The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1896-09-19

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the same time raise silver to S129 an
ounce?"
If Mr.. Gourlay will excuse brief
personal explar alton, necessary to ex-
plain possible shortcomings, L will do
my best.
l am, or rather was until very re-
Gently, a Cleveland democrat; was
proud of what 1 considered our presi-
dents patriotism and backbone in
maintaining the gold reserve at all
hazards. 1 read the Oregonian al
ways, accepting it's dictums faithfully,
and 1 believed that life was TOO short
to fathom the silver question. 1t took
rude shock to arouse me. The St.
Louis convention furnished that shock
You will remember that it denounced
the Cleveland administration as cor
rupt and incompetent, and yet, almost
in the same breath, declared for gold
standard, with the admission that
bimetalism would be batter, other
nations consenting. 1t kicked Mr..
Teller and his silver coherts out-yet
opened the door wide for Mr.. McKin-
ley, whom I had been taught was also
a silver man of mild type.
Now these seeming inconsistencies
followed up by such self-contradictory
arguments as tho ones I asked about in
my former letter, and also by other
such able arguments as traitor" !"
anarchist" and the like, applied to
men who differed with them only as
they differed among themselves, led
me to think there was something radi-
cally wrong with a cause that required
the use of such methods of offense and
defonse, so began to study the ques-
tion for myself and about the first
definite conclusion 1 arrived at may
possibly serve as an answer to Mr.
Gourlay's question. Our early nation
al history and coinage law furnished
it. 1t was this: 'sThat the old
fashioned dollar, the dollar dollar,
sometimes called the dollar of our
daddies,' IVES of silver, and was and
would be again Al cents better than
the 53-cent dollar you harp on, and at
the same time something like 80 cents
cheaper than the inflated Rothschild-
Morgan dollar of the syndicates."
You will admit that this would answer
the question could prove it, so will
try.
More than 100 years ago our fore
fathers had trouble with the same
people over the water who then, as
now, sought to dominate our domestic
and financial affairs; they objected
strenuously and succe; sfully, and have
been called patriots since, but the
thought that they had been dubbed
IS rebels and traitors !" no doubt still
ranked little yet. On April 2, 1892,
when by law (see U. S. statutes) they
established a national standard of
monetary value. This is the law:
" Dollars or units, each to contain
81 4-16 grains of pure, or 416 grains of
standard silver" Thus were estab.
lished the measure of values, the yard
stick as it were, to which other kinds
of our national money must conform,
and thus the silver dollar remained our
standard until 1873. Despite the fact
that very slight difference in the COM
paritive values of gold and silver were
the one up the other down,
in 1894 and 1887, and in each case it
was the gold coin that was altered to
conform. For this whole period, 81
years, gold and silver varied in value
only about 6 or cents, despite the
fact that England during the same
period 1916 demonetized silver.
In 1873, while our people were still
using war money-greenbacks and
in-plasters-and their attention was
not so directly centered on coin OF any
kind, new coinage act was passed,
abrogating that of 1892. In it the unit
of value was fixed in these words (see
q. S. statutes): "That the gold coins
of the United States shall be one |
dollar piece which at the standard |
weight of 25 $40 grains shall be the |
unit of value" Much has been said |
pro aud con of this change in the unit
of value, our national yardstick, but
;he fact remains that the old measure
vas discarded and a new one made.
Another fact is, that since that time, a
period of % years, the gap between
silver and gold has widened constant
y, now amounting to some AZ cents on
,ach dollar.
But to return, Germany demonetized
liver four months after we did in 1873,
he Latin union-France, Belgium,
tally, Switzerland and Greece-in the
anuary following, and recently India
Ollowed suit. In each case new basic
money (gold) was required to maintain
IS credit money in place of its former
asic money (silver) now become bull !
on merely, and this gold, the obliglng
callers in that community stood ready
} supply, at profit, 1--WE had similar E
Experience again recently when our
old reserve was lowl thus was an ex-
demand created; the sup
ly being limited and controlled by the F
w, the usual result followed-for F
omely illustration thereof compare
lie bicycle and horse demand. silver
sing the horse.
Without following the successive
lmps in the price of gold, suffice it to C
" that the English sovereign, worth b
1873 about $4.84 of our money, now
about SO in silver bullion at
cents to the dollar in value (our y
lver maintained at home, at par value,
th gold, as subsidiary or change
oney only, tends to confuse these +
lculations. THAT lying, sacraligious +
amp" Mr.. Gourley speaks OF, getting
work in to limited extent, but the
Id sovereign and American five dol
: piece are nearly the same in size | -,
d weight, so use it in illustration.) pe
lus the increasing value of gold has of
pit pace with the abnormal demand, So,
d silver has CORRESPONDENCE suf- In
ed, but it is. at least strange coin ex
lence, that while it takes about twice !.
much silver to buy gold dollar, it