Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1896-08-06
The Depreciation of silver.

The advocates of the free coinage of
silver charge upon the ''crime of 1873"
the great depreciation in the value of
the white metal, and affirm that II its
coinage isresumed, free to all the silver
in the world, depreciation will cease.
A few facts are worth a volume of the
cries on this subject.
From the establishment of the mint
in 1903 till 1853 we had free coinage for
silver dollars and subsidiary coin, aud
from 1859 till 1873 we had free coinage
for silver dollars, the government max.
ing subsidiary coin on it's own account
During this whole period of 80 years,
from 1898 to 1873, with the minis open
to every one, the total coinage of silver
dollars was only s,03I, 33s, while the
gold coinage amounted to 81 ,O10, 900,-
324, or about one hundred and twenty
six times as much in value as the silver.
Yet near the end of that period silver
was at a premium of three per cent
above gold, and had an actual value,
as bullion, of Sl.33 an ounce. From
1878, when the co mage of the silver
dollar was resumed, till 1896, there
were coined 4o9. os9. 916 silver dollars,
while the gold coined was valued at
SsOl $780, I'll, less than twice the coinage
value of the silver. Yet the latter
metal had deprecated in bullion value
to 65 cents an ounce. IL with coin
age of only So, OOO, 900 in so years silver
was at n premium. and IL with coin
age of S4c9, 900, 900 in Is years, it had
fallen off in bullion value SO per cent,
there must surely be some cause other
than the coinage for the fuctuation.
The cause is clearly shown by the
study of few further figures. To go
back to 1853, when the disproportion
between the production of the two
metals was the greatest, the worlds
product of gold was $4,000 ounces
and that of silver was 81 800, 900 ounces,
or only 4.16 times as much as gold.
The same year the product of gold in
the United States was 3,144, 900 ounces,
and that of silver only 10000 ounces.
In other words we produced almost
eigty times as many ounces OF gold as
we did of silver. From this time on
for twenty years there was q gradual
elimination in the amount of gold pro-
duced in the world. and steady,
though not very rapid, increase In the
production of silver, till in 1872 the
worlds production of the latter metal
had increased to 61,10O,0OO ounces,
while that of gold had fallen to 4,s20,-
600 ounces, the proportion being 1898.
In the United States gold had fallen to
/ TAI, 500 ounces, and the silver had in
creased to 90, 237, 900 ounces.
In 1893, when the Sherman law for
the purchase of silver was repealed,
the worlds production of gold had
risen to 1905, 900 ounces, while that OF
silver had increased to Ice, O92. 900
ounces, the proportion being ELSA to 1.
In the United States we produced
1879, 300 ounces of gold, and GO, 900, 900
ounces of silver. In other words, in
stead of producing 80 times as many
ounces of gold as we did of silver, rs
was the case in 1883, we produced 81
times rs many ounces of silver as we
did of gold.
1t requires no expert in political
economy to understand that, under
these circumstances, change in the
value of the two metals was
We must add to these
changes in produc ION the fact that since
1853 all the commercial nations of
Europe have ceased to coin sill
yer n standard money. II we open
our minis to the free coinage of the
worlds product the tide would be ire
The hope that we could alone
silver at par with gold on
basis Of Is to would be folly. Gold
would 60 out of circulation and we
should speedily be on the single silver
basis, with silver at its deprecated
value. We should be In poor condition
10 trade with other nations Of the
earth.