Mexico weekly ledger., 1895-05-02
Coins First Lecture.

From the Chicago Times Herald.
Misstatements in Mr.. Harvey's book,
''Coin," stand forth prominently i'll the
very first lecture. Evidently the au-
thor has thought that his assertions
would never be verified. Referring to
the establishment of a monetary unit
by this country in 1892, the following
statement occurs: Congress adopt
ed silver and gold as money. 1t then
proceeded to fix the unit. Among
the first things they did was to make
371l., grains of silver the unit of val
ues. Gold was made money, but
its value was counted from these silver
units or dollars. Our forefath-
ers showed much wisdom in selecting
silver, of the two metals, out of which
to make the unit
Mr.. Harvey had evidently never
seen the following quotation from
HamiIton's ''Report on the Establish
ment of a Mint dated May 5, 179D,
whose recommendation as the first
secretary of the treasury were made
law April =, 1892: 'As long as gold,
either from its intrinsic superiority as
metal, from its rarity, or from the
prejudices OF mankind, retains so con-
siderable a pre- eminence in value over
silver as it had hitherto had, a natural
consequence of this seems to be that
its condition will be more stationary.
The revolutions, therefore, which may
take place in the comparative value of
gold and silver will be changed in the
state of the latter rather than in that
of the former"
Then Hamilton went on to show that
to adopt single silver standard would
act "to abridge the quantity of the
circulating medium" Then, when he
proceeded to ascertain what should be
the weights of the coins, after he had
chosen the ratio of Is to 1, he made
the following very accurate statement:
''That species of coin ii. e. Spanish
silver dollars had never had any set
tied or standard value, according to
| weight or fineness, but has been per-
| mitted to circulate by tale, without
regard to either, very much as mere
money of convenience, while gold has
had fixed price by weight, and with
an eye to its fineness. This greater
stability of value of the gold coins is
an argument of force, for regarding
the money unit as having been hitherto
virtually attached to gold rather than
to silver. Twenty-four grains and six
eighths of a grain of fine gold have
corresponded with the nominal value
of the (silver) dollar in the several
states, without regard to the success
sive diminutions of it's intrinsic worth
i The writer of "Coin'' evidently did
Enot know that the only money in use
1 before 1892 was Spanish coin. The
Spanish dollars varied in weight; some
of those in circulation contained 81
grains of pure silver, and the lates
issues only 1858 grains. Consequently
the ratio of Is to having been chosen
since 243I grains of gold was the equiv
alent of a dollar, Is times 243i woul(
fix the number of grains in the silve1
dollar, or 371l4. That is, no silve1
dollar existed at that time containing
371I, grains which could be adopted
as unit, but it was created by start
ing from the recognized unit of 245
grains of gold. 1t can thus be seel
how absolutely ignorant ''Coin'' wa
of the historical facts attending on tn
selection of unit. Why did he not
finally, quote the conclusion of Hamil
toms report, on which the law wa
founded: ''That the unit in the coin
of the United States ought to CORES
}. pond with "a grains and q of graf
\ of pure gold, and with 81 grains an
!. of a grain of pure silver, each an
swering to dollar in the money G
account
Therefore, what does "Coin" mea
by saying (p. 81: "In considerin
, which of these two metals they woul
, thus favor by making it the unit, the
were led to adopt silver because it wa
the most reliable.'' Now the simpl
. truth is they did not "adopt silver,
!. and when the author of "Coin" say
5 so he assumes that his hearers ar
men who know nothing. When th
false assertions of this book have bee
thoroughly exposed it will be foun
: that much more harm than good hs
. been done the silver cause by its pub
lication.
! Bob Stone, of Kansas City, bougt
15 horses during the sale.