The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-06-13

%sylvania; William j. Bryan, Nebraska; A.
Upon motion Of a Mississippi delegate,
Senator Harris was nominated as the
old wheel-horse of free coinage" to be a
member of the committee. on resolutions
for the United States at large, and was
elected with great excitement.
Judge j. II. Mcdowell. of Tennessee,
arose to ask recognition for the Popullsts
upon the committee On resolutions. The
judge, in appearance, bears some reSm-
lance to Senator PETER, of Kansas, and
the most striking characteristic OF his
style of Oratory are his geSticulations
He carried his point without difficulty,
and it was agreed that he be empowered
TO present the names of delegates, VINO
were added to the committee on resolu-
tons as representative of the Peoples
party.
Ex-Governor Prince, of New Mexico, in
explaining that a number of western and
northwestern states had failed to respond
to the roll call, said that but a few
weeks g that the representatives OF
every one of these states had attended a
silver convention at Salt Lake city, at
which a committee had been appointed TO
represent them collectively at the Mem
phiS convention. The absence of dele
gates from the individual states should
not be construed to indicate any lack Of
interest in the free silver movement or of
sympathy with the Memphis convention.
The south and west are hand in hand
in this convention, and must stand to-
gether.
The next speaker was Alexander Del
mar, the well-known writer on the COLI
age question, and a member of the silver
commission of 1878. Mr.. Delmar said:
MIR. DeIamar's Speech.
Mr.. Chairman: Amidst the conflict of
monetary theories, doctrines snd assump-
tons which divide the American people,
nay the entire civilized world, l can dis
Germ but a single principle upon which
all parties unite, and that is stability. All
agree in the cardinal principle that a
monetary system, if it is to be just and
equitable in the operation, should be sta
BILE. 1t should afford a reasonable asSur-
ance to the buyer, the seller, the debtor,
the creditor, b producer, the consumer,
the annuitant, the pensioner, ana the
wage-earner; that it will work no essen
tial, no violent, no revolutionary rise or
fall of prices; so that men may buy ana
sell, contract, undertake, and plan for the
future upon q more or less assured and
enduring basis.
It is because I am profoundly convinced
that any system of money which does not
point to substantial stability of prices is
destined to speedy overtnrow' INA l
for restoration of ancient coinage laws
of the republic.
That Evil Day.
At no time in the history OF the world,
have u enormous, such inequftable,
such widespread, l may almost say such
cosmic disturbances of prices, such UNI
f~oreseenable and undeserved changes OF
fortune and opportunity occurred as have
occurred since the evil day-now some
thirty sal ago-when the coinage OF sill
yer began to be checked throughout the
civilized world.
The fact, which nobody has questioned.
that more than half of the combined cir
culation of ali states of the Occident con-
fact, which all admit, that 50 per cent. or
all the exchanges of the wrold are trans
acted, not with money, whether of metal
or of paper, but with mere orders for
money, such as checks and bills of eX-
change. These facts, together with 9TH
erS. proves that metallic coin, though
inadequate to justly Measure the par
ity of exchanges, so that the coin has to
be eked out not only with paper money,
but also, and still more largely, with Or
derS and promises of money, which, be-
ing limited in circulation to one or two
persons and slow of movement at that,
have to be continually drawn, destroyed
ana redraWn. In snort, the growth Oh
during his century of steam
and electricity has been so enormous that
equity of exchanges has come to rest
ders for paper money, the latter affecting
to be e-Xchangeable or promising to be
exchanged On demand for coins of gold
or silver.
Decentralization.
Concerning the history of the demone-
tiZation of silver, 1 am here to unfold IT
to you, because in it is contained the ref
of those false and traitorous cries
interested motives" "~dsihonest
money and the like, with which the
friends of restoration have been as
sailed.
The monetary commission of 1876. with
which l was connected, reported that the
acts of 1873 were one Of them passed sur
re~ptitiously, and the other upon false or
erroneous assurances. This has since
been vehemently denied. l am going to
show you not only that the commission
vas right, but hat these acts were the
of European intrigue.
AT the period of this legislation, the
ratio of value at which silver and gold
minis was 151a weight for one; at the
minis of the United States, Is to l. In
consequence of this difference about 3
per cent?, those who had silver to coin
sent it to Paris, rather than Philadelphia
or New Orleans. Had the opposition to
the coinage of olla in two metals and
preference for one metal over the
other been of American origin, the n
metal chosen would inevitably have been
silver, because, in fact, the silver dollar
was worth 3 per cent more than the gold
one, and because the bondholders who
VIGOROUSLY promoted and supported the
legislation of 1871, would not more have
preferred a gold dollar then than they
would a silver dollar now. But in France,
indeed in Europe generally, whose minis
markets commonly followed the vast
coinage of France. the gold and silver
coins of like denomination were or pre-
ciSely equal value. Hence to the Euro
holder of an American bond in 1863
!. it made no difference whether he was
in gold or silver coin. proVided-and
his was the point ESSENTIALLY important to
mis- interest or avidity-provided that he
debtor was deprived of the option of pay
lng in coins of the other metal. The pre-
ference of gold was certainly not Ameri-
IAN, because at the American minis ratio
gold dollars, when melted down, were only
worth 81 cents. It W a therefore, Euro
Oean. We shall presently see why these
cheaper" dollars were preferred to sill
yer ones.
The Code Napoleon.
Under the Code Napoleon. it was ex-
olicitiy laid down that all debts, taxes.
contracts for sums Of money, no
in what other terms expressed,
we're legally and equitably dischargeable
n the current money of like denomina-
ions upon the day of payment. This
came down from the Roman
commonwealth; it was reserved by Paul
Is in the digest; it was upheld by all the
,onsulS of the empire and of the various
provinces and kingdoms into which the
afterwards split; il was support
ID with great emphasis and erudition by
Sir Matthew Hale, in the celebrated case
II mixed moneys, and II was maintained
" the United States Supreme Court in
he great cases which were adjudicated
" Chief Justice Chase and a full bench.
At the time when the necessities of our
government compelled it to issue hun
nay, Utmost thousands of millions
If six per cent. and five per cent. bonds,
With interest payable in coin, the
French court of cessation promulgated a
decision in perfect accordance not only
With the entire range of legal authority.
)ut also with the o Napoleon, to the
fleet that on this subject no man could
himself outside of the law; in
that contracts for money were
.quitable, dischargeable in the current
money of the day of payment. This deci-
ion alarmed the European holders of
no aggressive Americans dc with respect TO |