The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-04-20
Thinks 1t a Grccuba ok Craze.

lhlnkS II GrccuDack craze.
can honest, thoughtful answer to a
few such questions it seems to me will
show the fallacy of much of
the stuff that is now filling
the papers in the so-called inter-
est of silver. 1t is another form of
the old exploded greenback craze. If
you can fix value of silver or any
| other commodity by a statute, you can
just as well, by the same statute, fix a
value of paper money. And to the eX-
tent of the intrinsic commercial value
| of the material used, one will be just
as good as the other. Fiat money, and
debased coin can be forced upon a peo-
pie as a circulating medium, and for
time they may appear to prosper
under it. but all history has proved that
1t Is ultimately system of the most
delusive robbery, and in which the pro-
ducer and 1aborer are in the end liter
ally ground beneath it's wheels.
There can be no safe circulating
medium, which has not in itself the
full intrinsic value, commercially, which
it represents or the equivalent thereof
The act of coming the metal is of value
only as attesting its quality, weight,
lent form for circulation with sufficient
alloy to give it lasting quality. This
was constantly illustrated in the West
ern mining camps in the old days, and
still Is to some extent, where you seldom
saw money in coin, but all business
was done by weighing out the gold
or the silver, and both We're current at
their respective mint values in weight
cS,, 4
and the silver dollar of today to bullion.
what value will you have left? Gold,
25 $40 grs. equal ST., including alloy
value; silver about forty-sX cents.
Law of supply and Demand.
"Is this difference in value to be
charged to the so-called demonetizing
act of 1873, and consequent apprecia-
ton of gold? / think not. The same
law which has brought aluminium
down in price, has reduced the price of
silver. Precisely the same law which
operates to raise and lower the price of
all other commodities, the law of sup
ply and demand. The increased guam
tity OF silver which has been produced
and thrown upon the market during
the past thirty years, and which is
increasing. rather than decreasing, to-
gether with the .multifarious uses in the
ornamental and mechanic arts, in
which nickel and other white metals
have taken the place of silver. cannot
help but cheaper it. Even the forced
purchases of our government under
the Sherman act could not stand the
flood of production, and hold up the
price. There would have been just as
much propriety in the'coal barons' get
ting congress to pass an act requiring
the government to purchase five mil
lions dollars worth of coal per month
and store it up for the benefits of the
coal interests, as there was in that
silver act. And they would have lost
a good deal less money in doing it.
"The relative value of the precious
metals has varied greatly, many times
during the history of the world. In the
time of Solomon we are told silver was
so plenty it was thought little Of And
during the halcyon days Of the city of
Tyre. silver was so plenty and so cheap
that her public buildings were palaces
of marble and silver. Manifestly dur
ing these times 1t would have been a
poor standard of value. Later, value
again changed, and silver approached