The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-06-13

New Orleans. Had the opposition to the coin
age of dollars In two metals and the prefer
ence for one metal over the other been of
American origin the one metal chosen would
inevitably have been silver, because in fact the
silver dollar was worth 3 per cent more than
the gold one and because the bondholders who
notoriously promoted and supported the legis-
lation oil 1871 would not more have preferred
a gold dollar than they would a silver dollar
now.
But in France, indeed in Europe generally,
whose minis and markets commonly followed
the vast coinages of France, the gold and silver
coins of like denomination were of precisely
equal value. Hence to the European holder of
an American bond in 1863-64 it made no diff
ference whether he was paid in gold or silver
coin, provided-and this was the point essen
TALLY impor tant to his interest or cupidity-
provided that the debtor was deprived of the
option of paying in coins of the other metal.
The preference of gold was certainly not
American, because at the American mints
ratio gold dollars when melted down were
only worth 81 cents. 1t was therefore Euro
pean. We shall presently see why these
cheaper dollars were preferred to silver ones.
Under the Code Napoleon it was explicitly
set down that all debts, taxes and contracts for
sums of money, no matter in what other terms
expressed, were legally and equitably dis
cDdTS6dDle III Tie current money OF ike de-
nominations upon the day of payment. This
principle came down from the Roman COM
monwealth; it was reserved by Paulus in the
digest; it was upheld by all the Consuls of the
empire and OF the various provinces and king
doms into which the empire was afterward
split; it was supported with great emphasis
and erudition by Sir Matthew Hale in the cele-
brated case OF mixed moneys, and it was main
tanned by the United States Supreme Court in
no 1yh cd; tad NV,
Chief Justice Chase and full bench
At the time when the necessities of our
Government compelled it to issue hundreds,
nay almost thousands of millions of 6 per cent
and per cent bonds, with interest payable in
coin, the French Court of Cessation promul-
gated a decision in perfect accordance not
only with the entire range of legal authority,
but also with the Code Napoleon, to the effect
that on this subject no man could contract
himself outside of the law; in short, that con-
tracts for money were equitable dischargeable
in the current money of the day of payment
This decision alarmed the European holders
of American bonds. What might not these
progressive Americans do with respect to the
interest on these bonds which were payable in
coin? Perhaps they would strike coins of de-
based gold, like the ancient Athenians; or of
pewter and gun metal, like the princes of the
House of Stuart; of plated brass, like the
petty lords of then distracted Germany. Would
they not be justified by law, by history, by
authority, by precedent, by the decision so
recently rendered in the French Court of Cas-
sation? Most assuredly.
There was but one way to avert such calam-
ity-to demonetize one of the precious metals
and fix the standard of the other. But which
metal should be demonetiZed? Gold? Oh no.
The American Government would never con-
sent to that, because it would oblige them to
pay in silver dollars, which, under the opera
| ton of their own laws, as influenced by our
law, are worth per cent more than gold ones
Therefore let US endeavor to demonetize silver
To us it makes no difference. To the Ameri-
cans it is a gain of per cent. Let us bride
them with the 3 per cent to surrender their
option of the metals Ali doubt as to the kind
of payment being removed, our American
bonds purchased at 40 cents will rise to par
and over. A la mort Pargent
At that time there were 81 600, OOO, O0O to
81 500, 100000 worth of American bonds in
Europe or held on European account The in
ceptors OF this project, which soon developed
into an active intrigue, therefore stood to win
from 5000. 600 900 to 81 900 900 900. Such
were the circumstances that gave birth to the
resolutions adopted by the Latin Monetary
Union of 1865.
The original proposition emanated from Bel
GUM. 1t was grated upon that Governments
movement for the utilization of weights and
measures, the dissemination of the metrical
and decimal systems and other "fads" which
were urged throughout Europe by numerous
societies with respectable and influential fol-
lowings. These people were like the fat sheep
which one sometimes sees marketed for
slaughter. Their single function in life is to
look plump and wait for the butcher The
butcher is usually the practical politician. In
this case it was the financier. But these are
details which to-day we have no time to enter
upon.
The Monetary Union of 1865 was the be-
ginning of that scheme of reckless cupidity
and dark intrigue which In the course of a few
years destroyed one-half of the metallic basis
of money, plunged the commercial world into
bankruptcy and pledged it to conditions COM
mercially impossible to fulfill and especially
dangerous to endure. These conditions menace
the peace of the world l do not ask for yenge-
ance, but for justice. Let the .fundholder be
paid in gold. He is not the same one who
duped and betrayed us in 1868 and 1873, but
his assignee, an innocent third party, upon
whose title there is no stain of fraud
Let him be paid in gold, and in gold only.
So far es the present fundholders are con-
cerned the mischief is done and it cannot be
equitably repaired. But as for posteritv, whose
affairs we are pinning down to the capricious
and inadequate limits OF single metal as for
the future stability of contracts, which twenty
HVe years OI cataStropnlc6l experience should
convince us cannot be secured by means of
gold money, / say, let us at once restore the
ancient law.
From 1865 to 1870 the fund-holding syndi-
cate, with whom it is now quite evident this
intrigue originated, was incessant in its oper-
ations. Numerous conventions under its pat
ronage were held in France, Belgium and Ger
many. Its influence is plainly discernible in
| the treaeherous detection of certain party lead
ers during the American Presidential election
of 1868 in the gratuitous credit strengthening
and the appropriation clause of Boutwelps
needless 81 500, 900 funding bill, and es-
pecially in that surreptitious and scandalous
alteration of the British mint code, which
furnished the example precedent and the JUS
LITIGATION for the analogous alteration of our
mint code, namely, the alteration which de-
monetized silver and threw the commercial
world into bankruptcy.
1t is to the circumstances connected with
the alteration of the British mint code that I
now ask your especial attention The mint
law of 1916, section 9, the law which closed
the British minis to the private and unlimited
coinage of silver, while it opened them to the
private and unlimited cOinape Of GOLD loft -