Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1895-06-03
TUESDAY MORNING. JUNE 8. 1895.
Secretary Carlisle at Memphis.

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In the sound money convention at
Memphis, on Thursday, Secretary
CarIise was introduced by Chairman
Catchings, and as the distinguished
Kentuckian stepped to the front of the
stage the audience rose and cheered
enthusiastically for several minutes.
After quiet had been restored the
Secretary spoke as follows:
No matter what may be the real
purposes and motives of those who
make the proposition to legalize the
free and unlimited coinage of silver
at the ratio of 16 to /, the effect of
their policy must be to revolutionize
our monetary system and thus de-
stroy the credit of the government
and the people at home and abroad,
violate the obligations of all con-
tracts, unsettle all exchangeable val
ues, reduce the wages of labor, ex-
pei capital from our country, and
seriously obstruct the trade of our
people among themselves and with
the people of other countries. In no
part of the country will the conse-
quences of such a policy prove more
injurious to the material interests of
the people than in the undeveloped
and progressive South. Its natural
resources afford basis for the de-
velopment of diversified industries.
and this development will ensue pro-
vided capital and skill are not re-
PEELED by unwise experiments in fl
nancial legislation.
From the earliest times gold and
silver have been used as money, not
because there was at the beginning
any law declaring them to be money,
but because, by reason of their linn
tied aud regular supply, their great
value as compared with other things
in proportion to weight and bulk and
their durability, they wer more sta
BILE and convenient than any other
commodity as measures of value in
making exchanges. Consequently
these metals were used as money by
common consent of the people for
centuries before there was any law
upon the subject or any coins in ex-
istence, they passed by weight, and
their values in effecting exchanges
were determined by the quantity of
pure metal contained in each piece.
Each metal had distinct value of
its own, and when it was used in
trade neither the buyer nor seller
troubled himself about the ratio be-
tween it and the other metal. Coins
were made, not for the purpose of
attempting to add anything to the in
trinsic or exchangeable value of the
metal contained in them, but for the
purpose of attesting, by public au-
thority, its weight and purity, thus
avoiding the delay and uncertainty
resulting from the practice of weigh
ing each piece as it passed from one
to another. Legal-tcnder laws do
not even now affect the actual or rel
atiye values of the two metals in in
ternational trade.
Whether payments are made in
gold or silver coins, or in gold or
silver bullion, actual intrinsic value
determines the amount or quantity
to be delivered, no matter what may
be the legal-tender laws of the diff
ferent countries. 1t is the metal that
fixes the value of the coin, and not
the coin that fixes value of the metal.
We have about $625, ,000,00 in
gold, 1897 ,652 1873 in full legal-ten-
der silver, S346, ,681, 900 in old United
States notes, S149. .584, All in treas
ury notes issued in the purchase OF
silver bullion, S209,719, $50 in ma
tional bank notes, and SIG, 169, ,569
in subsidiary silver coin, making in
all 81 ,804, 707 ,763, exclusive of the
minor coins, and every dollar of this
vast vaIume of currency is kept equal
in value to the standard established
by law, so that every man who re-
ceived silver dollar or paper dollar
in exchange for his products, or in
satisfaction of debt, gets just as
good a dollar as the man who re,
ceives gold. This is the monetary
system, and this is the financial con.
dition which the advocates of free
coinage at the ratio of 16 to / now
propose to revolutionize at once by q
change in the standard of value, SO
| that the whole mass OF circulation
left for the use of the people would
be reduced to about one-half the pur-
chasing power it has now.
A double standard is impossible in
practice. Values will always be
measured by the kind of money in
actual circulation, no matter what
the law may declare. and, therefore,
if the free and unlimited coinage of
silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 should
drive out gold and substitute silver
and paper redeemable in silver in its
place, we should have single silver
recommendation. Instead of using
both gold and silver as we do now in
larger amounts than ever before in
our history, we should instantly ex-
pei the more valuable metal from
the country and make the other the
sole basis of our currency. We have
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