The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1896-08-13
The Political Situation.
Free Coinage of silver at is to 1.

TICC SUiHaSe OI SiIVtT ~ 10 ~
To THE EDITOR or The JoURNAL:
What is the meaning Of free coinage of
silver on ratio of sixteen to one ?
What will be the effects of its adoption
on the business interests of the country?
Let me say here at the commencement,
that in treating these questions my diction
may not be elegant and my SMILES may
be homely, but l shall endeavor never to
leave my readers in doubt as to what I
mean.
To me it seems extremely strange that
the first question should need an answer;
but as every day develops facts showing
that it is not understood, shall answer ii,
and the more readily because it is suscep-
dbie of being answered unequivocally and
without dispute. The free coinage of
United States government shall receive
silver bullion from any person presenting
it, and, without expense to the owner,
coin it into standard dollars which shall
be the same weight as sixteen gold dol
lars, that is, each silver dollar shall weigh
sixteen times as much as a gold dollar,
a legal tender for all debts and demands,
thus making, SO far as legal enactments
can do SO, sixteen ounces of silver equal
to one ounce Of gold, but as one ounce
of gold, in the market of the world, will
purchase over thirty ounces of silver, it
will be a vain effort to make them remain
at that ratio in fact, as | shall attempt to
convince my readers.
What will be the effects of its adoption
on the business interests of the country?
Who can say? That it will bring uncer-
tainty and instability for period of in
definite length, no sane business mind
can doubt, for it is launching the nation
on an unknown sea, with pilots at the
helm with more courage than discretion.
We have no modern charts to guide us,
as the whole march of civilization. since
the earliest ages, has been in the opposite
direction; and what will be the results of
forcing old barbaric methods into our
modern civilized practices and methods
may we'll cause doubt.
1t may be a valuable and interesting
study in some of its features to foreign
nations, but to us, who must remain in
the whirlpool and help stir the kettle of
fish, it may prove anything but inter
esting
Before we can intellgently enter upon
the discussion Of this question there are
some preliminaries to be settled.
That gold and silver, under free coinage
and at the proposed ratio, will continue to
circulate in this country at par seems to
my mind SO absurd as to be unworthy of
discussion; but as large number of the
leaders and speakers of the silver party
make that assertion, and few seem to
believe it, it will be necessary to take it
into consideration, as it not only CON
fronts us at the beginning. but underlies
the whole question: for if one hundred
cent gold dollars and fifty-three cent
silver dollars can be made to circulate as
money, without gold going to a premium,
why, then we are all silver men at once
Right here let me ask my co-laborers in
the fields of agriculture, who Of them, in
debted for given number of bushels of
farm produce, that potatoes worth fifty
cents per bushel or wheat worth one dol
lar per bushel would satisfy equally we'll,
would pay their debt in wheat9
And again, let me ask my brother me-
chanics, for |, too, have welded the saw
and the plane, and have had my incomings
and outgoings regulated by the bell and
the whistle), who Of them, indebted for a
given number of days work, that either a
day of ten hours, OF a day of five hours,
would fill the demand, would pay their
indebtedness with ten hour days? Now
when my brother farmers will pay their
debts in dollar wheat when fifty cent po-
tatoes answer the same purpose, and my
brother mechanics will pay their debts in
ten hour days when five hour days will
do, then, possibly, we may hope to see
one hundred cent gold dollar and a fifty
cent silver dollar working in harness to-
gether in an even yoke, but not before.
Try to eliminate from your minds the
false idea that the government by stamp
ing piece of metal adds to its value. 1t
can only certify to it's weight and fneness,
and the markets Of the world, governed
by supply and demand, will fix the value,
or price. But the government has power
to say that fifty cents of silver in this
country shall be called dollar, and thus
enable a person to pay a hundred cent
debt with fifty cent dollar, and thus re-