The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-07-22

der the sun why it should not be dis
carded, or reduced to subordinate posi-
ton" Disseminated against" or "de-
graded as the silver people delight to
put it. 1t is rendered unfit for use in
unlimited quantities in this country at
the present time by the fact that it is SO
cheap that the silver dollar to be on q
parity with the gold dollar would have
to be so large and heavy as to be exceed
ingly iDconvenient as circulating
medium.
We hold that this country did not in
any proper sense of the word "discrimi-
nate against silver'' in the act of 1873
Silver was practically denonetized in
this country in 1857 Its degradation was
begun in 1884 when it was undervslued
in the coinage law of that year. After the
ratio of 16 to l went into effect our silver
dollars soon ceased to circulate as money
but DIS fast as they came from the mint
they were gathered up and exported for
the profit which the difference between
their bullion value and their face value
yielded. Tn en- the subsidiary coinage be-
eamo affected in the same way, and to
keep change in circulation Congress in
1868 debased the subsidiary coin and
stopped its free coinage. In 1867 Congress
gave the finishing blow to silver by re-
psaling allsthe laws that gave currency to
foreign silver coins and made thar, legal
tender in payment of debts Thus in 1857
silver had been thoroughly demonetized.
1t had ceased to be used in this country
as standard money. Yet from 1857 to
1861 the country enjoyed almost unpar-
ulleled prosperity, whereas according to
the silver people of the present day 1t
should have been plunged into the doepest
ably of adysrsity, because of its faith
lessness to the silver idol. When the act OF
1873 was passed no coin had been in circula
ton in this country for eleven years, and
the most violent silver men Of today, some
of whom were in the House Of Represen-
natives whom that law was passed, never
} discovered or suspected the iniquity
} which they have since professed to find
; in it. But when five or six years later
: silver began to fall it became the fashion
to attribute its decline to this act and by
: continually repeating it the silver men
seem to have convinced themselves that
, what is O mere assumption is a truth
} established by colnpetenU and indisputa-
: BILE evidence.
: Whether the results" which S.
W. i. enumerates are due to
, tho decentralization of silver is a disputed
question. The silver men say they are,
their opponents deny this. 1t is certain
, that seven years after silver was demone-
) tied, in 1880 and onward for several years
we enjoyed almost unexamplod prosp eri-
ty, and it is certain too that after the
passage of the Sherman silver purchasing
act which was designed to greatly in
crease our use of silver one of the worst
panics occurred which the country has
ever seen. In 1885 Senate committee
composed of both parties made most
exhaustive examination and reported that
never in the history of the country were
) the wages of the laboring man SO large
both nominally and in purchasing power
as then. Those facts eerve to show that de-
, monetization of silver has not been in
J compatible with the highest prosperity
and that the threat of a larger increase in
tho use of silver has been followed
by one of the worst Pc
RODS of adversely in the history
of the country. In the face of these facts
i it is pure assumption-and assumption
loo without any reasonable ground to
rest upon-to attribute all our business
ills to the act Of 1873 Even the post hoe
! argument does not work in this case,
since SUBSEQUENT that date we have en-
joyed prosperity as well as suffered adyer-
sity.