Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1895-02-21
The Money Question.

| these vultures.
The Money Question.
| The Silver Question does not abound
with the difficulties that the goldbug
organs would have the public believe.
A simple statement of the question il
sufficient to enable any man of ordi'
nary ability to form correct conclu'
sion.
In the first place, it is admitted that
money is bought and sold like any 9TH
er article of barter. That it is in de.
mand because it furnishes a medium oil
exchange as we'll as a measure of val
ue. whereby people are enabled to ex.
change the product of their labor, and
at the same time it furnishes the yard
stick and scales by which to determ-
inc how much of the product of one
mans labor shall be given for a GER
tain amount of the product of another
mans labor. 1t is admitted that If the
money of the country should be dimin-
| ished one-half, the price of commodi-
ties would be diminished one-half, un-
less some special reason to prevent in
tervened; or, to put it in another way,
if the volume of money should be di-
minished one-half, its purchasing pow
er would be doubled. That is, where.
with given quantity of money in cir
culation, farmer could buy a dollar
with one bushel of wheat, if that guam
tity should be divided by two, then it
would take two bushels of his wheat to
buy dollar. So that, if he should be
in debt when contraction of the cur
rency occurs to the extent above indi-
Gated, then he would have to pay twice
as much as he contracted to pay. 1t is
also admitted that an expansion of cur
rency raises prices. In other words,
if the volume of money should be
doubled, farmer could pay a debt
with one bushel of wheat that it re-
CURED two pay before the expansion
occurred; so that the creditor would
receive really less than he contracted
to receive. II. therefore, appears that
the volume of money should be kept
stable, only expanding in proportion
to population, for every additional cit
izen contracts the currency by making
another hand through which a portion
of it will pass. If no money was ever
destroyed or lost, keeping a definite
amount of it in circulation would be
comparatively an easy matter; but as
gold, silver and paper all tend to dis
integrate and return to the bosom of
mother earth, new supplies must be
issued to make good this deficiency.
Gold and silver have been selected be-
cause they have hitherto supplied the
conditions of a fairly stable currency,
and have a commercial value that of
itself insures the holder of the coins of
these metals that he has value for, hat
he has parted with. 1t is supposed by
many that there has been a vast in
crease of silver; statistics show that
the silver output of the world now is
no greater than it was fin the thirties,
and the fact that silver, when COM
pared with every other commodity ex-
cept gold.i is as valuable as it ever was,
is evidence that there is no vast influx
of silver into the markets of the world.
In 1873 silver was demonetized and the
gold standard adopted. Gold at once
began to appreciate in value, as was
evidenced by drop in the price of
every other commodity, thereby caus-
ing every debtor to pay a vastly great
err amount than he obligated himself to
do. In 1873 silver was given a place
as quasi money metal, to prevent its
Free Coinage. In 1890 the Sherman
act was passed-another step toward
getting rid of silver-and in 1898 the
iniquity was completed. The result is
that, where a man contracted a debt
three or four years ago that he could
paw with bushel of wheat or a bale
OF cotton, it now takes bushel and
half of wheat, or bale and a half of
cotton to discharge. The road to the
gold basis has been over ruined homes,
broken lives, deserted farms-throueh
panic, riot and bloodshed. 1t has
crippled business, reduced the value of
every kind of property, and placed
shackels upon our prosperity. And
what have we gained? Only this: we
haye vastly increased the wealth of a
few men already enormously wealthy,
aud opened the doors of our treasury
to the money-changers of the Old
World that they may fleece US at will.
And when It is proposed to right this
wrong by a simple act of justice-re-
storing silver to its old place in our