The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-12-20
NEW SILVER DOLLAR DANGER.

Anti-silver papers have discovered
new danger" in the silver dollar,
danger so terrible that goIdbugs can
scarcely sleep nights because of it.
This discovery is that they are being
ccunterfeited.s The announcement was
recently made from Washington that
the secret service officers at San Fran
cisco, Chicago and Buffalo have un-
earthed this great counterfeiting
scheme. and while they have not as
yet arrested the criminals they hope to
very soon.
An exchange says that had the pub
lie announcement of this nefarious en-
terprise been made two months ago
it would have constituted one of the
strongest possible campaign arguments
against the free silver phase of Bryan
ism; and for this reason: The men
who have been engineering this coun-
terfeiting scheme have used as much
silver as is contained in the legal ten
der dollar-and frequently more. Their
dollars are spurious not in metal, but
in the fact that they come not from
the United States, and are not sup
ported by the federal government
These men merely took advantage of
the natural discovery that there was
much profit to- be realized. with COM
parative safety, by making dollars in
trinsically worth as much as the coin
of the realm. They enjoyed a margin
after using the legal amount of silver
of from IS to 100 per cent. on which
to draw for alloy and labor. and the
net result was eminently satisfactory.
in view of the difficulty of detection
and probable immunity from prison
stripes"
This great and newly discovered
danger" from counterfeit silver dol
lars has been pointed out and COM
mented upon dozens and dozens of
times in the past. AS an argument
against free silver it is worth about
as much as the argument against an
income tax that it would lead to a
great deal of perjury. This danger" of
counterfeiting has always existed and
probably always will. That which pre-
vents it is that which prevents the per-
petration of other crines-the law
against it. The danger" pointed out
is commented upon by Director of the
Mint Preston in his report just sub
mitted to congress.
Those who see this great danger"
may feel it and they may not be ac-
tuated by any motives hostile TO sill
yer, but the whole business has the
marks of a special purpose upon it; 4
that purpose is to create the impress
sion that the country has escaped a
great danger" in escaping the free
coinage of silver. There are dangerous
of gold even, and only the
other day the country was warned
against them in these words:
Some clever counterfeiter is flooding
the circulating medium of st. Louis
with an exceedingly we'll executed
counterfeit of United States So gold
coins. The dies are almost perfect,
and the only rough work about the
coin is in the milling. the
edges being irregular and thicker than
on the genuine pieces. The metal. how
ever, is soft, wears easily and the
color clearly indicates plating. With
ali these defects, however, the coun-
terfeit is a dangerous one and calcu-
lated to deceive the unwary.
The new silver dollar danger is not
so great or imminent that the people
will become unduly alarmed over it;
il is impossible to work up the least
anti-silver scare over it.