The San Francisco call., 1896-08-07
REPUBLICAN, BIMETALLISM.

| The difference between the Republican
and Democratic parties on the silver coin
age question is one of method. Both par
| ties are for bimetallism. For that matter,
| more than 80 per cent of the people OF this
country are bimetallists, but the majority,
which includes nearly all the conductors
of business enterprises, believe that silver
should be remonetlzed according to the
| law of trade interchange and not in oppo-
sition to it.
No one will deny that silver bullion has
a market value of little over one-half OF
its value in an American dollar, nor will
any intelligent person deny that the rea-
son an American silver dollar is the
equiva alent of a gold dollar is because the
gold dollar guarantees its redemption
value to be equal to its own, but the gold
dollar does not guarantee any value to
bullion silver.
The plan proposed by the Republican
party is, first, to restore silver bullion to
the coin value by an agreement between
all nations that maintain a monetary sys-
tenn like our own. That is, the nations
which maintain silver coins at their face
value by obliging gold to guarantee their
parity with itself. When silver bullion
shall have been restored to parity with
gold then open the mints to both metals
upon the basis of their free and unlimited
coinage.
The Democratic plan is to open the
mints first at an arbitrary and contradict
ory ratio and adjust the bullion value
afterward. The Republican party believes
with all commerce, all trade operations
and all industrial activity that until all
parties in interest have agreed to restore
the bullion value OF silver, coins made of
such bullion would possess no more re-
demption value than their weight in bull
lion, unless they were guaranteed by gold.
and if that were done it would not be
bimetallism. but gold monometall1sm.
Whenever a circulating money medium
looks to something separate from itself to
guarantee its worth it is token money,
and its intrinsic value is equal to no more
nor less than what it would sell for as
commodity in that which guarantees its
redemption value as money. The none
tary system of the United States, and it is
in harmony with the systems of the COM
mercial nations, authorizes the Govern
ment to buy silver bullion and coin it into
dollars, the Government guaranteeing the
commodity purchasing power OF such coins
to be equal with that of gold.
Now the difference between the plan of
the Republican and the Democratic par
ties to establish both metals in the chan
nels of commerce is this: The Democratic
party proposes to abruptly withdraw the
gold guarantee. 1t assumes that silver
can and would force commerce to acceptit
as the equal of gold at ratio that COM
merce says is unjust and unnatural. The
Republican plan Is to first have commerce
advance the value of silver in bullion to
its value when coined without considering
gold at all, except to measure and fix the
difference that should obtain between the
weight of gold and a silver dollar.
when the ratio is agreed upon silver
would be money metal of itself, redeem
able in itself and always interchangeapl BILE
with gold. which plan would increase the
volume of the redempt money of COM
merce in an amount exactly equal to the
worlds production of silver. In other
words, the Democratic plan to secure
bimetallism would drive gold out of the
channels of commerce, while the Repub-
lican plan would not only retain gold in
the markets, but give it coworker whose
purchase and redemption power would be
equal to the silver of the world, and the
metals would perform their work in per-
feet HARMONY.