Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1896-04-19


 banks and the treasury having suspended specie payments, the country was flooded with a depreciated currency. worth at times less than 50 cents on the dollar. Later on, fractional paper currency was authorized by congress, and the effect of this was tJ drive out of circulation even the light weight subsidiary silver coins and fer many years not a single piece of metallic money Of any kind was used by the peo pie, except on the Pacific coast where gold continued to circulate at it's actual intrinsic value. without regard to the fcti- tious value which the acts of congress at- tributed to the legal tender paper. I will endeavor to show you hereafter what ef- feet this depreciated currency had upon the wages of labor and upon the prices Of commodities which the laborers were compelled to purchase with their wages, my purpose at the present moment being simply to prove, by our own experience, that it is impossible to retain In circulation at the same time legal tender gold and silver coins of the same denomination at any ratio which does not correspond with the actual commercial values of the two metals in the markets of the world and that, therefore, the free and unlimited coinage of legal-tender silver by the United States alone at the ratio of sixteen to one when the true commercial ratio is about thirty-one to one, would instantly contract the currency by the expulsion of all the gold now in the country. If the over=valuation of silver to the amount of little over one per cent. in the coin- age law of 1792 expelled gold and estab- lished silver monometallism. and if the cver-valuation of gold to the extent of less than one per cent. in the acts of 1894 and 1887 expelled silver from circulation and established gold monometallism. is not the conclusion irresistible that the free and unlimited coinage of legal-tender sil- yer al the present time, at an oVer-valua- tion of nearly 100 per cent, would at once place the country upon a monometallic silver basis? This question does not seem to me to be open to serious argument, and when it is proposed that the United States shall. in defiance of our own experience during period of S9 years, and in defiance of the experience of other nations during many centuries, authorize the free coin age of legal-tender silver at such ratio. it is the duty of the people, and especially the duty of the laboring people, to pause before it is too late and carefully consider whether they will determine to overthrow their existing monetary system and substi- ute in it's place the depreeiated silver monometallism of Asia and Mexico and the small states and republics of Central and South America, with their low rates of wages and their high rates of exchange. Under the coinage act Of 1792 we had silver but no gold, and under the acts of 1884 and 1887, with free coinage of both metals, we had gold but no silver, except the token. subsidiary coins after 1855 while now, with gold as the standard and limited coinage of silver, we have both gold ant silver as full legal tender money in larger an1S unts than ever before in cur history and the coins of tlre two metals are kept equal in purchasing power by the credit and resources of the government, not withstanding the difference in their intrin- sic value.
 Foreign Silver Would Crowd Our Mints.
 We have now about $620 00o, GOO in gold, and S413, ,e00 096dnfulll 1 egal tender silver, besides $7S,216, GIT in subsidiary silver coins, which are legal tender in payments not exceeding $10. and the real question for the people to decide is whether they will continue to use the coins of both metals or adopt Q nnone- tary system which always has had and al- ways will drive one of them out of the eoun- try. l am not here, therefore, this even ing to advocate the exclusive use Of gold coin as money. or to oppose conservative and safe use of silver coin as money along with gold and at a parity with gold, but am here to insist that we shall not abandon the present legal standard of value, expel all the gold from the country, and adopt silver monometallism, with free coinage of a nominal dollar worth intrinsically only 51 or 62 cents. l am here to insist that the hints Of the United States, which were con- strueted and are maintained and operated al the expense of all the people, shall not be used for the exclusive benefit of the own CTS of silver bullion under q law giving them the right to have 51 or B cents worth of une1r sI-eer col.ed free of charge and stamped as dollar, and compelling you and all others to receive it from them as a dollar. All the hints of the United States, operated to their full capacity, and doing no other work, could not coin into standard silver dollars tWo-thirdS of the annual pro- duction of silver in our own country, but notwithstanding this, it is seriously pro- posed to offer free coinage to all the silver in the world at legal valuation almost double its commercial value in the markets of the foreign countries where 1t is pro- dueed. The annual production of silver in the world is about S216 G00,000 at our coining rate, and the annual capacity of our hints to coin standard silver dollars is only about $40, eco. Last year we coined $43, ,993, ,475 in gold, $9,069, ,4S0 in silver; so that if our hints were devoted exclusively to the free coin age of standard silver dollars the addition to our stock of metallic money would be about Sl5,000,000 less every year than it is now and it would not be good money after 1t was coined. More than 15 years would elapse before we could at this rate coin enough Appreciated silver dollars to SUD- ply the place of the good gold dollars ex- pelled from the country, and, in the mean time, a complete revolution would have to be effected in our commercial relations with other nations and in all our domestic business affairs, including a readjustment of the wages of labor, the prices of com modities, the rates of municipal, state and federal taxation, charges for tranSporta- tion, and every other matter involving the use of money or credit.
 Labor Would Suffer.
 We should descend by a single step from the highest standard of value to silver lnonometallism, with a contracted and at a financial experiment. which has no prece- dent in the monetary history of the world. Fortunately, when changes have hereto fore been made in the circulation by the substitution of the coins of one metal for the coins of the other, the difference in their value has been very small, and the process
 
 ated no great financial disturbance. Un- der the act of l792 the difference in value between the coins at the legal ratio was only a little over one per cent, and yet, within less than one year after the enact- ment of that statute, congress was com pelled to reinforce our stock of money by making certain foreign coins legal tender in the payment of debts; and on the same day of the passage of the act of 1884, which put the country on a gold basis by under Valuing silver about one per cent, con gress passed another statute making the gold coins of Great Britain, Portugal, Bra gil, France, Mexico and Colombia legal ten der by weight in the payment of debts, thus providing, as far as possible, against contraction of the currency on account Of the expulsion of silver from the circulation. During the war when gold was leaving the country legal tender treasury notes were rapidly issued. under the authority of con- gress, to take it's place, and, instead of a contraction of the currency, we had an ex- pansion. After the war, when it was de- termined to change the character of our currency again by the resumption of specie payments, the law was enacted four years in advance of the time when it was to take effect, in order that ample opportunity might be afforded to adjust the business of the people to the altered conditions. Now, however, all the conservative and prudrntial considerations that have usually