Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1895-05-29
Business, not Politics.

We concur with the Norfolk Land
mark in it's statement that the finan-
cial system of the United States and
the management of the Treasury
should be entirely free from politics.
1t should be strictly business. Business
principles should govern entirely, for
the Government Treasury is nothing
but great department of great bust
ness house or company. The share
holders in the Government are the tax
payers and the hive of workmen who
make up the population, which de-
ponds upon the faithful performance
of duty by the agents who manage the
business, for proper and safe admins
tration.
In discussing the question of coinage
men should get down as near to the
simple common sense of the thing as it
is possible to do. We must all agree
to one thing, and that is we want hon
est money, sound money. There is no
use arguing with a man who does not
admit this proposition. Nobody wishes
to have the Government handle, or to
handle himself, bogus money, or half
value money. Just enough honest
money, gold and silver coin of proper
weight to make it fill the recognized
value of dollar, to meet the demands
of trade. That is the basis. That is
the principle.
AS was recalled Thursday by Secre-
tary Hoke Smith in an interview; when
our system of bi-metallic coinage was
adopted in 1899, Mr.. Jefferson and Mr..
Hamilton agreed that it was necessary
to inquire in regard to the market price
of gold and silver in the several coun
tries with which we were connected in
commerce, and that the ratio between
the two metals must be fixed by the
mercantile value of bullion in these
countries.
These two statesmen represented diff
ferent schools of politics. but they
agreed upon the business matter of es-
tablishing a system of coinage. There
was no politics in that. Mr.. Hamilton,
the federalist, and Mr.. Jefferson, the
democrat, were controlled by the same
motives and principles when they came
to consider sound money for their Gov
eminent. If they were here to- day they
would be pursuing the same line of
thought and action in respect to this
subject. "It is in support of this prin-
ple," says Secretary Smith, "that we
attack proposed system of unlimited
coinage of both metals by ratio be-
tween the two, fixed at fifty cents
worth of one and one hundred cents
worth of the other What would the
silver men say if we offered them free
coinage of gold and silver at ratio of
to GA, which would require the silver
put into dollar to be worth as much
as the gold put into it {? 1t is this same
principle reversed that we attack"
Inverting the proposition: Suppose
the government should pass law re-
qniring that all silver and gold pieces
of coin should he cut in two and each
half should then be equal to their pres
ent value of the whole piece and be
legal tender for all debts public and
private; would not that be the same as
unlimited free coinage of short weight
coins with legal tender quality? That
would be an imitation of currency by
one hundred per cent, but would it
help to make those who are without
money or coin to split any better off &?
We think not.
Pursuing the subject still farther the
Secretary of the Interior adds, for the
sound money advocates
knowing the conditions in the South and
Southwest as do. l am confident that we can
make the issue squarely there on the Question
of the unlimited free coinage of silver at the
ratio of 16 to l. In other words, the coming
fight is going to be simply between good dol
lar and bad dollar. Anybody who proposes
to make dollars out of silver which will not be
everywhere as good as dollars made out of
gold. is in favor of bad dollar; and it must
be perfectly plain that until the great CONNER
cial nations unite in such recognition of silver
as coin metal as will create demand for it
which does not now, the present ratio is false
and misleading. If, by an international agree
ment, such demand were created, the famil-
lar economic law of demand and supply would
come into play, and the valne of silver would
rise accordingly; and if the demand were suf-
ficient, all our dollars would become of equal
value intrinscally in all the markets of the
world