The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1896-07-17
IS To1ANp "FREE COINAGE.

-
t6 AND FREE COINAGE"
What does it mean !? This question
is frequently asked and even in Ver-
mont is not fully understood by some.
A Western banker when asked the
question replied that in his section 1t
meant l6 fools to one man of sense.
AS this will hardly apply to the peo-
pie of the East we will give differ.
ent explanation. 1t means the stand
ard OF ratio between the white and |
yellow metals. 1t does not mean
that it will take l6 silver dollars to
equal one gold dollar but that sill
yer dollar, be l6 times as heavy |
as gold dollar-our present stand.
ard. A gold dollar contains 1922
(twenty-three and twenty-five hun
dreds) grains of pure gold and the
silver dollar 371.25 grains of pure
silver, within small fraction of 16
of silver to QUE of gold. And the
free coinage of silver, if adopted
would oblige the government to coin
into dollars, at the above ratio, all
the silver that might be brought to it.
AT the present price of silver these
dollars would be worth, intrinsically,
about 81 cents. So it can readily be
seen that this would be big thing
for those owning silver whether in
tableware or the bullion direct from
the mines. We quote further, as of
interest to our readers, from the N.
Y. Herald:
When the mint was founded Ham
ilton and jefferson agreed that
pound of gold was worth in the mar
kets about Is pounds of silver, and
accordingly the ratio for the coinage
at first was made IL to /. Anybody
could bring as much of either metal
as he pleased to the minis and have
it stamped into coins. This free and
unlimited coinage of both metals is
called bimetallism, and the country
was said to have double standard
of values. The bullion in either
dollar was intrinsically worth as much
before being coined as it was after
ward, but the governments mint
stamp was guarantee of the weight
and fineness Of the metal and made it
legal tender.
Subsequently it was found that Is
pounds OF silver were not worth as
much as a pound of gold, and in Or
der to conform to the relative mar
ket value of the metals Congress de-
cded that the silver dollar should
thereafter weigh 16 times as much as
the gold dollar. In doing this Con
gress went to the other extreme and
put too low an estimate on silver.
Tue European nations composing the
Latlon anon made their coming ratio
. 10 1-2 to |, and the owner of silver
here would not exchange 16 pounds
of it for a pound of gold because he
could obtain the same thing in
Europe for 10 IL pounds of his sill
yer. In other words, the quantity of
silver in a dollar was worth more
than 100 cents. Consequently hold
ers of silver bullion ceased to send it
to the United States mnts and the
silver dollars previously coined were
boarded.
When the mint laws were revised
in 1873 the provision for the free
coinage Of silver dollars was dropped.
This attracted little attention at the
time because none of these dollars
had been in circulation for genera.
ton; and in fact, only S,00O,O 200 in
all had beens coined from the foun-
dation Of the government up to that
time. Owing to the discovery OF new
mines the worlds production of sill
yer began to steadily increase, and
the price consequently began to de-
cline, and the European nations were
in self defence compelled to close
their mints against further free coin
age Of the deprecated metal. While
silver was high the mine owners cared
nothing about the mint, but when il
got so low that pound of gold
would buy II pounds of silver ia the
market these gentlemen began tc
clamor for restoration of the priv.
lege Of selling to the American peo-
pie through the mint at the old ratio
OF Is to l. 1t was then that they dis.
covered that the act of 1873 was Q
"crime."
AS a concession to them the Blanc
law was passed, under which nearly
100000, 900 silver dollars we're coin.
ed, the treasury, however, buying the
bullion for this purpose at it's marke
value. In 1890 the Sherman Law
was passed, compelling the treasury
to buy 40 tons of silver every month
and issue notes in payment. This
produced the panic of 1898 and wa.
then repealed. As result of these
laws we have coined or issued nearly
$500, 100000 of silver, Despite al