Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1895-08-23
The SILVER QUESTION.
SPEECH OF MR.. EDMuNOs AT PHlLADEL
PHlA REVlEWED.
CONTINUED from last week.


"Mr. Preston, the director of the mint,
to whom wrote the other day, says;
1.-The average price of silver during
the calendar year 1894 was 63,4S cents
At the average price of silver for 1891
the bullion value of the silver dOllOr was
81. 81 cents, so that the silver dollar, at
any store where they have them, is
worth little less than 80 cents, so far
as the metal goes. All the rest is the
will of the United States, that If any
body owes you, you are compelled to
take it at a dollar. At this rate the
coming value of an ounce of silver being
81. 1929, the owners of silver bullion will
realize profit on each ounce of 65.Sl
cents. The upshot of that is, as you
will see. that if the late Congress had
passed on the Sd of March, the last day
of the session, what is now so vocifer-
ously demanded by the free coinage
people every owner of silver bullion,
every purchaser of it, could take his
ounce of silver to the mint in Philadel-
pha, which was worth GO IS cents, and
would get for it 81 .2929; and, having
got, therefore, his more than two silver
dollars for his ounce of silver-mOre
than two dollars for One-he goes to
you, workingmen, or to me, lawyer, or
whatever. whom he owes, and says:
There, if had brought you silver metal
it would have taken 10 pounds to pay
what owe YOU, bur now | have taken
it to beneficent United States officer
and have had it stamped. and now you
must take i've pounds for what owe
you
This, ladies and gentlemen, is not ar
gument; it is the cold and hard truth Of
what the state of things is, and, as |
said before, there is no person of COM
mon, average intelligence, rich or poor,
sick or well, who cannot fail to under
stand what that means to him."
Mr.. Edmunds nowhere discusses the
merit of the different money standards,
or points out which is best. Apparently
he does not care. But this is the matter
of importance. All else is secondary and
transient.
Mr.. Edmunds suggests that the owner
of silver bullion will realize more for it
should the government use it for money.
Well, what if he does. Is that Il reason
why the government should not use it.,
The holder of gold oullion realizes more
]
uses it for money. Would Mr.. Edmunds
on that account have the government
cease to use Il? The same thing would
| be true of any article that had value.
| Would Mr.. Edmunds, on that account,
wish the government not to use as
money any article that has value
Would he. on that account, wish to have
the government discard metal and use
paper as money, or what would he do:
He certainly would not consider that
the fact, that the material from which
money was made was worth something
was a sufficient reason to go without
money.
But if the minis are thrown open
to the free coinage of gold and sill
yer at a fixed ratio, and this money
made legal tender, Mr.. Edmunds. as
lawyer, or anyone else, as creditor,
when he receives it, has received all that
his debtor has agreed to pay him. The
more for it, because government needs
its use, has nothing more to do with the
creditor than that the holder of wheat,
who may also be his debtor, gets more
for it because drought threatens a
famine. There is no reason whatever
in this matter, why the government
should particularly concern itself with
the good luck or bad luck of individuals.
Its function is to provide the best money
for the purposes of the people, all the
people.
We have followed Mr. Edmunds
speech through, so far as il appeared
in the paper we saw. We do not sec
that he has done much to assist the
people in their efforts to put things
right nor, indeed, that he has tried to
The country is suffering from a long
period of depression and falling prices
that are unquestionably more or les,
connected with the decentralization of sill
yer in 1873. The law that did this certalny
followed an Enc fish lead, and it is proven
that the recreant committee of Congress
which recommended it consulted in its
preparation the governors of the bank OF
England, while carefully cOncealing its
import from all Americans. The natural
consequence of the law is to lessen the
amount of oui redemption money about
one-half. 1t is evident that if we had all
the redemption money that both these
metals would make we should not have toe
much. 1t is perhaps impossible to tel
exactly how much or how little we suf
fer at the present time from the effect OF
this decentralization of silver, or exactly
how much relief or recuperatiOn would
come from a return to the principle OF
bimetallism; but there are the stronges
reasons to believe that such return would
Immediately raise the value of land and its
products, as also that of many other com
modties that it would accelerate trade
stimulate industry, increase wages anc
distrihuta n,opav mara aouallv amOuO