The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-04-15
SOUND MONEY SPEECH
INTERNATIONAL BIMETALLIsM THE
TRUE WAY TO RESTORE SILVER.
Charles Emory Smith Points Ont the
Dangers of Free Coinage-Its ADJ
vocatcs Not Friends of silver.

| cred a speech on the financial question in
| the Pennsylvania House of Representatives
| last Wednesday, which is so strong plea
| for sound money and refuteS SO clearly the
| fallacies of the free-coinage advocates that
| parts of it are here reproduced. After
briefly defining the issue Mr.. Smith said:
Now, first of ALL is it true that we have
suffered such inealcuIable woes since 1873 !?
L leave out of this discussion the past two
years. So far as our own country is con-
cerned these two years. with a new ad-
ninistration and a changed economic pol
icy, involve different conditions and ques-
tons. But is it true. that prior to that
change we were in such unhappy state?
How was 1t for twenty years before 1879
end twenty years after? From 1850 to 1910
we o adyanced in ma natio tic wealth from 81
yanced from $50 ooo, coo, 900 to $50 goo, 900.
growth of more than double so great a
hardship? Protectionists have constantly
1893 constituted the most prosperous period
in the history of the country. Are some
of them prepared to recant and deny that
truth for the sake of bolstering up a mis-,
directed argument for free and unlimited
silver?
Ii is not to be disputed that there has
been a decline of prices since 1873. Nor
can we resist the conclusion that the
worlds restricted use Of Of, silver has 5. o p
of prices The just and rational view is
that the fall is due in part to the interna-
in part to cheapened cost of production and
cheapened interchange. 1t has been partly
Sa snd ang Taaes the
has seen rising wages. The purchasing
power of wages is 50 per cent. greater than
it was in 1870 If the productive force OF
the country has suffered some astringency
or failed of its full development the re-
wards of labor measured in the cost of liv-
ing have never been so high. The farmer
has seen the prices of his wheat dropping
he of IA
it is the competition of India and Argen-
tina. Twenty years ago 1t cost q cents a
bushel to transport wheat from Chicago TO
New York To-day 1t costs 10 cents TO
carry it from Chicago to Liverpool; twenty
Kansas and the Dakotas was only 2O,OOOoOo
bushels, and India and Argentina were not
factors in the worlds markets. To-day
the average crop of these four Western
States, to say nothing of others. has in
creased eight fold, and India and Argentina
are supplying from half to two-thirds as
much wheat to the markets of the world
as we are. It is cheap land, cheap trans
portation and chear labor in competition 9p sas,a
prices, and he would find remedy in the
free coinage of silver, which would enhance
him exposed to the same deadly competition
in the markets of the world. His interest
lies not in going down to the silver level
but in lifting silver up to the normal level.
Granting. for the sake of the argument
that we have suffered all the ills SO darkly
pictured by the free-coinage advocate, is it
Of silver? Is 1t true that since 1873 We have
point i in the argument Of the free-coinage
act Of 1873. He iuridiy describes it as the
greatest crime in our financial history ana
arragns i as navng n on n a fafbers
Now. what are the facts? The whole
Der of silver dollars coined In the United
i7s2. down to 1873 was only S045. S3S. and for
more than twenty-five years preceding 1873
do not stop to give the explanation, which
i well understood by al students 1eoo Oh me
the Bland-Allison act, we coined 421,T76. 40S
silver dollars, and under the sherman act of
bullion represented by s155. 931 0O2 in silver
certificates, making, altogether. $oI7,1O7 -4lo o.
silver coinage OF. purchase IN hfteen years.
IMAGINARY WOES.
In other words in a single year. since
1873, the government of the United States
has done six times as much for the silver
dollar as in all the eighty odd years before
that dividing line, and altogether within
this period during which silver is repre-
sented' as prescribed the government has
coined or provided for seventy-two times as
many silver dollars in its entire previous
history. And yet the free-coinage advocates
first draw on their imagination for evils
which are largely spectral apd then draw on
their misinformation for an explanation by
charging them to an alleged demonetlzatlon
of silver under which silver has been nursed
and coddled so UNNECESSARILY beyond what
clare the law treated it as full legal-tepder
explain them by fictitious conditions. They
are much in the position OF Hoods cnardc-
ter who
Seemed washing his hands with invisible
soap
In imperceptible water.
Their argument breaks down right here
n
to have demonetized silver. Grant that there
were rising prices before ana falling prices
ted to our alleged outlawry Of silver, when,
for quarter of a century before the cnange
we had no silver dollars in circulation and
when shortly afterwards we entered upon
the coinage of over 40o.0C0, 600 The silver
not exist in fact, and law which was not
operative had no influence whatever on
to deal with broader causes and influences;
but If the argument, as applied by the free
coinage advocates to our country country s a,one'
for it has been during the period of falling
prices that we have done most for the white
treated as the silver interest has been by
our government during the past twenty
Years. No measure of protection or foster
Ing care extended to any other. interest has
begun to approach the extraordinary degree
mandous effort to support and uphold it.
Since 1878 the price of silver has fallen from
$3.50 TO so cents an ounce, The pui, as vaiue
than so cents. Yet, during this time, we
have purchased and coined nearly $600.o00C COO.
we have given it market in the treasury
when every door of Europe was closed
against it, We have gone on buying II,
though the bullion value of the silver we
hold is worth at least $780, 900 less than we
Maid for it. We have not only bought TINS
enormous quantity of deprecated silver. but
have given ii to the people in circulation
and for circulation purposes have held 1t at
mar with gold. notwithstanding its CONNER
cial decline We have pledged the pubic
credit: we have maintained redemption and
exchangeability; we have risked the grav-
oct dangers to maintain it's parity so that
avery dollar of the people should be as
oood as every other dollar. And yet we are
fold that we have done nothing for silver.
WHAT FREE COINAGE MEANS.
After treating at some length on the eff
feet of the silver standard, he says: Do
vo,, realize what free coinage by the United
states alone involves? 1t involves one of
two things-either the lifting up Of the en-
fire volume of silver in the world to the
standard of gold or else the dragging down
OF the United States to the single stand
ard of silver. There is no possible escape
from one horn the other of this diem
ma. The visible stock of silver in the
world is about $4.00O.o00oo0. Europe has
over 81 600, 600. The product of the
United Statbs in 1893 was 60000.00o ounces
The annual product of the world mas grown
..xc4 Crrttf hat