The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1895-06-14
FREE SILVER WANTED
NEBRASKA BANKER SEES SAL
VATION'S LIGHT.
X. G. Horr's Defense of the Single Gold
Standard Punctured by n Man Who
Knows What's Right from Ex-
perlence.

OF Bartlett, Ohio, addressed to the edi-
tor of the New York Tribune, and given
space in the weekly edition of that
paper.
Mr.. Phipps asked to have explained
some things about finance. "Why is a
gold dollar worth more than a silver
dollar ?" he asked, meaning, in the light
of what went before. Why is the bull
lion worth of gold dollar worth more
than the bullion worth of silver dol
ar?
The reply to the letter was over the
signature of r. G.. Horn, and occupied
as much as three columns of the pa
per.
This Mr.. Horn was one time con-
gresham from Michigan and after
ward hired to the Tribune as an au-
thority on the tariff question. In sup
plying the Republicans of the rural
districts stock arguments for high tariff
Mr.. Horn met with some measure of
success. The few profiting directly
during the period of high protection
have been materially grateful to Mr.
Horn, we may suppose, for the influence
he exerted in maintaining the system.
But now the displacement of the tariff
question by the finance issue seriously
threatens the place of Mr.. Horn as an
adviser of hayseed ignorance.
Many who piped to his piping while
the tariff was the issue of issues are
now mute or protestant over his oracu-
lar utterances respecting finance. They
see, or think they do. which is of the
same effect upon Mr.. Horr's reputation
among them. that he is powerless to
grasp the underlying truths Of finance;
and many are panied at seeing him on
this issue distort himself to exude mat
ter poisonous to their interests, as they
believe.
l wonder did the conclusions aimed
at by Mr.. Horn in answering Mr.. Phipps
seem the same to others as to me? Did
he purpose to instruct Mr.. Phipps and
other readers that the bullion price of
gold under free-coinage system would
fiuctuate as fluctuates the price of COM
modities-goods which allay the natur-
al periodic wants of man-that gold
and silver bullion, when gold and sill
yer have free entrance to the minis for
coinage into legal tender money, are
obedient to the law of supply and de-
mand in other words, that parity can
be attained and maintained onlyso long
as the consumable supply of silver was
to the supply OF gold, and the demand
for the one as to the demand for the
one as to the demand for the other,
Is and continues as the monetary ratio?
Moreover, would he have us believe that
cost of production affected, and with
supply and demand established, the bull
lion price of gold and silver under a
free coinage system?
l extract some passages from Mr..
Horr's reply:
1.-THE people who believe in maintain
ing a gold standard assert that the
present low price of silver is largely
owing to the enormous increase in pro-
duction, which has thus largely in
creased the supply, and also to the
much cheaper methods of mining and
smelling silver, which have resulted in
an ounce of silver representing so much
less human labor than it did in former
years, when its value was so much
greater as compared with gold than at
the present time. / have not the least
doubt that the present low price of sill
yer is much owing to the causes just
stated.
ssxxrhon +I,a aroo unf IF rura cold xnyae
fixed of which our present gold dollar
should consist, that amount of gold was
then worth almost exactly the same as
the amount of pure silver which con-
stituted then and which now Is con-
tanned in each so-called silver dollar in
this country. The intention of the law
at that time was to make gold dollars
and silver dollars of exactly the same
intrinsic value, because double stand
ard is impossible unless the value Of
the two units Is the same.
1.-THE laws of this country require
our financial affairs to be managed so
as to keep our silver and gold at equal
exehangeable value, without regard to
their actual or intrinsic value. That
Is what Is meant by parity Of value
This can only be done by the govern
ment paying all obligations in gold"
These passages are fairly illustrative
of the arguments promulgated in sup
port of the single gold standard; and,
doubtless, the correctness of the con-
illusions l have drawn from them will
be freely admitted.
Mr.. Horn is worthy of commentator,
in that, in handling the issue, he makes
use of argument, such as 1t is, rather
than denunciation. Therein he dis
tinguishes himself from the greater
number Of gold standard advocates. /
instance as one of the majority Mr..
Edward Atkinson, and cite his article
in the Record of April 26.
wish to answer Mr.. Phipps' ques-
ton: why is the bullion worth OF
gold dollar more than the bullion worth
of a silver dollar?
At the outset l think 1t necessary TO
clear away some of the confusion of
thought In relation to money.
A clear understanding of the finan-
cial issue-whether silver properly
should or should not be upon an equal