Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1895-03-27
COmnOSed of FaISitY.

tCoin' Financial School" the little
book dealing with the money ques-
ton which is now being so extensive
ly read, is severely handled by The
Chicago Tribune in recent article,
which exposes it's sophistry and gives
some pointers to it's readers. The
Tribune says:
The free silver extremists are trying to
warp public sentiment and personal honesty
by circulating pamphlet incorporating
the opinions of several prominent citizens Of
Chicago; attributing to them statements
they never uttered and never would make
unless at some time in the future they should
be afflicted With pareSls. The author OF the
fake publication has stopped to this diShOn-
Orable course in the hope of perverting the
minds Of the people, SO that they will believe
the other rank falsehOOds which are thickIy
strewn through his pages and accept for a
working maxim the theory Of the arrant
ScOundrel that dishonesty is the best policy.
On page IL Of his diSreputable Screed the
author tries to make it out that it was
the intention Of congress in 1892, to have the
quantity OF gold in a gold dollar regulated
from time 10 time by the varying value Of
silver; this in spite of the fact that the law of
April 2, 1892, specified the number of grains
OF gold that must be contained by the gold
coins, as well as the weight of the silver
coinage. He makes his mythical cub,
Com, talk as if be thought congress then
exhausted its power and broke the mold.
Surely it has been proved time and again
since then that congress has the power to
make new laws regulating the coinage.
There is absolutely no proof of such in
tentiOn, and il there were it would amount
to nothing as a guarantee against change at
some future time. Since 1892 there have been
enormous quantities of geld mined in Cal
ifOrna, Australia, South Africa, and else
where, and as the yellow metal became more
plentiful nations
world recognized it as the most suitable
metal for monetary standard. For that
reason they have adopted gold for their
several monetary units. and most of them
have done SO since 1870. These nations re-
tain for popular convenience IN small trans
actions q vast aggregate Of silver money at
its old value, although that is fully twice the
intrinsic value of the silver coins to-day.
On page an effort is made to deal with the
fact that the author deltied equivalent of
the Spanish dollar OF 1882 never circulated in
the United States till after 1878 and that only
about eight millions OF these dollars were
coined in the eighty years preceding the
latter date. He dragS in the fractional silver
coins, but Omits to state that most of these
were exported until the weight was reduced
by the act of February p, 1858 He has some
thing to say about the circulation Of foreign
SILVER coins in the United States, and to be
consistent he should complain of the awful
crime committed by congress when it de
mOnetized" them in February, 1857, but has
nothing 10 say on this point. Yet it should
be just as wicked to Kill off the legaliZed dol
lar of Mexico, Peru and Bolivia as to cease
the coinage of pieces equivalent to the
Spanish mined dollar when the conditions
render it advisable to do so.
The teacher in this crank's financial school
assumes as granted the Populist assertion
that the purpose a ld intent Of honest men
is to discontinue the use OF silver as money.
In fact the pamphlet seems to assert in more
than one place that this already has been
done, that silver has been abolished in this
country, and that its writer and others of
his kidney are struggling to get little Of the
white metal into circulation before they die,
so that the people may not StarVe for want
OF an occasional glimpse at a silver coin.
He also has the hardihOod to claim that he
and his tribe are "bimetal'st SITS He cOolly
sets it down as taken for granted that free
silver dollars, the bullion value of each or
which is less than 80 cents, and gold dollars
intrnsically worth 100 cents each would in
terchangeably circulate in business, in the
markets, and debt paying side by side that
people would pay OutgOld coins in liquidatng
debts as freely as they would pay out silver
dollars having but half the buying power of
the gold.
There is no more warrant for these as
sumptions than for the lying statement that
several Of our level-hdaded, prominent
citizens have listened to the rot and have
been brought to believe it. But, it is true,
as claimed on the cover of the lying pam
phlet, that a paper published daily in this
city has published Endorsements of the rub
biSh in such way that some think the paper
is committed TO the nonsense falsely stated
to have been uttered in financial school,"
The man who lnt1lctS this tarragO OF dis
honest rubbish on the community does not
believe that gold and silver coins would Cir
culate side by side under the conditions de-
manded by him and the other silver cranks.
He expects that the buying power Of the
silver dollar would be reduced fully 30 per
cent. and that gold would refuse to keep it
company. Apparently he finds some readers
silly enough to believe that this. change
would bring plenty of money and other
marks Of good times" when the fact is it
would violently unsettle business and cramp
its operations because of the fact that a
small amount of money would be called on
to do the same total of work as now, and be
found inadequate thereto. This, in addition
to the vicious dishonesty of cheating all
public and private creditors out of 90 per
cent. of their just dues. the creditors in
Guiding all those of the wage-earners who
have put by little money in the savings
bank, loaned it out through building as
sociatOns or otherwise placed it where they
supposed it would earn them profit. If
these wage-earners would reflect that to-day
an ounce Of gold bullion will buy "a ounces
of silver bullion they ought to be able to see
the absurdity of the claim that free silver
fat by the United States alone could make
sixteen ounces of silver worth one ounce of
gold.