The record-union., 1895-05-22
SOUND MONEY.
More Criticisms on "Coin's Financial
School,"
The Assertions of the Youthful Silver
Advocate Held Up to
Ridfcule.

The REcoRD-UNIoN on Friday pub
lished the first three chapters of PAM
phlet by Horace White, editor Of the
New Y ork EUe1.ing Post, criticising the
work entitled "Coin's Financial Fool"
Following is continuation of Mr.. Whites
article:
CHAPTER ~.
It is a common remark among those
who have been taken in by Coins FL
naucial SCHOOL, that the writer OF it
''makes everything 80 plain" The Rev.
John Jasper had the same advantage
over the followers of Calico, when he
said "the sun do move" When the Rev.
J. j. pointed to the orb in the heavens
from east to west. What more do you
want? What better evidence could you
have than that of your eyes2
THE POOR MANS MONEY.
See how plain the young man makes
the whole subject of money in single
sentence on page s, viz: "Gold was con-
sidered the money of the rich. 1t was
owned principally by that class of people,
and the poor people seldom handled 1t,
and the very poor people seldom ever
saw any of it"
he says Congress in 1892 made the silver
dollar the monetary unit. We have al
ready shown that Congress did nothing
OF the kind. 1t follows that Congress
never advanced any such reason. but
"Coin," having introduced 1t in this deft
way, recurs to it at frequent intervals as
q settled fact that gold is the rich mans
money and silver the poor mans money.
Argal. all poor men ought to be in favor
OF silver.
This is very plain as long as you do not
consider what the poor man wants
money for. If he wants it as pay for his
services, as an accumulation for sickness
and reliance in old age, he wants the
best money going. not the worst. If poor
money is the right thing for the poor
man. there are several kinds poorer than
silver, copper for example. This was
once legal tender and 1t had legal ratio
with silver. In the Roman republic the
ratio was 40 to l, and the contemporary
Greek ratio was go to l. Is there any
more reason for poor men having poor
money than for having ragged clothes,
bad flour and rancid butter? Is there
reason why the poor should not have the
same standard of value as the rich, just
as they have the same Bible, the same
sunlight, and the same atmosphere? For
it is not the mere handling OF gold that is
of importance here, but the value of the
SuiuS uduuieU. 1uiS luay De copper,
nickel. silver or paper, and most COM
monty will be those things, since our
people do not like to carry gold. 1t
wears out their pockets and their pockets
wear out the gold. So long as the various
things they carry will bring gold on de-
mand, and SO long as a stability of value
is secured TO them equal to that of gold
(be the same more or less,) all require
meats are satisfied. 1t will be easy now
to erase every suggestion in ''Coin's
Financial SCHOOL, that the poor man
needs different kind of money from the
rich man. and when these are all erased
a large part of the book will be wiped
out.
SILVER AS A HUMAN BEING.
The next piece of lucidity we find is
akin to the last. 1t is on page IS:
at (Congress) then deprived silver of
its right to unrestricted free coinage and
destroyed it as legal-tender money in
the payment of debts, except to the
amount of S5."
This is accompanied with picture of
Senator Sherman cutting off the head of
woman called silver, whose blood spouts
in every directions valuable aid to q
people earnestly seeking to know the
truth about momentOuS pu bile question.
To all such let it be said that silver is not
woman, that it is not human being,
that it is not even an animal, and hence
that it has no more rights" than a head
of cabbage, and that nobody but a cab
bagehead would be deceived by such
nonsense. Yet a considerable part of
"Coin's" collection of funny pictures and
comic literature is made up of hints, sug
gestions and assertions that silver has
been treated with cruelty and oppro-
brium, while gold has been petted and
pampered. If we should say that corn
has been mostly banished to the cattle
yard and pig-pen, while wheat has been
elevated TO the kitchen and dining-room.
and should make this the foundation of a
demand for equal rights for cereals, the
logic would be the same. What sort of
conception can any body have of the in
telligence of the American people who
think that their blood can be stirred by a
picture of silver as Cock Robin in the
throes of death from an arrow shot by
gold2 This is called making the science
of finance clear to the common people.
just as the Rev. John Jasper did with the
science of astronomy.
.'BIMETALLIsM, 1872"
The next contribution to clearness is a
picture representing "Bimetallism, 1877" 4"
and "Monometallism, 1884," the former
showing the workingman and his little
child in high state Of prosperity and
contentment, and the latter showing him
in the last extreme OF famine and wretch
Guu656. ulo OOc6 uOb I6q ulE6 muCu uO-
tice. The printers devil might have
changed the labels, in which case the pic
lures would have served equally well SO
far as any intellectual purpose goes. But
one fact ought to be borne in mind. In
1872 we had neither silver nor gold. There
was no "metallisn" in it. Specie pay
ments were not rest ored till seven years
later. Therefore the label "Bimetallism,
.1S72," is itself lie, without regard to the
condition of trade and industry at that
time. This was. in fact, quite as bad as
it was in 1894. being on the eve of one of
the most disastrous panics in our history.
CHAPTER v.-THE ''CRIME OF 1873"
The next statement of importance is on
p. 20, where 1t is stated that "silver WAS
demonetized secretly"
It is not generally easy to prove mega
tive, but it can be done in this case, be-
cause there is no way to pass law se-
cretly in the Congress of the United States.
Every bill must be printed and must be
read publicly in each branch. These
proceedings are incompatible with Sc
crecy. This bill was printed thirteen
times in the course of its passage through
Congress, and the proceedings on it oc-
cupy IA columns of the Congressional
Globe, which was published daily during
the session. That does not look much
like secrecy.
When this charge is disproved, it is
varied slightly by saying that the de-
monetization of silver was accom- plished
silently, by the mere omission of the dol
lar from the list of authorized coins. and