Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1895-07-12
Senator Morrill, on the Silver
Question.


prehensive article on the silver question,
which etiectually refutes the arguments of
! the frCe-conage advocates. The same
ground has been covered by Mr.. Morrill, in
/ his speeches in the Senate, but we think
| he has not before stated the sound-money
arguments in the more familiar form of a
newspaper article. After showing that
| Hamilton and Washington, at the birth of
the republic, after the war of the Revolu.
tion, solidly established the new nations
! financial reputation by funding and paying
| the public debt in coin equal to the best in
the world, the Senator brands as a gross
| falsehood the talk of tie demagogs about
"the crime of 1873 which demonetized sill
yer,' 50 far as this means that the United
States or the world has less silver than in
1873, or that our silver dollar was deprived
by the act of that year of a legal-tender
prerogatve lie then continues:
"The Republican party, as its action
conclusively shows, has not been unfriend-
| ly to silver Since 1873 the government
has purchased not less than 500, 600, 600
of silver, and has coined 420,O0O,O00 Of
silver dollars many times more than was
ever coined before. The party is not hos
tile to silver, but has reached the point, as
has France, beyond which it is dangerous
to 20 without the cooperation of other
leading commercial nations. 1t is fairly es-
timated that the United States now holds
one-eighth portion of all the silver i'm the
world; and yet our silver dollar, current
nowhere else, finds little hospitality at
home among its friends or opponents.
There is less than one dollar per capita in
actual circulation, while the government is
compelled to hoard its ponderous tons of
silver, and humbly to issue instead certifi-
Gates of indebtedness, for which gold may
be wanted whether obtdinable or not.
Were wages rendered to even silver miners
in silver dollars, general strike would be
provoked. The hump on the camels back
can more easily be unloaded than the re-
dundant silver in the belly of the treasury
The recent census presents the marvel
Gus advance of many Southern states in
their wealth of agricultural products and
manufactures, as well as of educational in
sttutions; and yet the time is not remote
when debt population was dominant in a
majority OF these states, though never
proudly proclaimed as one Of their stale
rights The present attitude Of some of
the leaders there on the subject of q cheap
er dollar gives rise to the apprehension
that reputation, like blood poison, is in
eradicable From tabulated statement
which the Senator appends it appears that
between the years $50 and 1859 the seven
southern states of Mississippi, Arkansas,
Louisiana, North Carolina, South Caro-
lima, Tennessee and Virginia either rejected
or scaled down their debts to a total value
Of S7S, HOO. These monotonous fnan-
cial obliqutics leave a painful impression
of original sin lurking among Southern
Populists, as well as among others of a
better faith"
NO party will be likely to propose the
scaling of the national debt, but its pay
ment in deprecated silver has dangerous
sectional support. Nor will any party di-
rectly cut down the pensions Of Union SOL
diers; but those who fought on the other
side may look with compacency upon a
prospective liquidation OF such large de
mands in dollars of considerably less value.
1.-The logical inyeracity of some silver
Cldllp plOuS, luouel Ollcll tNpOStu, seems
inherent and incurable. They constantly
represent, with portentious solemnity as
if ii were true, that the worlds product of
gold has annually been growing smaller,
| and, therefore, has enormously advanced
in value. At the same time they cruelty
their logic by refusing to admit that the
prodigous increase of silver has in any de-
| gree diminished its value But what are
the facts about the worlds product of
| gold? Prior to 1850 it was annually about
! $50, 600 600. During the golden era of
| California ii largely increased and subse-
| quently decreased. Since 1883 the annual
! gold product of the world has steadily in
creased and was never larger than in 1898,
/ when it amounted to Slj7, 22S, 600; but the
| director of the mint estimates a still larger
| product for 1894 by S21 100000. No other
| country but Australia produces as much
| gold as the United States. Surely the
| champion falsehood about a growing
scarcity of the worlds gold, so long over
worked, should be released from its shame
/ full service
1--WE also have some silver.mine inspired
orators, who proclaim that the fall in the
value of silver has been the potential cause
of the fall in the value of cotton, wheat,
iron, copper, and many other commodities.
The direct cause of the lower price of each
separate article is as easily to be traced as
I that of silver itself. The world has been
| overstocked with productions at less cost.
! The crop of cotton has been doubled, but
| its consumption has not been doubled
| The surplus of one year goes far toward
supplying the demand of the next. In the
case of iron we have an example of metal
more useful than silver, where the reduc-
tion in value surpasses that of silver; and
| the fact that the United States recently
produced more iron in a single year than
was produced thirty years ago by the
whole world, will be accepted as a sutfi
cient reason for its reduced price by all
save here and there one of the elongated
ear class that 'knoweth his masters crib.
| SIN the same mine where, in 1864, the
| cost of producing copper was over 26 cents
pound, it was last year less than 6 cents
! pound. The low price of copper is thus
explained; and it is not charged, even by
any flaming copper-nose, that copper has
been 'demonetized.'
Unfortunately, the price of wheat anC
cotton fell to a lower point the past yea
than ever before; and the trump howl o
silver boomers has been that 5-cent cottOI
and 50-cent wheat would prevail until ad
vanced by the free coinage of silver at l,
mar 7 atAst IT c Govt ReDort