The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1895-09-06
An Ancien: Ches,nut.

The Boston Herald says tina. the
treasury has the same old story to tell
about the dishonest silver dollar
It won't circulate, it keeps coming back
into the treasury. II the silver dollar
were one-half as dishonest as those
whose business it is to malign it. it
would be in the ~penitentiary, rather
thai n the treasury. Coin, whether
gold or silver. does its work through
It's paper representations. The people
would rather have silver certificates
than silver coin just for the same rea-
son that they would rather have gold
certificates than gold coin. The day
mas long since passed when either gold
or silver in the form of coin will cir
cuiate except as change" because
their paper representations are more
easily handled. But why doesn't the
Herald make its point all the stronger
by telling how people fall over each
other to get one dollar gold coins.
Perhaps that would be too glaring a
faisehood for the Boston Herald to tell.
The fact is, that silver dollars do cir
culate freely, while the effort of the
government to force gold dollars into
circulation was so complete a failure
that congress stopped their coinage by
law. The people simply wouldn't have
them. and they wouldn't circulate at
all Whoever sees gold coin of n kind
in circulation? Where is all the gold
~conplacentiy supposed to be sin cir
cu!ation" by the circulation artists of
the treasury department? What IL
limitable nerve it requires for a gold
bug newspaper to talk about silver coin
not circulating among the people, when
not one man in a hundred ever gets
even a glimpse of a gold coin of any
denomination, and no man will have
one II ne can get a silver certificate, a
sTeenback or a banknote in place Of it.
What gold is in circulation among the
people Is in the form Of gold certif-
Gates, and there is precious little of
that. The New York Financial Chron-
icle In 1885 published an editorial on
this subject calling attention to the
fact that not n man in twenty viewed
either q gold coin or a gold certificate.
4 SAID this was as true of the north
as il was in the south, though the
treasury officials figured it out that
there we're something like $500, 600 900
IN circulation" just because there was
that much whose whereabouts was un-
known. The truth seems to be that
about 5000, DOC, 1000 of this gold circulates
only in the treasury reports and in the
minds OF treasury officials. 1t is not in
the country. and what is here doesn't
circulate and is not wanted for circu-
lation in the form of coin.
A few days ago the Mobile Register,
q monometallist paper. declared with
charming na1vete that Mr.. Bryan
had put the people there to great in
convenience by charging that the
banks were boarding gold; that the
banks thersupon began to pay out gold
to their customers who protested yio-
lently and vigorously against being
forced to receive it-they didn't want
gold coin II they could get silver certl-
fcates or anything else. The only rea-
son gold coin deean't flew back iintta
the treasury Is that there is SO pre-
cious little to lew. IT certainly doesn't
How in the channels as trade.