The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-08-17

| THE FINANCIAL FORUM |
PAY IN GOLD OR IT'S EQUAL.
There Is Not an Institution I'm the
Country But Is Doing 1T.

To the Editor OF the Globe
James Wells has communication in your
paper of even date, in which he says, among
other and irrelevant things: LET those good,
honest conscientious gold people, who en-
ploy labor, and who would not under any
circumstances pay out 5O-cent dollar, inn
mediately make contracts to pay gold. Let the
savings banks and insurance companies at
once make contracts with holders of their
obligations to pay them In gold. The savings
bank people and the insurance people are all
for the gold standard, and they surely will
not object to this
There Is not today a daily laborer of any
class who is not paid in gold, or It's equiv
alent. 1t Is the silver agitator who is threat
ening the country with flood of 50-cent dol
lars. Not until Stewart Jones' Teller and
host of other currency iconoclasts of the
same ilk commenced the agitation of free
coinage was 50-cent dollar dreamed Of in
the United States
Those who started the agitation Of the sub
ject are to blame for the present condition Of
incertitude which is daily paralyzing trade
in all branches.
The savings banks, insurance companies and
other corporate bodies of trust, have to in
vest their surplus earnings in bonds or mort
cages as security for their deposits and the
security Of their policy holders respectively.
In the case Of bonds security for invest
ment, would cities states or the general gov
eminent find purchasers for SUCH when the
interest would, or might, be paid in dollars
worth only 80 per cent of the value Of the
commercial money of the world?
Take the insurance companies as an exam
pie. They would be obliged to take depre-
ciated silver dollars, were they made legal
tender under popocratic dominance, in pay
ment of premiums for policies. What would
be the result? The answer is dead easy
Premiums would be advanced 100 per cent,
would remain as now if paid in gold.
This course would be necessary in order
that bonds might be purchased, as security
for policy holders as bonds would have to
be a gold basis.
Within few days city and county bonds
nave gone begging for purchasers because
n nlod do HI tn
not? The bonds referred to carried an agree
nent that the interest should be paid at the
rate OF per cent. In what? Gold? Silver?
No, merely per cent in some form of legal
tender But there is the uncertainty as to
whether 5O-cent silver may not be legal ten
ger. II such resulted, the per cent interest
would only amount to 2h per cent to the
holder of the per cent bond. Capital is as
sensitive as modest maiden.
Take the savings banks as another example.
Should they agree to pay all debts due de-
posltors in gold, their deposits having been
made In deprecated silver Judged by the
standard Of the world at this time), they
would be paying out the worlds money at
the rate of 81 for each dollar of the Bryan
Tillman-Altgeld-T eller-Towne money. held as
deposits after this Ubiquitous onslaught upon
rated.
How would the borrowers be affected were
lne Iree silver onslaught of the silver bar
ons to prevail?
The rate Of interest would double Where
the legal rate is now per cent it would be-
Co1ne II per cent with Tree coinage. A farmer
borrowing $1,000 would have to pay $40 per
! annum, instead of $40, as now. But would he
receive correspondingly increased price for
his wheat? No, the price of wheat is regu-
lated by the price prevailing in foreign eoun-
tries. Ii Russia, France, the Argentine Re-
PUBIC and other wheat producing countries
OF the world have an excess of wheat for
export, their oversurplus comes in competi-
ton with American grain, and the price falls
In Chicago and New York and as a conse-
quence, at the inland elevators The price of
wheat in America is estimated and fixed upon
a gold basis. as all the prosperous countries
OF the world are using gold as the standard
of values.
The absurdity of the silverites in claiming
that legislation by an American congress will
make metal worth as much as gold at a
ratio OF 16 parts of silver to / part of gold
when gold is worth nearly 80 times as much
as silver, weight for weight is astounding
1t is doubtful If the leaders of the silver party
believe the validity of the claim Trace the
1n1tiatory stage of the silver craze 1t orig
mated in the silver mining states and terri
tories.
The original agitators bided their time.
they put their poison into the national party
IN small toxic doses, gradually charging
This year marks a crisis in our national
history not even second to that of 1851 So al
Let every man who values the future of
our great nation buckle on his armor and
fight for national honor.
st. Paul Aug 13 1896