The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1895-05-31
soUND.MoNEY RESOLUTIONS.
THE PLATFORM ADOPTED BY THE MEM
PHIs CONVENTION.
MEMPHIS. Tenn, May 20.

man oil the committee, submitted TIC
following platform resolutions
The people of the Southern States
believe the maintenance of sound
and stable currency to be essential to
the prosperity of the whole country
and the welfare of the people in all
the vocations OF life, do, through their
representatives in convention assem-
bled at Memphis, on May a5, 1895,
make the following declaration of their
matured convictions
1. Believing uniform and certain
standard of value necessary to the
agricultural, commercial and indus
trial development and prosperity of
our common country, we favor the
maintenance of all our money, whether
gold, silver or paper, on parity, to
the end that each dollar, whatever
may be its composition, shall have
equal purchasing and debt,paying
power with every other dollar.
2. Prohting by the experience Of
Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton
and the teachings of the great students
of monetary science from the time
when John Locke wrote, to the dis
cussion of the present day, we accept
the truth of the principle, now univer-
sally recognized and applied in the
commercial world, that the bimetallic
standard cannot be maintained where
the ratio fixed by law for the free
coinage of gold and silver does not
correspond with the market ratio of
the two metals and that wherever
and whenever the legal or coinage
ratio varies from the market or com.
mercial ratio to any appreciable extent
the dollar, whether of gold or silver
(Which thereby becomes more valuable
as bullion than as money, will go 10
premium and retire from circulation.
We saw this principle applied in our
own national experience, when under
the act Of 1892, which fixed the
coinage ratio at IS to I, gold retired
from circulation because of slight
decline in the price of silver in the
open market, whereby the bullion in a
gold dollar became worth few cents
more than the bullion in silver dollar,
and was therefore sold as a commodity
because it was worth more as bullion
than as money, and again under the
act of 1854, which fixed the ratio at
I6 to /, when the silver coin retired
for like reason. We are, therefore,
opposed to the free, unlimited and
independent coinage of silver at the
ratio of Io to I when the market or
commercial ratio is more than 30 to
I, and the difference between the
bullion value of a gold and a silver
dollar is about 50 cents, on the ground
that such action, instead of restoring
the bimetallic standard, would inevita-
bly, result in silver monometallism.
3. AT this time there is no country
IN the world which maintains the bi-
metallic standard, and neither is there
any country where the free Coinage of
silver obtains which is not on silver
basis Each country on account Of
Its inability to adopt independently
any bimetallic standard must elect for
itself which it prefers, the gold or the
silver standard. We, therefore, favor,
In the absence of international CO.
operation, the retention and mainte-
rance of the existing gold standard,
because change from the gold to the
silver standard would have the effect
to repudiate all public and private oh
legations to the extent of the difference
between the bullion value of the gold
and silver dollars; because whenever
such change should be seriously threat.
ened it would cause an immediate
attempt at a collection and liquidation
of all debts in anticipation of the
result it would produce; because such
transition from the gold to the silver
basis would destroy public and private
confidence and would involve the
country in such panic, confusion and
distress that the products of agricult-
ure and the wages Of labor would be
unremunerative the business of com
merce would become Improbable and
our people engaged in industrial oc
cupations would be thrown out OF
employment because there is not a
progressive and enlightened country
in the world which has not elected
gold as the preferable standard +;
because gold,standard countries retain
silver in their circulation on a parity
with gold, whereas there is no silver
standard country which does or can
utilize gold as money, because there
is not silver country on the globe
where the wages of labor are sufficient
to sustain the working classes in com.
fort and independence and final y
because the high destiny of the United
States demand for the use of the
American people that money which
experience has taught mankind to be
the best suited for the promotion of
commerce. the develonment of mann