The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-07-20
A FINAL ANSWER.


naturally doubted the accuracy of a
statement in reference to the legal
tender quality of the standard silver
dollar, in a paper which has made so
many contradictory assertions on the
Fsame subject, The Herald showed that
the standard silver dollar was legal
tender for all dues and demands, in
Guiding payment of dues to the gov
eminent up to February u, 1878; that
then the trade dollar was substituted
for the standard silver dollar which
the silver coins of the United States
were then made legal tender to the
value of five dollars only. In 1878 the
full legal tender quality was restored
except when otherwise specified in
contract. The reason offered by our
correspondent for asking the question
was, that the Tribune, on July 16, had
stated that STANDARD 4121s grain sill
yer dollars have always been a legal
tender for debts due the government.
or private debts, in any amount ex-
cept from 1874 to 1S7S.''
Now comes the Tribune and starting
out with the assertion that we made
"a very natural mistake" proceeds to
read us lecture on silver coinage
which contains the same inaccuracy as
it's former article, and winds up with
a TRADE in its usual abusive manner,
showing that its animus is still equal
to its ignorance on the coinage ques-
tion.. To that part we have no re-
joinder.
But to the facts. The Tribune says:
1.-The standard dollar was full Ie-
gal tender till 1874
Also that:
ut was only the said coins ex-
pressly provided for in the act of 1873
that were limited in legal tender ca
pacity for So
1t is wrong in both assertions. Here
is the clause of the act of February u,
1873, copied into the Revised Statutes
in Section 1856 as Section 10. V. II,
of the act of 1873:
1.-The silver coins of the United
States shall be legal tender at their
nominal value for any amount not ex-
ceeding five dollars in any one pay
ment.'
AAAOAO ~ AAONAAAA43 bAOAC oOOQN SoA0
coins'' The act of 1874 has a number
of provisions for the regulation of the
minis, and repeats the description of
the gold and silver coins contained in
the act IF 1873, but the provision
as to the legal tender quality is, as
we have stated, in the act of 1873. So
much for that.
Now as to the act of 1858. Our cor
respondent wanted to know whether
the standard silver dollar has been
legal tender since 1853. We said we
did not know what he referred to by
his date of 1853. That was because
there was nothing in the act of that
year which related to the standard
silver dollar. But our wonderfully wise
contemporary enlarges upon our sup
posed lack of knowledge as to the
scope of that act and after all It's
verbiage it simply amounts to repeat
ing what every ordinary student of the
coinage question knows. That is, it
limited the legal tender quality of
the smaller coins to five dollars. What
that has to do with the standard sill
Yer dollar does not appear.
We are asked to accept this bit of
information" as though it was some
thing new and wonderful. When we
lack knowledge on the silver question
we shall not apply to our morning
contemporary, because it has so many
times given exactly opposite explana-
lions on the same point, that it is COM
ing to be regarded as the most mis-
leading of all papers that advocate
free silver coinage.
Its present position is an absolute
reversal of it's former ground on the
legal tender question. 1t is not long
since it jeered and derided The Herald
for explaining the present legal ten
der quality of the silver dollar, which
it now admits and actually declared
that in order to pay customs dues, a
person having only silver dollars would
have to take them to a bank and get
them exchanged for goldl
That is pretty sort of a paper to
try to play pedagogue and act as in
structor, when it is SO ignorant of
facts in relation to coin and currency
as to make it's assertions the laughing
stock of every banking clerk and we'll
informed school boy who reads them.
We apologize for this further notice
of so frequent and pitiable a blunder
er, but its assumptions of wisdom and
superior knowledge on the silver
question, of which it knows nothing
except the old generalities, provoke
reply in emphatic terms. However, we
will not descend to our contemporary
inelegancies of phraseology any more
than to its subterfuges i'll argument.
SUCH A JOKE is 4 CRYING SHAME.