Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1896-07-30
THE TWO PLATFORMS.
Views of "A Professor of Political Econo-
my on the Silver Issue.

/
my on the Silver Issue.
The Chicago platform on silver is most
eloquent, the substance of its demand
| being that silver shall be treated exactly
as gold is in the mints of the United
States. We have free coinage of gold.
Whoever takes gold bullion to the mint
can have it coined into five or ten-dollar
| pieces at the standard fixed by law. and
can cry off his coins after paying the
cost of coinage. Or, to save him time,
the mint will give him gold coin at once
and take his gold bullion in exchange.
The Chicago platform proposes that ex-
actly the same rule shall apply to silver,
and whoever owns silver bars shall have
the right to have them converted into
standard dollars, at the ratio of count
ing sixteen ounces of silver worth one of
gold. The government is simply to act
as the agent of the owner of the bullion
and to get small percentage in return
for use of its coming machinery.
The Republicans say: 1--WE also will
be ready for this as soon as we can get
other countries to agree with us to do the
same. We do not think it safe or wise
! Tor us to do this without their co-opera-
tion, as we would be undertaking gold
and oycrvaluing silver if we coined both
| freely at 16 ito /. In that case all expert
ence shows that we would see our gold
exported or boarded and as we have
between $3.50, ,OOO, 900 and 5000, 0OO, 600 we
cannot afford such frghtful and sud
den contraction of the currency as this.
1t would bring on a panic. And as we
alone, and unaided By other countries
cannot bring silver back to its old rantio
with gold, we would get dollars worth
less than any dollar we ever had in this
country. As all debts would be payable
in this new dollar, the change would
amount to sealing all the debts we owe
either to our own cOuntrymcn or to for
eignerS. OF course, International bi-
mctallism, if we had it, would also
amount to n lowering of the value of the
dollar, but this would be to Il reasonable
extent, and not to the ruin or even Il
injury of the creditor class. Amcriacn
creditors would suffer unduly severe
losses under free coinage, and our credit
abroad would be ruined"
The Democratic case is to this effect:
''Our present situation is intoerable, and
something must be done. We, too, would
like to act in concert with other nations,
but we see no prospect of that, so we
must act alone. Many even of the news
p .pcrs which support Mr.. Mckinley tell
us there is not the smallest chance of an
| international agreement to restore BIZ
metallism. The clause in the Republican
platform about promoting nterna-
tional bimetallism they excuse as
amounting to nothing. 1t certainly points
out no way in which bimetallism is to c
promoted by Mr.. Mckinley if ho should
be- elected. What we propose is definite,
and seeks the relief of the people from
monetary system which has doubled the
weight of all debts in the last quarter of
Il century, and has crushed industries
which enjoyed adequate protection, such
as iron and silk, equally with those on
which there has been great reduction
of duties.
'AS to our losing our gold. it is bound
to so at any rate under the existing sys-
ten, and has been going for years. Free
coinage will not make it go faster, be-
cause our own silver will keep our mintS
busy at coinage, and foreigners cannot
exchanged their bullion silver or silver
coingae, as was done in 1888, when the
French bought up our undcrvalued sill
yer by bringing their gold
''AS to injury to the creditor class, if
we must choose between that and ruin to
the far greater debtor class, we choose
the less of two evils. But we do not ad-
nit that any such ruin will be effected.
If our government really assumes the
ia tx of restoring the credit of silver, as
it did not when it passed the (mutilatcd)
Bland law and the ShiIly-shally Sherman
law, the result will be such restoration
OF the credit Of silver us will cause IL C
two metals to draw near to each other
again. This will make an international
agreement both possible and inevitable"
Such seems to me to be the cases that
may be made for both parties. 1t will be
seen that both contain large element
of prophecy, especially that of the
friends of silver. But it has the merit
of proposing definite action to cure an
evil which is very great indeed. The
Republican platform neither shows an
adequate sense of the evil, nor indicates
how it is going to deal effectively with
it, RoBT. ELLIS THOMPSON.
|
Denis O. CoughIin, who was a dele
gate to the PopuliSt national convention,
is spoken of as a candidate for the
Democratic congressional nomination.