The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-04-18
INswERs TO THE STOCK QUESTIONS.

mass of Republicans who have made the
question the subject of intelligent study.
ANSWERS TO THE STOCK QUESTIONS.
The following questions relative to the
silver issue are asked by a young man
In Upton. who. it seems from a letter
accompanying them, is honestly seeking
information:
in this country from 1892 until 1873?
Second-If so, why did not free coinage
drive out the gold and reduce US to a
Thirds it true that Washington. JEFF
ferson, jackson, Franklin, Sumner and
silver?
Fourth-why did the trainers of the Con.
silver and make the silver dollar the unit
of value instead of the gold dollar?
1. Yes; there was nominally what was
called the free coinage Of gold and sill
yer. Under the act of 1892 the ratio was
Is to l. That is. the law recognized that
fifteen pounds of silver were equal in
value to one pound of gold. AS the rest
of the world was paying debts and ex-
changing silver and gold at the ratio of
15h to !. our ratio made gold worth
more than the market price. Conse-
quently gold did not come to our mint
or circulate in trade, because an ounce
of gold was worth half an ounce of sill
yer more in Europe than here. The
country at that time had all sorts of
worn Mexican and Spanish silver coins
circulating as money, SO that our dollar
was exported as fast as it left the minis.
Consequently, President Jefferson, be-
cause of the export of these dollars,
stopped the coinage of standard silver
dollars, and not one was coined from
1906 to 1886. Quantities of halves and
quarters were coined. In 1884, in a
speech, Senator Benton said that 1.-THE
false valuation placed upon gold rem
dered the mint, so far as gold coinage
is concerned. a most absurd and ridicul-
Gus institution'-all that was coined
having been exported. That year, after
much elaboration, Congress changed
the ratio by reducing the weight of the
gold coins so that the present 16 to be-
came the ratio. AS 15h to ! was the
ratio in Europe, silver now left us be-
cause gold was overvalued. The silver
dollar, compared with the gold one. was
worth 102 to los. because it was worth
silver dollar was rarely used as money
after 1910. In 1879 Professor Simon New
comb wrote that ut would be safe to
assert that not one-half of the citizens
of the country born since 1910 had ever
seen q United States silver dollar"
Therefore, from 1884 to 1851, when specie
payments were suspended, gold and
short-weight silver halves. quarters and
dimes were the metal money.
2. The second question has been an
swered partly in what precedes. There
gold out. Silver drove gold out until
1884, and after 1884 gold drove silver out
of this country, or, rather both went to
the places where they were worth most
at the time. Everything seeks the high
est market. If there were a law that a
tushel of wheat should be exchanged for
a bushel of corn in Indiana and another
law in Ohio declaring that a bushel and
a quarter of corn should be exchanged
for a bushel of wheat, all the wheat
would go to Ohio for exchange and the
corn would drift to Indiana. Ratios
must observe the commercial values of
bullion is worth 81 cents an ounce to-
day. If. by adopting free coinage at the
ratio of Is to /. the value of an ounce
of silver when coined would be $1.29,
would not all of the boarded silver in
other lands come to us to be raised from
81 or 80 cents to $1.29 an ounce? Such is
the lesson Of experience.
8. Bimetallism, adjusted to the COM
mercial prices of the precious metals,
was the idea Of Hamilton and Jefferson.
1t was never an issue during the time
of Sumner and Lincoln. 1t is the policy
OF the Republican party to-day. only it
insists that the dollars. that is, the
bullion in them, must be OF nearly equal
value in the markets of the world.
A. There is nothing about the free coin
age of silver in the Constitution. nor
did the trainers of the first coinage law,
in 1892. make the silver dollar any more
"a unit OF value than the gold. That
act provides:
That there shall be coined at the said
following denominations. values and de-
scriptions, viz, eagles to be of the value OF
ten dollars, or units s and to contain ant. M1A
gold. CHere follows the weight of half and
quarter eagles) Dollars, or units each to
be OF the value of Spanish milled dollar
as the same is now current, and to contain
37lA grains of pure 416 grains of stand
ard silver. (Here follows the weights of
the half, quarter and other smaller silver
coins.)
"Of the value OF ten dollars or units,
that is, of gold, for, If these ten units
had been silver 1t would have been pre-
posterous to further provide for the
weight in gold, but the act would have
stated that the value of the eagle shall
be that of ten Spanish milled dollars.
The fact Is. Hamilton, Jefferson and
others responsible for that coinage law
had no idea OF making silver the unit
of value. for that would have meant
silver monometallism. They simply
spoke of dollars in both as units, not so
much of value as Of a monetary system.
1T looks very much as If Nicaragua
were playing a game of diplomacy for
the distinct purpose of drawing this
country into her controversy with Great
Britain. The proposed surrender of Corn