The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-02-11
WHY "Co1No MEANS "GoLD.n

The Chicago Herald recently had an
editorial showing why the word coin"
in the resumption act means gold"
and why certain bonds of the United
States, under the law which author
lied their issue, must be redeemed in
gold.
This is siezed upon by our local
financial oracle, to bolster up it's nom
sensical theory that silver dollars are
not real money but only used in
business like the greenback." To do
of the Chicago Herald without touch
ing them and, of course, reaches the
place from which il started on it's cir
cular tour.
Here is what the Herald stated:
The word used in the law is COIN"
not gold" But, although the law
does not specify gold coin, it none the
less certainly means gold coin. AT the
time the law was enacted gold coin
was the only coin of unlimited legal
tender capacity. The coinage of silver
dollars was discontinued in 1873, and
the only authorized silver coins in 1875
when the resumption act was passed,
were fractionals, which we're then legal
tender to the amount Of s. only in any
one payment. 1t necessarily follows
that the secretary Of the treasury is
required to redeem greenbachs in gold
coin.
So much in relation to the green
back. Now in regard to bonds:
The resumption act also provides
that the bonds sold for the purposes of
the act shall be sold at not less than
par in COIN Coin means gold
here as elsewhere in the act, and for
the same reason. The secretary of the
treasury cannot sell the bonds at less
than par in gold coin. But he cannot
sell them at par in gold if there is a
serious doubt about their being pay
able in gold. Therefore he has right
to promise payment in gold. 1t may
become his duty to do so, for other
wise he may not be able to sell the
bonds as the law requires.
Observe, "at the time the law was
enacted" gold alone was legal tender
without limit. Three years after that
time the Bland-Allison act was passed,
which, as we have repeatedly shown,
authorizes once more the coinage of
it legal tender for all dues, public and
private, except when otherwise speci-
fed in the contract, and put it where
it was in 1897.
So the Chicago Herald did not state
anything which justified the inference
of our morning contemporary, but the
very contrary. It is not because the
word "coin' now necessarily means
gold" but because it meant that only
when the law concerning greenbacks
and bond redemption was passed, that
the treasury department. is in honor
and in law bound to construe the word
coin to mean gold" in the view of
the Chicago Herald
Thus the Tribune perverts the Ian
guage and arguments of it's opponents
on nearly every subject which it dis
cusses. 1t is seldom correct on a public
question and its reasoning is done in
a circle usually at a long distance
from the central point under. consider
alton.
Coin meant one thing in 1875; it has
meant two things since 1878. The Tri-
bune has had the demonetizing act of
1873 on the brain so long that it has
become with it sort of monomania
and the law of 1878 which remedied
some Of the evils Of the Republican
crime that has wrought SO much mis-
chief, is commonly ignored by our
contemporary in its one idea and its
single groove. Coin now means gold
and silver, and dollar in one is a
dollar in the other, money of the
United States, Interchangeable and a
legal tender, good for all money pur-
poses within the limits of the republic.