Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1896-08-10
GOLD BUGS ANSWERED.

We Offset this misleading matter by
giving in like form the address Of Will
lam P. st. John, chairman of the st.
Louis silver convention, which the gold
journals have taken care to suppress.
Mr.. st. John is wealthy practical
banker, who resigned the presidency
of the Mercantile National Bank, OF
New York City, rather than remain
silent at this crisis. He, deals tersely
with some common errors on the cur
rency question.
0. What is the condition of the coun-
try? "A. The fountain head Of our
prosperity has run dry. Our farmers
all over the country have endured the
depression in prices until they get
about So or So per acre for an expendi-
ture of $40 per acre, and the like.
Their credit is exhausted at their coun-
try stores. The country store ceases to
order from the city merchant, the city
merchant reduces his demand upon the
manufacturer. Manufactures are cur
tailed. The consequence is that en-
ployes and all elements of labor are
being discharged, and wages are low
ment. The suffering of the farmers,
who constitute nearly one-half of our
population, is thus enforced upon the
city merchant, the manufacturer and
all forms of labor. These combined
elements constitute the overwhelming
majority of voters. Their intelligent
conclusion will be felt when expressed
at the polls. The banker is without
prosperity unless prosperity is general
throughout the United States. He must
learn to distinguish between cheap
money and money commanding a low
rate of interest
Q. What is the cause, in brief, of all
this? A The increase in the number
of dollars when dollars are confined to
gold is not sufficiently rapid to meet the
growth Of our exchanges. The conse-
quence is a growing value of dollars or
diminishing value of everything else
expressed in dollars; which is to say,
a tendency toward constantly declin-
ing prices.
O. 1t is said that the free coinage of
silver would reduce us to the condition
I of Mexico? A. l answer that assertion
by saying, first, that Mexico is con-
Spicuously prosperous at home. Her
increase in manufactures, railway
earnings and the like in recent years
is phenomenal.
Second, Mexico is no criterion for the
United States, for the reason that she
has a foreign trade Indebtedness of
about $20,0O0,000 annually in excess of
the value of her exports Of cotton,
sugar, coffee, hides and the like, which
must be paid for in the surplus product
of her mines. Her SILVER, therefore,
goes abroad as merchandise, and at
valuation fixed by the outside world.
The United States, on the other hand,
is nation Of seventy millions of peo-
pie, scattered over a territory seven
teen times the area of France. A sim
gle one of our railway systems, the
Erie, exceeds the aggregate railway
mileage of all Mexico. We offer an
employment for money to an aggregate
greater than the worlds spare silver
will furnish us. Hence our silver
money, at home and abroad, will be
valued as the money of the United
States
Q. But the opposition say that Eu-
rope will flood our minis in the event
of free coinage? A The opposition
threatens us with a food of Europe's
silver upon our reopened mints. We
answer Europe has no silver but her
silver money. Her silver money values
silver at from three cents to seven
cents on the dollar higher than ours.
Hence the European merchant or bank
er must sacrifice from three to seven
per cent. of his full legal tender money
in order to recoin it at our minis Eu-
ropes Silverware, like Americas silver
ware, carries in it the additional value
of labor and the manufacturers profit.
They threaten us with food of sill
yer from the far East. We answer
that the course of silver is invariably
eastward and never toward the West.
British India is perpetual sink of sill
yer. absorbing it, never to return. by
from thirty to sixty million dollars
worth every year. And India's absorp-
ton of silver will be enlarged by the
steadiness of price for silver fixed BY
our reopened minis.
.. But the gold standard people say
that there will be a sudden retirement
of $500, 100000 gold, with the accom-
panying panic, causing contraction and
commercial disaster unparalleled? A.
/ answer that our total stock of gold.
other than about $4,000. 900 or SIS, 00O,-
600 circulating on the Pacific coast, is
already in retirement. Practically all
our gold is in the United States treas
ury or held by banks. The gold IN the
treasury will remain there if the Secre-
tary avails of his option to redeem Uni
! ted States notes in silver The gold in
! the banks constitutes the quiet and I'M
disturbed portion of their reserves
against their liabilities. 1t will con-
tinue to do money duty as such reserves