The Big Sandy news. [volume] (Louisa, Ky.) 1885-1929, 1895-03-15
The snyerite Address.

The Silverite Address.
Stripped of its verbiage, the add
dress signed by A. j. Warner ana
others invites the American people
to drop all other considerations and
unite for the purpose OF doubling
the price OF silver bullion and elect
ing Joseph C. Si5 ey, of Pennsyl-
vania, President Of the United
States in 1896. Both of these pro.
jects are absurd ana imprac;ic.
able,
Silver bullion is now worth about
sixty cents an ounce. The silver
ties propose to raise it to 81 30 per
ounce, Howl By act of Con
gress. Everybody knows that this
is impossible. Everybody knows
that a mere declaration in a law of
Congress can have no effect on real
values. 1t may enact that sixty
cents shall hereafter be called one
hundred and twsnty-nine cents, but
that will not have the slightest effect
ON the purchasing power of sixty
cents. 1t may, of course, alter its
debt-paying power, but the same
end could be reached in a more di-
rect and simple manner by de.
creeing that any man to whom $l.29
is due shall accept sixty cents in
full payment Of the debt, The lat
ter would DO unconstitutional, to
be sure, but it would not be more
repugnant to the spirit OF the Con
stilution than doing the same thing
by indirection, which, moreover,
it is not certain that the courts
would sustain.
The signers Of this address call
themselves bimetallists, although
they know better. What they re.
ally aim at is silver monometal.
lism. They say, however, that
they favor the constitutional stand
ard of gold and silver. But the
Constitution says not word about
standards. There can be no stand
ard of gold and silver at l6 To
The gold standard means that ev.
cry dollar shall be worth 371I
of pure silver. But 37ll grains OF
silver are worth, i'll round numbers,
only eleven grains of gold /; in fact,
something less than that. At pres
ent every dollar purchases as much
as 1922 grains of gold. The silver
ties propose to change the stand
ard so that no dollar will purchase
more than eleven grains Of gold.
When that is dene, no owner of a
gold piece will part with it, except
at a premium. Five or six mil.
lions of gold will Immediately GO
out of circulation, contradicting the
currency to that amount. The
currency left will be silver or notes
payable in silver. The purchasing
power of silver and silver notes will
be greatly decreased,
1t is necessary to clear away
from this proposition all the false
pretense that surrounds it. 1t is
not question of bimetallism at all.
1t is question whether the silver
dollar shall be kept equal in purch-
asing power with 1922 grains of
gold, or whether it shall be reduced
to that of eleven grains of gold.
AT present all our money is inter-
changeable, 1t is kept so by the
policy OF the Government, which
has declared that il will maintain
the party Of the two metals. That
policy the silverites propose to
abandon, in order that the silver
dollar may sink to its bullion value
and gold coins may be driven from
circulation.
II is well TO understand what
this proposed new party proposes
to accomplish, Like other frauds,
its leaders disguise their purposes
under deceptive names. They call
themselves bimetalists. A bimet.
allist is one who advocates bimet-
allism. According to the Stand.
ard Dictionary, the latest autholi-
ty, binetallism means 'Ihe eeneur-
rent use OF both gold and silver as
money at fixed relative ratio es-
tablished by law" That is what
we have now. The new silyerite
party proposes to change the
present system, and to establish
silver monometallism such as pre-
walls in Mexico and some other
Spanish-American countries, and
in China and Japan.-Courier
Journal.