The National tribune., 1895-07-04
THE SILVER DOLLAR.

fully-What we have said in regard t
the greater use of silver in our daily
transactions. We haven't the space, MOI
do We believe it our duty, to enter upor
the discussion of the financial question
In general. There are enough paper
which are filling their columns Will
information and transformation mostly
misinformation-on this question, with
out our addition to the number. We
have felt that we should be doing oul
full share in the discussion if we con
fined ourselves to answering plain
questions asked by our readers as to
actual facts. We would give the facts
as we understand them, and let our
readers make there own deductions.
AT the same time, we have been
amazed, ever since the beginning of the
silver agitation, at what seemed the
blunder of the silver leaders in allowing
the immense hoard Of silver dollars to
remain piled up in the Treasury. This
has hurt the cause of silver immeas-
urably. It has stood directly in the
way OF all attempts at International
Congresses. Everybody in Europe be-
lieves that we are trying to trick them
into some sort of scheme by which we
can unload this mass of silver upon
them. They say that we are hypocrites
in our professions of affection for silver,
because our own people will not use it
for money. Amy sensible man can see
how conclusive these arguments must
seem, when they can point out from our
own Treasury reports that we have
coined 423,277,219 silver dollars, of
which but 52,812,570-or less than one
in the hands of the people,
while 370,464,649 are stored up in the
Treasury, together with $124,583,685
worth of silver bullion.
1t does not meet the case at all to say
that large part of this hoard is repre-
sented by notes in the hands of the
people.
The real question at issue is the use
Of silver as money. The opponents of
silver can say-and they cannot be sue
sessfully disputed-that the silver basis
for these notes is the merest fiction
that nobody expects them redeemed In
silver, nobody wants the silver they
promise to pay.
All this could have been easily rene
died at the very outset of the discussion,
and the silver cause been placed in an
unspeakably better position, by the sim
pie method of urging every man and
woman who believed in silver to ask
for silver in all payments made to them.
This would in little while empty the
Treasury of its menacing accumulation
It would put the silver dollars everywhere
in view as real money, and accustom
the people to thinking of the white
metal as such. Relative to her popula-
lion France has more silver than we,
but she has no trouble with it, because
It is all in the hands of her people.
The fve-franc piece is seen everywhere,
and constantly in use. The Frenehman
s forever paying it out or receiving it.
Silver is the general medium of the |
everyday transactions Of the people |
hey receive it for their wages and for
heir products, and they pay it out again
% the stores, to the railroads, to the I
churches, the restaurants, and hoard I'D
heir savings in it. Consequently it is
really money. to them, and an immense
amount of it is necessary for the trans
action of their daily business. This is
so because there is much
ess credit business in France than here. i
Things are generally paid for on the
spot by everybody.
There are really only a little over
i've silver dollars in the Treasury for
very one in our population. If the
believers in silver as money would take
practical steps in furtherance of their
belief by insisting that at least all minor
payments to them should be made in
silver coin, the Dollar of the Daddies"
would be speedily remonetized in the