign countries you can buy Gas soon as
the United States coins unlimited silver
at 16 to y twice as much for gold dol
lar as for silver dollar
Here's another way to become rich
Send your gold dollars as bullion to Eu-
rope to buy goods and then sell them for
twice as many silver dollars at home, for
which you can get an equal number OF
gold dollars at the Treasury.
If everybody can get silver coined into
twice what It is worth, will anybody bring
gold to be coined ? All the gold in the
Treasury will be pumped out, melted
down and sent to Europe. Fiat silver
that is, unlimited coinage at 16 to lis
circulating gold pump. Nothing but
silver comes in, and our money system
becomes a silver monometallism.
These silverites are made up of two
classes. First, men who have silver to
sell and want to create market for it at
a price far in excess of what il is actually
worth. And, second, those who have
contracted obligations upon the gold ba-
sis and who want an opportunity to liqui-
date them on the basis of deprecated
silver currency, and thus cheat their
creditors out Of 80 per cent. of ell they
owe. If they were bimetallists, in the
proper sense of that word, if they desired
to secure the coequal and coiucident use
of both metals IN our money, then they
would not ask for a coinage on the ratio
of sixteen to one, but rather on ratio of
thirty.two to one, which is about what
would be needed in order to secure that
kind of bimetallism.-Prof. Parish IN
Ne,c York World.