The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1895-11-16
CHEAP DOLLARS.
Ex-Gos: Boics' Mistakes About the silver
Coinage.


farmers of Iowa that they are ruined
by dear dollars and that their only
hope Of salvation lies in cheap dol
/ lars Mr. Boies Is too good an econo-
mist to believe any such thing, and he
| ought to know that no man can ever
rise to a position higher than that Of
governor of Iowa by preaching what
he does not believe to be true.
| He tells the Iowa farmers that the
prices of their products have fallen be-
cause silver was ''demonetized" in 1873.
Gold, he says, was made dearer when
it was made the only standard. and as
gold became dearer other things meas
ured in gold became cheaper, and that
| is why farm products are SO cheap.
Granting this, other commodities must
have become cheaper also. A fall In
prices due to an advance in the value
| of gold must extend to all commodities.
| There is no reason why it should stop
at farm products. Mr.. Boies is logical
enough to see that and he admits it
when he asks: us 1t not equally true
that the products of labor in other
branches are correspondingly low?'
Assuredly it is. 1t necessarily fol-
| lows that the farmer can exchange the
products of his labor for as much as
ever of the products of other mems
labor. For given quantities of wheat,
| corn, oats, ETC., he can get as much as
ever of clothing, furniture, lumber,
nails and other things he requires.
He can get more, because the prices OF
things he buys have fallen more, on
the average, than the prices of the
things he sells. Invention has done
more to cheaper manufactured prod
ucts than it has to cheaper agricul-
tural products.
Hence the farmer can be none the
worse off for the alleged appreciation
of gold, while he is the better off for
the cheapening of products by inven-
ton, unless he owes debts which orig
mated before gold grew dearer. Not
many of the existing debts of our farm
ers originated twenty years ago.
Mr.. Boies must know that it is un-
reasonable to attribute any apprecia-
ton which may have taken place in
gold to the coinage act of 1888. 1t is
not true that that act removed silver
from our volume of standard money.
There had not been a dollar of sill
yer in our standard money for more
than thirty years. Gold, in fact, had
been the only standard money of the
country for nearly forty years. The
act of 1873 contained a provision
under which four and half times
as many trade dollars were coined
within six years as had been coined OF
standard" dollars in more than eighty
wears from the establishment of the
mint. There would be some reason in
saving that gold was made dearer by
the closing of the mints of Germany,
the Scandinavian states and all the
states of the Latin union against sill.
yer between 1871 and 1878. There is
| no reason in saying that the value OF
gold was affected by our act of 1873,
which did not create use for one ounce
more gold or remove one ounce OF sill
yer from use as standard money.
To the question how to lessen the
present purchasing power of money
and increase the selling price of prod
ucts, which Mr.. Boies asks himself, he
returns this answer: Evidently there
,, is but one way, and that is to increase
the quantity of real money, and this il
practicable in single way and that j.
by return to the system of our fathers
to the money of the constitution, t.
the coinage of both gold and silver a
standard money, instead of gold alone.
Mr.. Boies is too good an economis
to talk like that. He must know tina
as matter of fact we never did have
both gold and silver as standard money
at any one time. An error of less thar
one per cent in 1892 made silver tn,
standard from that time until 1884. 4
like error the other way in 1884 mad,
gold the standard, and it has remained
the standard ever since. Gold none.
: was the cheaper, and although the diff
ference was usually less than two pc
cent. it drove silver completely out O
circulation as standard money, and i
could be kept in circulation only as
subsidiary coin reduced in weight near
ly seven per cent. below the standard
II this happened when the differenc
; in bullion value between standar
coins of the two metals rarely exceed
| ell bnIcc pei CCho., Whoo "OeAN AAopRS'
now, when the bullion value of a
! eagle is almost twice as great as tina
of ten silver dollars? Mr.. Boies know
; perfectly well that every one OF GU
gold coins, now amounting to abou
five hundred and seventy million dol
,, lars, would disappear from the treasur
and from circulation. Instead of hav
: ing more real money" we would hav
less than half as much, while the pun
. chasing power of each unit of the re
1 mainder would be greatly reduced an
the credit money would suffer an equs
depreciation.
Mr.. Boies asks: "Why should W
borrow gold when the vaults of tn
national treasury are literally swolle
with the accumulation of hundred
{ upon hundreds of tons of silver, out {
. which it is just as lawful and just {
{ right, under the constitution of tn
nation. to make money as it is to NAL,