Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1896-09-02
CANNOT STAND ALONE.
Poolishness Of the Declaration in
Favor of Monetary In
dependence.
poPuLIsT IDEAS OF FINANCE.
Feeble Attempt to Invoke the Ma.
tons Fathers in Support Of
Free Coinage.

Among all the crazy assumptions OF
the PoDulistic platforms, perhaps the
most foolish is the one that we can Gre
ate and maintain a monetary system in
dependent of that of other nations. To
make this stroke of idiocy more prepos-
ferrous, the spirit and the example of the
fathers of the republic are invoked to
sustain it. The efforts of the fathers
we're most earnestly and steadily directed
to bringing the young republic within
the commercial brotherhood of nations,
and nothing was further from their
thoughts than the idea that the progress
of the country could be facilitated by n
declaration of financial independence.
For sixty years after the passage of the
mint act, English, French, Spanish and
Portuguese coins were freely circulated
in the United States, and were a legal
tender for the payment of debts at GER
tain values fixed by act of Congress. In
his celebrated Mint Report, Alexander
Hamilton e%ndeavored to coordinate our
monetary system with that Of other ma
tions-not to make any violent departure
from European practice. The only strik-
ing departure that was made in the legis-
lation framed on Hamilton's recon-
mendations was in fixing the coinage
ratio between gold and silver at 10 to l,
and the result of this quickly demon
strated what the Populistic Democrats
call our financial servitude." That is
to say, it showed that while the minis
of France were open to the free coinage
of gold at the ratio of 15h to /, we could
not keep our gold from going where it
would have most value. The difference
was only about 3 is per cent, but it
was sufficient to drive gold out of the
country, so that in the words of Senator
Benton its extinction was complete.
III the establishment of a ratio Of their
own was n strike for financial i%ndepend-
ence of Europe on the part of the ia
Tiers" it was a manifest failure. and
established for the first generation of
the republic a regime of silver mono
metallism. But this was not in the
least what they desired; in fact, so little
were they impressed by the necessity for
keeping silver as a part of the circula-
ton that the coinage of silver dollars
was suspended by executive order in
1905 and was, for domestic purposes at
least. never resumed. That is to say,
the fathers were so determined to get
back the gold that for thirty years they
had been shunting into European mints
that they fixed a new ratio, which Of
fered 3 per cent more to the p0ssessor
of gold bullion than he could get in
France or Holland. That the bullion in
the silver dollar thus became more valua-
BILE than the bullion in the gold dollar did
not trouble them much, for they, appar-
entity, did not want the silver dollar
halves, quarters and dimes Of this metal
being sufficient for their wants--and all
the subsequent coinage of that much
talked-of but little known piece, ''the
dollar of the fathers" was for export to
the East. Here, again, If monetary in
dependence was what they are aiming
| at, the result was a failure, for Europe
| diverted into its own mints the silver
of the United States as perempt0rily as
it had done the gold, for the simple rea-
son that no law could compel the own
er of bullion not to take it where he
got most for it in returned coins.
But the Populists are determined to
have san economic and financial system
| which shall make us masters of our own
affairs" Among the preliminaries of
such a condition of things, they are at
least logical enough to recognize the ne
of private contract. That was a cure
for financial lameness not thought of by
the fathers of the republic, and is one
| generally deemed to be contrary to the
letter and spirit Of the constitution which
they framed. But the transformation of
the Democrat into the Populist seems,
among other changes, to work a surpris-
ing Indifference to the value of the safe
guards Of the constitution. From old
habit, there is the customary profession
of allegiance to 'those great essential
principles Of justice and liberty upon
which our institutions are founded" only
to be followed by a series Of propositions
destructive alike of the principles and
institutions. On whatever other points
the makers of the constitution may have
differed, they were entirely at one as to
the obligation both of nations and of in.
dividuals to make an honest provision
for paying their debts. -Rochester Post