Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-04-05
BEE HIVE,
First Avenue, Near Dist Street.

| instance was the act done that parted
| them? The bondholders, the goldites,
They clandestinely obtained the demone-
tization of silver. The people did not ask
1t. They don't want it. How plain it Is
IL we would pause to notice 1t, that 1t ID
use that makes value. What would be
the value of cotton If you could not make
cloth of it? What the value of cloth II
the law forbade the making of clothes
with 1t?
What the value Of cotton clothes IL the
law said we should not wear them? Gold,
il denied money use, would be just like
cotton denied it's uses. And If silver has
lost so per cent of dts bullion value, its
disfranchisement as money tells the rea-
son why. The silver dollar is 100 cent
dollar. The fiat money argument re-
news itself in another form: THE silver
dollar Is but so cent dollar" cry its enc
miles, This is simply saying that gold
makes the only dollar, for the cent Is one
hundredth part of anything that is a dol
lar The cent Is a mathematical express
sion, and signifies no more nor no less
than the hundredth part of anything that
is a dollar. 1t is a denial of dollarhood to
that piece of silver of prescribed de-
gree of purity, weighing a prescribed
number of grains" which the supreme
court has defined to be a coined dollar,
and which all our statutes, all our people
and all our administrations since 1873
have fixed to be used, treated and circu-
wheat was worth 81 and bushel of corn
so cents he would be looked upon as
gone clean daft" who declared that the
bushel of corn was but hve-tenthS OF
bushel at a time when the corn and
wheat-when so certified by official meas
urement-were each worth and would be
paid for under government contract at
the rate of dollar The obliquity or OBJ
Sculity of vision on the part of the lat
ter patient would be just that of the sill
Verphobist who calls the silver coin 30
cent dollar; for 1t has ever maintained
and today maintains-its parity with the
gold dollar under raking fire from the
monometallists.
Value is not substance; II is mere
market relation between two things. This
silver Is for the most part the product Of
our own country; we produce more silver
and gold than any other nation. What
faulty is 1t that would induce us to deny
the gifts which God has so literally pro-
vided? America, do you need money?
Then knock at the door of the mine. and
1t shall be opened unto you! Such
seems to me to be the voice Of providence
to man. All, but the cry comes, You
want to protect silverw Not SO; we only
want to give 1t the fair show that our
fathers gave 1t. We want to let it have
the fair play that 1t had ere the man OF
blood and iron struck 1t down, and ere
his American copyists followed his exam
pie at a time when this dollar was at
premium of per cent over its golden RI
val. We only want to let our nation help
itself to the riches bountiful heaven has
showered upon us. And now j undertake
to say that the silver legal tender dollar
is not only an honest dollar but, tried by
the creeds wrongfully applied to con-
denim IT, has been the only invariably
honest dollar and is now the most honest
dollar of all the dollar family, The green
back note Is a fiat dollar pure and sim
ple-the original American rag baby; the
national bank note is the grandshild of
the rag baby, for 1t ID a paper promise
to pay paper dollar secured by pa
per bond, which bond was originally
payable in paper and is now payable in
either silver or gold.
The trade dollar Is tramp in search
of father, and the gold dollar is, after
all, clipped dollar, shorn of it's original
proportions in 1884, and yet looking down
derisively on the silver dollar and calling
1T dishonest"
!. 1t matters not to whom you present
your silver dollar-if you want harp or
a silk dress, drove of mules or hog, a
fine plantation or a pound of snuff, a yell
low dog or a fine piano-this silver dollar
will buy 1t.
Let us have free and unlimited coinage,
az in the days of yore
J. X. B. JONES.