The San Francisco call., 1896-10-30
THE EFFECT OF FREE COINAGE.

Having been asked by my neighhors and
friends ia San Mateo and Santa Clara counties
to say what think of the free silver question
as involved in the lending election, take the
present mode of doing so. The election is in
my opinion more important than any that has
occurred since the close of the Civil War, and
even if unable to contribute anything addi-
tional to discussion in which so many abler
men have participated, may, for that reason,
be pardoned for the attempt.
Historically we know that the coinage act
passed under General Jackson's administration
treated the dollar OF 25 $40 grains OF STAN
dard gold as the money unit of the United
States. At that time, as for the fifty preceding
years, the bullion value of silver and gold
stood so very nearly sixteen of the former to
one of the latter that the silver dollar of
412 $40. grains OF fine silver was retained,
and both it and the gold dollar made legal
tender. The silver dollar was, however, worth
as bullion about 21a per cent premium over
the gold one, and consequently when issued
from the mint did not remain in circulation.
but wasmelted down or exported, and really
went out of use. The gold dollar remained
the standard of commerce from that time
down to January 1, 1862. when specie pay
ments were suspended throughout the United
States, except in California.
Specie yments remained suspended from
1862 10 1879, during which time the people,
outside OF our own State, used neither gold
nor silver as money. There was no coin
whatever in circulation; their currency con-
sisted of greenbacks, bank notes, fractional
(paper) currency, and, for part of the time.
postage-stamps and trash popularity called
'sshinplasters" So absolute was the Danish
ment of coin from the circulation that l re-
member instance wherein an unhappy
Californian was arrested in Washington City
and locked up over night for offering genu-
inc gold coin in payment for some small pur-
chase on the supposityon that 1t must be coun-
terfeit, as no one in his senses would think of
paying gold out as money!
During this interval of suspended specie
payments Congress took up the coinage laws
for rev ision, and, after two years of examina-
wherein the silver dollar was omitted from the
list of coins of the United States 1t is said
that this ct of Congress demonetized silver.
and it is called by the silver fanatics ''The
crime of 1872, 1t is true in one sense, that it
demonetized silver, put not in the sense
claimed by Mr.. Bryan and his supporters. It
did not throw any actual money yout OF use nor
aft sct the value of single debt then in ex-
isence, for they had all been contracted and
were payable in paper, less valuable than sill
yer, and which was legal tender. What it
actually effected and must have been intended
to effect was TO provide that whenever specie
payments should be resumed IL should be in
gold
Silver had at that time fallen appreciably in
value, in consequence OF the great production
of il in Nevada, and the trainers of the act
doubtless recognized that 1t never could main
tain itself at par with gold without change
in the size OF the dollar, which they were not
prepared to make. On the other hand TO look
forward TO a resumption OF specie payments
without in some way providing for this change
of value would infailibly put us, whenever we
did resume, on silver basis; Tor where two
sorts of money are in circulation, legally
equal to one another but of different bullion
values, the cheaper one is invariably retained
for domestic use and the more valuable ex-
ported or melted down as bullion. That is the
universal aud unbroken experience of the
whoe world.
the silver dollar had never cut any figure as
circulating medium undoubtedly determined
the authors of the act to drop 1t from the list
of coins OF the United States. Be this, how
ever, as it may, it was dropped. and the de-
termination was thus arrived at that when
ever we did resume payments il should be
distinctly In gold. This decision did not, as
above observed, affect dollar OF existing in
dividual liabilities, for they had all been con-
tracted IN paper, and actual resumption was
out Of sight. III the distant future.
1t did however, come at last. Specie pay
ments were resumed in 1879, and since that
time the word dollar i'll this country has al
ways meant q dollar in gold or its equivalent.
All indebtedness since that time has been
contracted and is now payable in such.
Now. the free-coinage proposition is that
every man who can get $500 worth of silver
may take it to the United States Mint and
have it coined into 1000 silver dollars, with
which he may pay $1,000 OF debt TO any credi-
and when free coinage passes may pay you
in silver which bought with very little more
than half the sum borrowed and keep $470 of
the cash you lent me as profit. The cishon-
esty of the proposal is obvious on its face
That unprinclpled debtors and people owning
silver mines should favor such a law / can
understand, for there are plenty of mean
people in the world ready to make money out