The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1896-10-15

question, | shall refrain. The expression
! "l6 to l. simply means that there should
be sixteen times as many grains of pure
silver to the silver dollar as grains of
gold to the gold dollar.
The meaning of the expression In
dependent action of the United States
is plain to all. The wisdom or unwis-
dom of such action, l shall speak of lat
| er
To slender" is to offer. Anything
that may be offered. and which the law
| will compel the acceptance of in the dis
charge of debt. is said to be legal
TENDER Suppose that | owe our presid-
ing officer 50 and offer him this book
| i'll discharge of that debt. He is not
! compelled by law to accept the book for
| the debt: SO we say. the book is not Il
legal tender. Neither are national bank
notes. nor gold certificates nor silver
| certificates. But | may offer him four
JO-cent pieces. and he is bound by law
to accept them in payment of that debt.
If l owe him $40 the law will compel
him to accept twenty 5O-cent pieces in
the discharge of that debt. But it will
not compel him to accept any more of
them than SO worth. The fifty pieces
have what we call limited legal tender
If. however, | owe him SD or $500 Or
S1.OOOOOO. or any sum Whatsoever.
can lawfully compel him to accept silver
SO we say that silver dollars have full
legal tender" In other words. the sill
Yer dollars have now what the advo-
Gates of free silver desire them to have
viz. full legal tender. They are as
much 'primary money or money of
ultimate redemption" Ito use one of their
pet phrases) as the law can make Them
so we should have no controversy over
that point.
Now let me repeat the demands of the
frce-silver advocates, and, as | cnumer-
ate them. let each person interpret to
himself the expressions used. The gen
tlemcn on the other side of this contrO-
vcrsy stand for the free and unlimited
coinage of silver on private account at
the ratio of Is to l. by the United States
alone, said coins to have full legal ten
der.
The Change is Proposed by the SiIverites
At present we have the coinage of
gold on private account and coinage of
silver on government account. This has
been our system for many years. 1t is
they. therefore, and not we. who propose
Il change. Changes are i'll themselves
fraught with Il certain amount of dam
ger. | see mothers in the audience.
They will bear me out i'll saying thar
they never see 4. son or daughter, their
husband or other loved one. go away
from the house to be gone week or
more, without a certain amount of anXi-
ETY.. They know that in the change of
food of water. and of bedding, there
is certain element of danger. Any
change which may affect the welfare of
a great nation should be taken with
caution.
1t should be very certain that the
change will bring good and not harm.
The burden of proof. therefore. rests
upon the advocates of silver coinage
on private account to show beyond a
reasonable doubt that the change which
they propose from our present plan
would very surely do the nation good
and not harm. 1t will not be sufficient
justification to reasonable minds to say
that the change may do no harm. "A
step so mOmentOus, fraught with so
many possibilities of danger, should rest
on the firm foundation of certain and
substantial good; otherwise it would not
Their Reasons Stated.
What reasons do the advocates of this
change offer to Justify it? l asked
gentleman recently why he favored the
free coinage of silver. His answer was,
and merchants and well-to-do people gen
orally are against it, l could not help
thinking that his answer was a very
simple" one, too simple to be worthy
of an intelligent man, so simple as to
mark him as a simpleton. And vet
there are great many people who can
give no better reason than this
But if you ask a good, level-headed
free-slver man, why he favors the propo-
sition, he will tell you that is it ''be-
cause we need more money" and that
free silver coinage will give it to us.
He reasons this way: eff both metals
may be coined on private account, both
will be coined: and this will give us
more money, better prices and better
times" This course of reasoning is so
natural that l do not wonder that many
people, of good intelligence, even, have
followed it and believed it to be true.
But the fundamental proposition in it is
wrong, and all the propositions built
thereon fall, therefore, to the ground.
| shall endeavOr to show that. strange as
it may seem. if both metals may be
coined on private account, only one of
them will be coined and circulated as
money; and that the result of free coin
points above mentiOned) would be a con-
traction and not an expansion of the
currency, and that the effect upon bust
ness would be bad and not good.
1t might be sufficient justification of
my position to point to the countries
whose mints are open to the coinage of
both metals on private account at a fixed
ratio. In every such country the volume
of money is small and the standard of
living is low. But as a reasonable peo-
pie we naturally ask, "Why is this so.
and is it inevitable?" This brings us
to the foundation principles upon which
the whole contention rests.