The diamond drill. (Crystal Falls, Iron County, Mich.) 1887-1996, 1896-09-19
Have you counted the cost9 fear

Have you counted the COST rear
not.
Look before you leap.
Don't leap first and look afterward.
One of the fundamental fallacies
which is Rugged with fondness. aye,
flerceness, by sixteen to one advocates
everywhere is that prices are deter
mined by the amount of gold in use.
II this is true, prices must fall per-
petually, for the reason that the in
crease of products has so far out
stripped the increase OF gold.
But IL is not so.
We wonder If the new school Of finan-
ciers will insist that moro gold means
more consumption.
We wonder, too, how they account
for the fall of prices under n rise of
per capita circulation?
As some one caustically remarks,
whether there be ninety-nine yardsticlSs
or one, three feet Of calico measures just
the same.
Buying power fixes the price, not the
quantity of gold at actual command.
A piece Of paper frequently serves the
purpose equally as well.
Under our vast credit and banking
systems the volume Of money available
Is practically unlimited.
Modes Of transacting business have
been revolutionized, and ancient the
cries have been annulled to such an eN-
tent that modern people have come TO
realize that all unexpended wealth goes
TO form the buying power which de-
termines the price of commodities.
diniinutive fraction of this buying
power may be represented by actual
cash. II may be rolling mills. railroads,
elevators and one thousand other forms
OF wealth which can be used just as
well as gold to make purchases.
Gold is buying power in its best and
most available form.
IL will buy more things to-day than in
1860 because there are more things 10
buy, and because things to buy have
increased more than the whole uncx-
pended wealth and buying power.
A word here as TO parity. Listen.
A gold dollar is worth 100 cents be-
cause II stands for 100 cents worth of
expended muscle.
A silver dollar is only worth so cents
because Il stands for only 80 cents
worth OF expended muscle. See?
Under the free and unlimited coinage
OF silver at the ratio OF sixteen TO one,
when the worlds commercial ratio is
thirty-two TO one, they cannot be equal.
No amount Of legislation and no eX-
travagance of assertion can make them
so.
They tell us about the money OF the
constitution and the constitutional pro
vision for the coinage OF both gold and
silver
We shall not deny the right OF the
government, under our constitution. to
coin money and say what its value shall
be.
We shall, however, deny, and the uni
form experience OF the nations OF the
earth will bear me witness, that any one
nation Is able TO coin freely two metals
of varying values and maintain the
parity.
In other words, the government can
say that four peclSs are a bushel. but no
government on the planet can, by legis-
lation, make a three-peck bushel as
large as four-peck bushel.
We shall not be diverted from our
theme into a discussion of the justice
or injustice of the silver decentralization
act OF 1873.
IL was done-not in corner. nor in
the dark-done openly, as much so ms
any of the public acts of our national
congress.
Whether IL was a crime or an act OF
craftsmanship, in 1s73-whethe IL was
done in the dark OF the moon or the
light of the sun, is extraneous 20 he
discussion OF this question and the
reaching of n rational conclusion at this
time.
The question is. can this government