The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-06-03
GLARING CONTRADICTIONS.
NOW YOU SEE 1T AND NOW YOU
DON'T SEE 1T.
The Bulk of the Alleged Gold Cir.
culation Has Flown.
But Little Gold in the United States Under
the Existing Gold Standard"
The Philadelphia American.

The Philadelphia American.
The gold-monOmetallists are adepts
at drawing directly opposite conclusions
from the same premises. In addressing
their sophistries to the wage-earner. and
appealing to the workman to support
the gold standard, they insist that the
free coinage Of silver would result in
an initiation of prices thereby reducing
the purchasing power of the dollar re-
ceived by the wage-earner for his labor;
but in addressing themselves to the
farmer they no less strenuously insist
that the opening of our mints to silver
would result in a sudden contraction of
our currency and lower prices for farm
products. We are asked to believe, in
feet that the opening of our mints to
SILVER would result in forcing upon the
wage-earner cheap dollar and upon the
farmer dear dollar; that the silver dol
lar In the hands Of the wage Garner
would purchase so per cent less of COM
modities than the gold dollar at present,
but that the same silver dollar would
purchase from the farmer twice as much
wheat and cotton and farm produce in
general
The absurdity of this two-fold effect on
prices Of remonetizing silver is mani
fest. Yet in their appeals to the wage
earning and farming classes the gold
c0ntractlOniSts constantly repeat the
contradictory assertions that as the re-
suit Of opening our mints to silver the
wage-earner would be ruined by high
prices and the farmer by low prces-as-
sertions that, stripped of the verbiage
with which the gold contractionists
strive to hide their inconsistency, come
to this: That the farmer would be
obliged to. sell his products for one-half
OF the present price, while the wage
Garner, the ultimate consumer of farm
products, would be obliged to pay
double the present price.
A few days since the New York World
stated these two contradictory PROPOSE,
tionS under the caption of Free Silver
and Wages" in this way:
THE workingman who receives a sill
yer dollar in payment of wages is able
to buy as much with it as if it were a
gold dollar. But If free coinage were de-
creed the gold standard would be at once
abandoned. The silver dollar worth 50
cents, would become the standard The
dollar that now buys 100 cents worth of
any commodity would buy only 50 cents
worth. Do wOrkingmen want their
wages reduced in purchasing power in
this way?'
This is proposition No. 1: The free
coinage of silver would result in doub-
ling prices, and 50 reduce the purchas-
Ing power of the dollar received by the
wage-earner fer his services by nearly
one-half This proposition involves the
absurdity that wages would remain sta
tiOnary while prices rose. AS we have
Elsewhere shown the 9h-ur6itv of
contention. of the gold-monometallists
we need not refer to it here.
Now comes proposition No. 2:
Again, the farmer wants more
money But free silver coinage would
reduce the total monetary circulation by
about one-half, and instead of getting
more than the $4,000 coo, 900 now in cir
culation we should have only about ST.
000,000,000 all told. Does the farmer de-
mand a contraction of this sort, with a
wheat price to match?"
This is proposition No. 2: The farmer
is told that free coinage of silver would
result in contracting the currency by
Cne-half and reduce the price of wheat
by Cne-half, or, as the World puts it,
cause contraction of our currency from
two billion to one billion dollars or by
80 per cent with a wheat price to match
Thus we are told that contraction of
our currency would result in depressing
farm prices. This is indiSputabe 1t
has ever been the contention of bimetal-
lists. The contraction of the money of
the world by discarding silver has been
the occasion of the almost constant fall
in prices during the past twenty years.
So it is indsputable that if we should
contract our currency by One-half, prices
would fall by One-half And such a con-
traction is predicted by the World as the
result OF opening our mints to silver
But the World denies that this con-
traction of our currency, that it insists
would inevitably lead to a fall in farm
prices, would result in lower prices gen
orally. On the contrary it insists that
the prices of all commodities purchased
by the wage-earner would be doubled
by opening our mints to silver. WHY
If contraction should cause a fall in
prices in general, the World, of course
does not explain.
But to pass over the strikingly contra.
dictory assertions that the god-mono-
metallists make use of, would any such
contraction of our currency as the World
predicts follow the opening of our mints
to silver? In the first place there is no
such sum as two billion dollars in circu
lation. The treasury statements show
this. The total amount of money of all
kinds issued is given by the treasury
statement May 1, at $2227, ,C23,526: the
total quantity of money in circulation at
S1.54O. .O07, ,0S2 The gold certificates is
sued to an amount Of SAB 3,S17 ,469 the sill
yer certificates to an amount of $780,
412,504, and the currency certificates to
an amount Of $33 1896, 900, represent de-
posits of gold, of silver, and of legal
tender notes in the treasury and held in
trust there for their redemption The
issue of gold certificates, of silver GER
tificates and of currency certificates no
more adds to our volume of currency
than the issue of warehouse receipts for