The herald., 1896-07-19

standard of value.
Continental congress in 1876 took the
Spanish dollar as its unit of value. Not
. word was then said about gold as the
standard Of value.
The gold dollar then had, as now,
268 grains in it. and its value was 81.
Nhe silver dollar from 1887 to the pres
snt time has had 4125 grains in it, and
was worth, as compared with the gold
dollar, $1.069.
From 1884 to 1876 the ratio was 16 to J.,
Notwithstanding, in the meantime, Cal
ifornia poured in our mints bullion to
the amount of millions Of dollars; and,
though immense silver fields were dis
covered, yet the same ratio has been
kept up to the present time.
Has the United States not always been
on q gold basis?
From the beginning of our coinage
up to 1873 we had a bimetallic standard
at 16 ounces of silver as equal to one
Of gold.
In 1873 the silver dollar was dropped
out of our coinage. and then gold be-
came our standard, though we have
long since ceased to coin gold dollars.
Had silver become so worthless that
II could no longer stand with gold at
the ratio of 16 to i?
No. On the day that silver was de-
three cents more than the gold dollar
In New York. Mr.. st. John, in his state
ment before the banking and currency
committee of house of representatives,
says, on page 357: II never saw silver
dollar at a discount, and have bought
them at per cent premium. l onered
In large type in every New York daily
for two days three-fourths of one per
cent premium for silver dollars, to be
paid for in clearing house checks at the
height of the panic in 1893"
Why was silver demonetized and gold
made our standard?
II was done at the dictation of the
goldites of Wall street and of England.
england has since 1916 been on gold
basis, and not being a producer of but
little of the food supplies for her people,
they must come from the United States.
India and Russia. The robbing of silver
of its function as primary money, and
by preventing its further coinage, you
destroy about one-half of our metal
money This has reduced all farm val
ues down to starving prices, and then
England buys our wheat with her gold
at legs than sixty cents per bushel and
our cotton at five to seven cents per
pound England makes hundreds of
millions of dollars every year by buying
our farm products at the price her gold
policy and that of Mr.. Cleveland has
fixed on them.
Has the cessation of silver coinage
lowered the price of farm products in
about the proportion Of the decline in
silver bullion?
Taking the prices of 1873 as basis
DR.. Soetber. the economic scientist, has
made table of prices forl 100 different
articles in Hamburg and fourteen ex-
ported from England; and in this table
he has traced the fall of bullion since
1873 and the ia articles, and they are
so close as to each other from 1873 to 1892
that the lines often touch. This
table shows silver to have fallen so per
cent and the prices of the ia articles
kept down by II, while 1t shows gold has
gone up 40 per cent in the same time.
Back in the early seventies when sill
yer bullion was high, the farmer got 81
per bushcl for his wheat, and the cotton
planter Is to 20 cents for his cotton
Now almost every farmer Is on the verge
of bankruptcy. Industrious hands haXe
early and late rains, but stroke of un-
wise legislation haS robbed them Of the
fruits of their toll.
These are facts known to every farmer
in the land and need no further illustra-
ton.
What is approximate amount of gold.
silver and paper money in the world?
Gold. S3,5S2, COS 900; legal tender silver,
SS,4So. 100000; limited legal tender silver,
s553, 900, 600; paper uncovered, 50, ,635, ,S73,-
000
In the United States at this date (Au-
gust 16, 1888:
Gold 1904, 900, ,OOO legal tender silver.
S538 900; limited tender silver, ST.
100000; uncovered paper, S412 900 0O0
England:
Gold, $3.50, 600, 900; limited tender silver,
10O,00Ooo0; uncovered paper, $50 900 900.
France:
Gold, $500 .OOO legal tender silver,
$3.50 900; limited tender, $4,000, ,0OO
uncovered paper, $S1, ,402, 900.
These figures are copied from the
treasury department bureau of the mint
OF August 16, 1893. These tables have a
strong bearing on the question of our
finances 1t will be seen that France,
the most pronounced bmetallic country
In Europe, has kept UP the parity OF
silver and gold at 151a to /, and has ac-
cumulated sS0O,O00 900 of gold, $780, 0OO,-
600 in silver. The United States kept
up her parity of gold and silver from
1884 to 1873 and had accumulated up to
August, 1893, 604,000,000 Of gold, $615,-
oo0000 OF silver while England on the
gold basis from 1916 to the present time
has accumulated only $3.50, 900, 900 of gold
and S100,000,00O of silver.
Is it not worthy of serious considera-
tion that in seventy-seven years under
a gold standard England could only
gather into her Golfers $3.50 900 900 gold
and $loo.OO0OO0 of silver while France
under bimetallism captured of the
Soiu @oVO,UuVUuO ana $IUU, ,UOU,O 900
or silver and the United States. crushed
as the goldites say, by her double stand
ard, can show 1904, 900, 900 gold and S615.-
o000O0 of silver?
What is 1T that gives value to ronev2
1t is its debt-paying power, or in other
words, because it is legal tender. An
ounce or silver bullion, as commodity
VIII pay only 70 cents of debt, but run
TINS same ounce through the mint and
get the United States stamp on il and II
VIII he legal tender for $129.
here is 50 cents added to the value of
thls ounce of bullion by legislative en-
actment. The metal does not give value
TO the cofn but the coin to the metal. A
ooiiar, costing the government only %
cents IN bullion is still worth a dollar in
COIN. Ii the. government buys silver
Duliion at ~ cents per ounce and coins
~ at full legal weight, she NAV save to
the people the SO cents, but she robs tbe
silver miner of just that amount. The
cost of the bullion, gold or silver hos
noIhing to do with the value of the coin
Ihere are now in circulation S34O. 761 :
SS2 OF silver certificates and treasury
notes of 1890, S134, ,119, ,2SO based nm ths
amount of silver in the treasury. These
certlncates are redeemable in coin and'
though the coin on which tfey arc base
is silver. yet they are honored az tha
desk OF the secretary, by payment In
gold. Here is dollar which ha,rcost tho
government from IS cents to 20 cents IN
bullion, and the certificate issued on this
bod o&