The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-26
has NO USE FOR SILVER.
So He Talks on the Lines
Laid Down by the Ad-
miniStration.
GOLD THE PROPER MEDIUM.
Coinage of the White Metal, Says
the Secretary, Would Cause
a Great Panic.

BOWLING GREEN, KY, May 25.-
Hon. J. G. Carlisle, Secretary of the Treas
ury, spoke here to-day in the opera house
on the currency question. The seating
capacity of the house is only about 1000,
and it was found necessary to exclude
women and children, voters only being adj
mitted. When Mr.. Carlisle was escorted
upon the stage he was greeted with loud
applause. After a brief statement that he
was there as a Democrat to discuss public
questions and not in any way TO apologize
for the administration, which he knew
needed no apology, Mr.. Carlisle COM
menced as follows:
The question is whether we shall continue
10 preserve our present monetary system, under
which all the dollars in use with the people,
whether gold, silver or paper, are equal in pur-
chasing power in all markets. The proposition
of our fellow-citizens in favor of the free and
unlimited coinage OF legal tender silver is that
the United States alone, without the assistance
and cooperation of any other Govern
ment shall legalize the coinage of
4121& grains of standard silver into
dollars, and by law compel the people OF
the United States, but nobody else, to receive
these dollars in payment of debts of all kinds
when, as a matter of fact, the silver contained
In such coin is only worth about 80 cents.
But the claim by the free-coinage men that
free coinage at 10 TO 1 would appreciate
silver and bring it to parity with gold de-
stroys the argument that it would furnish the
people with cheap currency with which to pay
debts.
No country can establish the free coinage of
both metals, giving to each full legal tender
equality and both increase at the same time.
England tried for five hundred years with
strict laws against the expectation of coin.
She lost all her gold and was driven in 1905
to the single standard. Wherever in the cur
rency of a country metal is overrated in COM
pari>on with another metal the undervalued
metal is driven out of the country. There are
five premises which absolutely cannot be
avoided.
First-There is not free coinage country in
The world that is not on a silver basis.
Second-There is not gold standard country
in the world to-day that does not use silver for
money along with gold.
ThIFd-There is not a silver standard country
in the world that uses any gold money along
with silver.
Fourth-There is not a silver standard coun-
try in the world to-day that has more than one
third Of the circulation per capita than the
United States.
Fifth-There is not silver standard country
in the world to-day where the laboring man
ceives fair pay for his days work.
r. the United States could coin all the silver
in the world available for coinage the 371A
grains OF pure silver contained in our dollar
would not be worth in this country as much
tie silver dollar, but the silver dollar itself
would be deprecated. The Mexican dollar
with 377.17 grains OF silver, six grains more
than the American dollar is only worth about
so cents OF our money. That would be exactly
the effect on our silver dollar if we coined for
private account free all the silver brought If
we can, by making the ratio sixteen to one,
make silver dollar pass as 100 cents when it
is only worth 80 cents, why could it not be
done al a ratio of ten to one?
Before free coinage of silver can be brought
about another Congress and another President
favorable TO it would have to be elected. This
would certainly take three years, and during
that time every creditor in the country, seeing
the coming OF cheap money, would call on his
debtors to liquidate before the cheap money
in effect. This would bring upon the coun-
try panic compared with which all former
panics were nothing. In 1906, when the Span
ish dollar and the French crown were made
legal tender and were slightly under weight, it
drove all the full-weight American silver dol
lars out OF the country, so that Jefferson
stopped the coinage of the silver dollar. The
subsidiary coin was also driven out because
of full fractional weight, and the coins were
slightly reduced in weight in order to hold
them in circulation