The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-05-03
-Ir. FIcmins'S silver Arguments.


speaker or the legislature. Il Is a letter
supplemental 10 the one we commented on
laet Sunday. In our comments We sug-
gested that Mr.. Fleming should write an
other letter. not for the purpose Of en-
Tightening those who hold views on the
silver question different from his. bat be
cause 10 did not seem TO us that he gave
very satisfactory reasons for the free coin
age Of silver. Our readers must Judge II
I the reasons he gives this morning are any
/ more satisfactory.
/ We think Mr.. Fleming IS not quite as
/ frank as an earnest seeker for truth
should be. He says a gold monometallist
I is one who is opposed 10 the free coinage
+ Of silver. and a silver monometallist is
one who is opposed TO the free coinage Of
E gold He declares he Is neither He calls
himself bimetallist. Our inference is that
he would have the public believe he IA
vOrs the free coinage Of both gold and
silver and that those who differ with him
are opposed 10 the free coinage of silver
We think his statement is misleading
Those who are opposing. the free coinage
Of silver IN this country have no hostility
to silver. They oppose 80 for one reason
only. namely. they do not believe the
minis can be opened 10 silver by this coun-
try alone. without making silver the stan
dard thus debasing the currency They
are against a dcbased currency. because
they know from experience how great
the evils are that flow from a currency of
that kind. Mr. Fleming is in favor of
free silver coinage, even though it would
bring MS TO the silver standard. and he ad-
mits he isn't sure il wouldn't bring us to
that standard. From our point of view.
he is silver monometallist. unless he can
furnish satisfactory reasons that under
free coinage gold and silver would circu-
late on a parity. HI does not even attempt
to give any such reasons. He has no more
right therefore. to call himself a bimet-
tallist than have those he desgnates as
gold monometallists.
Mr.. Fleming undertakes TO explain his
assertion that the act OF 1873 brought
about contraction of the currency, and
hence a decline in the price of farm pro
ducts, but 1t does not seem to be salts
factory explanation. We challenged him
TO show that that act caused contrac-
ton. His answer is that. If it had not been
for that act the 6O00O00l0 silver dollars
that have been issued since that time
would now be primary money. instead Of
token money and that being primary
money, instead of token and legal tender
money. it would have caused higher
prices of all sorts Of products This, he
| says is the logical conclusion, because
prices of certain articles have declined
since 1873. But is his conclusion logical?
We think not
In the first place. the act of 1873 caused
no contraction for the reason that no sill
yer dollars were in circulation at that
time, and had not been for a quarter of
century. No silver dollars were being
coined and had not been for a very long
time. Gold had been the standard Of
value since 1884. and under that standard
there had been steadily rising prices Sill
yer was just as much a commodity as it is
to-day. and congress had twice changed
the coinage ratio. with the hope of getting
silver to circulate, and had failed to ac-
complish that object The act of 1873 sim
ply recognized existing conditions 1t
caused no contraction. 1t changed prac-
tically nothing.
But Mr.. Fleming has 1t in his mind
that If the 6OoOO0O0O silver dollars that
have been issued in coin or paper since
1873 were primary money, instead of legal
tender circulating on a parity with gold,
We presume he refers to wheat and cot
ton. In view of the fact that the prices
for wheat and cotton are made in Liver
pool, and the further fact that the cur
reney Of both this country and England is
on gold basis, we cannot see how prices
would have been different from what they
have been, even If the 600, 900, 900 were pri-
mary, instead of legal tender money. In
"a
pot value of silver is just the same, wheth-
er it is called primary, legal tender or
token money.
Mr.. Fleming expresses surprise that we
should doubt what he said in his first let
ter about the decline of prices since 1873.
Why should he be surprised? 1t is fact
| that only two important farm products
have notably declined, namely wheat and
|. cotton, and in 1890 the price of cotton was
within fraction of being as high as 1t
was in 1876. Mr.. Fleming questions our
quotations relative to the prices of corn
and oats. We quote from the statistical
abstract of the United States for 1894: In
1873 the average price of corn in gold was
41la cents Der bushel. and of oats 1928 per
bushel In 1894 the price of corn was 457
cents and of oats 32.4 per bushel. These
hS httS dic tciiAi liiNtS w ASit NllO M
Fleming get his figures?
Mr.. Fleming says our present dollar is
not an honest dollar, because it is a
dollar of the gold standard. He is willing
to have dollar of the silver standard, if
we understand him-a dollar that is worth
| only half of the present dollar In other
words, Mr.. Fleming is willing that the
vast amount of debts in this country, the
/ bulk of which was contracted within the
| last few years. and represented gold, and
/ much of which is due to widows and or
! phans and working people, held in savings
| banks, shall be paid in currency worth
| only about half what the money loaned
was worth. The farm mortgage debt, the
! greater part of which was doubtless con-
tracted in recent years, and about which
! the silverites are making such a hubub,
/ is only about one-fourth of the debts owed
/ in this country.
There is another new disease II is call
! ed grip back, and the conductors on ca