The San Francisco call., 1896-08-23
A FEW FACTS.

Mr.. Bryan may know all about the tricks
of oratory, but he knows nothing what
ever about the science of economies. In a
speech the other day he undertook to
prove that silver bullion would have a
market price of 81 20 an ounce if this coun-
try declared for the free and unlimited
coinage of the white metal, independent
of other countries, and as clincher he
said: "Any purchaser who stands ready to
take the entire supply of any given article
at a certain price can prevent that article
from falling below that price," How very
very little the man knows.
Certainly one might prevent the price
of an article going below given point if
he would take all offerings at that price,
but what has that proposition to do with
the bullion price of silver under Bryan's
plan of opening the mints to the free and
unlimited coinage of silver? The words
Stree and unlimited" mean that there is
no buyer for silver bullion at any fixed
price. They mean that the Government
must take anybody's silver bullion, coin it
into disks called dollars and return the
product to the owner without making any
charge for converting the bullion into
disks. The Government does not buy the
bullion, therefore it fixes no price upon it.
1t would be matter of no consequence to
the Government what the market price of
bullion was. 1t would simply act as the
machine OF the owner of the bullion to
convert it into disks. Bryan's theory is
utterly worthless as an argument, that by
opening the mints the Government would
become purchaser of all or any offerings
of bullion at given price.
To be sure the disks that were made of
the bullion would be legal tender for
debts in this country, but they would not
be a legal tender IN current transactions,
nor would one be obliged to agree to take
them at some future time in liquidation
of a current contract. In fact, the owner
of the bullion would not be whit better
off after he had it coined into dollars, ex-
cept that he could pay his old debts with
it, and to that extent only-to the extent
of paying debts previously contracted
would the free and unlimited coinage of
silver, independent of other nations, in
crease the volume of the Nations metallic
money. Not few believe that Bryan's
plan of free coinage would make the Gov
ernment buyer of silver bullion at it's
debt paying value as coin, but they are
mistaken. As we have said, the Govern
ment would be nothing more than ma
chine to change the shape of silver from
bars into disks or dollars and make them a
legal tender for debts previously con-
tracted.
The difference between Bryan's plan
and the Republican party's plan to open
the mints to silver is very great. The
cial nations agree that silver shall be a
money metal; that it shall be coined upon
its own merit; that it shall be made ulti-
mate as well as present redemption
money; that it shall be accepted in all in
ternational commercial transactions at it's
face value; that it shall have nothing what
ever to do with gold except in so far as it is
necessary to determine the ratio of differ
ence in the market price per pound; that
it shall be money metal as full and COM
plete as gold, and that it shall be received
for coinage at the mints of all the COM
mercial nations. Naturally that would
keep its bullion and coin value substan-
tally the same. because there would be a
demand for the worlds production for
coinage purposes, and, moreover, the vol
ume of the worlds metallic money would
then be increased in an amount exactly
equal TO the worlds production of silver
and gold. less the amount that would be
required in the arts and sciences. That
is true blmetaIlism.