The advocate., 1896-04-15
THE SILVER QUESTION.
The Way In which it win Go Down Into
History.

NOuhu AuuOI Gu0 hUObO hC@A OA pogo OA4B
and is as follows:
''The third great measure Of the Fifty
first Congress was the attempt to restore
silver to perfect equality with gold in
the coinage system of the United States.
Since 1874 there had been an increasing
departure in the market values of gold
and silver bullion, though the purchas-
ing power of the two money metals had
been kept equal when the same were
coined under the provisions Of legal ten
der. The purchasing power of gold bull
lion had in the last fifteen years risen
about 16 per cent, while the purchasing
power Of silver bullion had fallen about
per cent. in the markets of the world,
thus producing a difference of 20 per
cent. or more in the purchasing power Of
the two metals in bullion. One class of
theorists, assuming that gold is the only
standard of values, insisted that this diff
ference in the purchasing power of the
two raw metals had arisen wholly from
a depreciation in the price of silver.
This class included the monometallists
those who desire that the monetary
system of the United States shall be
brought to the single standard Of gold,
and that silver shall be made wholly
subsidiary to the richer metal. To this
class belonged the fund-holding syndi-
Gates, and indeed all great creditors
whose interest it is to have the debts due
them discharged in as costly dollar as
possible. AS a matter Of course, if a
debt be contracted on a basis of two
metals, that fact gives to the debtor the
valuable option of paying in the cheaper
Of two CONS. This valuable option the
people Of the United States have en-
joyed, greatly to their advantage and
prosperity. The silver dollar has been
for precisely a hundred years with the
exception of the quadrennium extending
from 1874 to 1879 the dollar of the law
and the contract. 1t has never been al
tered or abridged to the extent Of frac-
tion of grain from the establishment Of
our system of money in 1892. 1t has,
therefore, been, and continues to be, the
lawful and undoubted unit of all money
and account in the United States, just
as much, and even more, than the gold
dollar with which it is associated. If it
be true, therefore, that there is radical
and irremediable departure in the value
Of these two metals-if it be true that
we have, as monometallists assert, an 80
cent dollar, it is clearly and demonstra-
bly, true that we also have long dollar,
q dollar worth more than par, a 100 cent
dollar, which the creditor classes desire
TO have substituted for the dollar Of the
law and the contract.
"The advocates Of the free coinage Of
silver have argued that the difference in
the bullion values Of the two money
metals has arisen most largely from an
increase in the purchasing power of gold,
and that equal legislation and equal
favor shown to the two money metals
would bring them to par the one with
the other, and keep them in that relation
in the markets Of the world. 1t is
claimed, with good reason, that the laws
hitherto enacted by Congress discrimi-
mating against silver and in favor Of
gold, we're impolitic, unjust and un-
American. 1t was urged in the debates