Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1895-05-30
a financial Catechism-

w hat Is free coinage?
Exchanging a pound Of coin for
pound of bullion.
Then the coin would circulate at
its bullion valued
Necessarily. As Burns saws.
The rank is but the guinea-s stamp.
The man gowd for that"
When is coinage not free?
When the Government buys bullion
and makes coins worth more on their
face than their bullion value.
At what value does such coin cir
culate?
At its face value, if limited to the
quantity the community finds it nee
cessary to use.
If there were free coinage Of silver
here would the coins circulate at
their bullion valne?
Inevitably.
Then where would be the profit OF
the producers of silver?
They could only benefit from an in
creased demand for silver for moder-
ate use. AS the consumption OF 49,
946, 701 fine ounces OF silver for mon
ey in this country from 1873 to 1898
did not prevent the fall OF silver, it is
evident that the mine owners can
hope for nothing in this direction ex-
cept by driving gold out of the coun-
try, and replacing it with silver.
Some advocates of free coinage are
actuated by desire to raise the price
of bullion, and others BY desire to
lower the monetary unit. Both of
these purposes can not possibly be ac-
complished.
But suppose we could have free coin
age without lowering the present
value OF the dollar?
There would be enormous profits
for the owners Of silver mines
Does bimetallism consist in the use
of both gold and silver?
No, it consists, so far as the law
goes, in free coinage of both metals,
and so far as the fact goes in the ST.
multaneous and concurrent circula-
ton Of gold and silver, with free coin
age OF both.
Does bimetallism exist anywhere?
Nowhere, not even in FIR lnce, where
free coinage ceased in 1873.
Is the bullion in ten silver dollars
worth the bullion in an eagleP
Only about half as much.
Was that always so?
No; when the first mint law was
enacted one pound of gold was worth
fifteen pounds of silver, or that was
the conclusion Alexander Hamilton
reached after careful investigation.
The United States was an independ-
nation; why did it not make its own
ratio be ween gold and silver, instead
of trying to learn what the ratio in
Europe was?
Because Mr. Hamilton and the other
founders of this nation were men of
sense. who dealt with facts and not
with dreams.
Is gold approaching in value?
That is hard to say. Compared
with labor, it is steadily depreciating.
In each iive-year period of the last
fifty years, given amount of labor
commanded higher wages in gold
than in any similar period before.
But suppose gold has appreciated.
Then it is so much better for the
AiCl. w HOlCSdi6 pIlCtS OI
goods change daily, retail prices every
week or two, but wages only once or
twice a year, or even less frequently.
This means that the wage-earner,
paid on a gold basis, can get more
and more goods for the wages he re-
ceives.
What wonld be the effect upon the
American farmer of expressing his
prices in silver?
If he got the same price in silver
that he now gets in gold, he would
receive only half the purchasing power
he now gets. If prices doubled he
would get just the same that he now
gets; in one case he would loose and
in the othes he would make nothing.
Why are the silver dollars called the
Dollars of the Fathers?n
Because the Fathers made very few
of them, called silver's expulsion OF
gold IAN unhappy experience" and
changed the law SO that gold drove
out silver. Sound Currency.
One of the Connecticut blue laws.