Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1896-07-23
Subsidized Logic.


the following as a fair sample of tn
arguments put forth by the Eastern
| IGoldbug press:
Our mints and those OF all the grea
com merciaT nations of Europe are to
day open to the free coinage of gold
None of them is open to silver. Ou
gold coin is accepted in any market II
the world at the equivalent OF its fact
value. not because of the mint stamp
but because the bullion in it is worth
| that amount. Persons in this city who
! have payments to make in Europe
send either gold coin or gold bars. Il
/ goes on its intrinsic value. Now, in
the form of bullion it takes about
| thirty pounds of silver to equal a pound
of gold. The Chicago proposition to
make sixteen pounds of silver coins
equal pound of gold coins could be
| imposed only upon our own people.
The dollar containing fifty-three cents
worth OF silver could be forced by law
upon creditors in this country as legal
tender for one hundred cents of debt.
! We have in existence to-day nearly six
silver bullion against witch circula-
ting notes have been issued and these
have thus far been kept at an equality
with gold dollars because the govern
ment has ceased to create any more of
this legal tender silver and has kept
the amount already in existence as
good as gold by preserving the nation
al credit and redeeming its obligations
in gold when demanded.
But if the United States placed its
mints at the free service of every for
eigner who chose to have fifty-three
cents worth OF silver stamped into a
dollar with which he could then dis
charge a hundred cents of debt to our
own citizens-with every miner in this
country and every owner OF old spoons
turning his silver into dollars without
end-it stands to reason that the gov
ernment could not keep this vast un-
limited mass of silver dollars at par
ity with gold. and they would circulate
at home and abroad, like the dollars of
free coinage Mexico, at their worth in
bullion. Persons who visit Mexico
get valuable object lesson in the eff
feet of unlimited coinage. A man may
get meal and when he puts down an
American dollar in payment will get
back as change a Mexican dollar,
which contains six grains more silver
than our own. He gets a demonstra-
tiOn of the fact that it is the credit of
our government which keeps the silver
dollar aflOat at forty-seven cents more
than its intrinsic value just as it keeps
its paper notes, which have no intrin-
sic value, at an equality with a gold
dollar. Free, unlimited and indepeud-
ent coinage at sixteen to one" would
mean dollars worth only fifty-three
cents. The wage Garner and the man
on salary would be paid these, thus
cutting his income down nearly one
half, and every debtor could pay his
creditor with these deprecated dollars.
If it ever became evident that the
American people were so dishonest
and SO foolish as to adopt such poll
cy there would be a rush to anticipate
its effects. The six hundred millions
gold in the country would at once be
boarded or exported, and this enor-
nous contraction wOvld precipitate
panic, with all its dread sequel of
prostrated business, idle industries and
unemployed labor. In the crash and
in the subsequent readjustment to the
deprecated currency the rich would
get richer, and the poor would be
poorer than ever, and it would require
a generation of organized agitation to
bring back wages to their present rel
ative purchasing power.
We infer from the above extract the
New York Herald has reached the con-
clusion that every man, woman and
child west of the Allegheny mountains
and south of the Potomac River not
engaged in the business of loaning
money, is an ass, and the farmers and
mechanics of its own section are in the
same deplorable condition. Consider
this proposition for a moment: The
dollar (under free coinage), containing
fifty-three cents worth of silver, could
be forced by law upon creditors in this
country as a legal tender for one hun
dred cents of debt" If the ffty-three-
ceLt dollar would do the work of the
hundred-cent dollar, would anybody
but IN idiot take less than hundred
cents for it? If we should again make
silver a money metal and open our
mints to its free and unlimited coin
age, will any one who cares for his
reputation for honesty contend that
this new use, creating an unlimited
demand for it, would not enhance its
value, and at same time by its assum-
ing a function now performed by gold
alone. depress the price of that metal?
No one believes-least of all the editor
of the New York Herald-that when
we open our mints to free coinage of
silver, the silver in the silver dollar
will still remain worth only fftythree
cents.
Again. what foreigner could bring
silver to this country-the greatest
silver exporting country on earth-to
have ffty-three cents of it coined into
q dollar? The German would not, for
his country is on the gold basis, and
all the silver coins there are on a par