The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1896-07-04
Terms, $500 a Year in Advance.


Z GRAND MARAIs MINI. JULY 4. 1896.
CARLISLE REVIEWED.
h some Criticisms Upon His Late Chicago
Il Speech to Labor Observation-Disclosures of
Gold and Silver. n o. o 1ss
u In q lengthy review Of Secretary Car
isles speech to laboring men at Chi
zcago the Memphis Commercial Appeal
frefers' to it as t'curious mass of eco
snomic fallacy, misapplied and pervert-
ed history, erratic deduction, eccentric
'1ogic and bald, dogmatic propositions
in conflict with the most elemen tary
principles of economic science" -
T Let us take Mr.. Carlisle's initial
propositions, the foundation stone of
this whole argument, Says the CONNER
:cial Appeal He says that the first
effect, of the free coinage of silver
! would be the expulsion from the coun-
try of all it's gold, thereby diminishing
The volume of money by one-third
The purchasing power of the remain
der, he says, would be reduced so per
cent; that is, commodities would com
smand twice as much money as before,
and we should have an immense infa-
:tion of prices caused by an immense
<contr action of the currency! -
: There would be, says Mr.. Carlisle,
only two-thirds the amount of money
fnow in circulation, and it would be so
Deprecated that it would require twice
as much money to transact the bust
mess of the country. Let us follow
Mr.. Carlisle's fantastic logic to the
,snd.' The amount of money every in
'dividual can obtain for the transaction
sof his business will depend on the
prices he can get for what he has to
SELL Mr. Carlisle's proposition is that
by expelling one-third of our money
prices would be doubled; or, in other
words every man in the country could
command twice as much money as be-
fore, though all combined would have
less! -.
!. Again, if it would require twice as
much money as the then existing vol
'ume to transact the country's business
the demand for money would be 100
per cent greater than the supply. Per-
sons familiar with the law of demand
and supply would be apt to say that
the value of the money would certain
ly increase under the tremendous lift
ing power of such demand. Not so,
Mr.. Carlisle To him contemporaries
gus decrease of 1915 per cent in the
supply and increase of 100 per cent. in
demand is perfectly consistent with a
fall of so per cent. in value! Must we
obliterate all the laws Of supply and
demand when we come to reason about
2noney? Is it possible to make money
scarcer, make the demand twice as
sgreat, and at the same time make it
twice as easy to get money? Such is
Ehe case if Mr.. Carlisle's proposition is
correct-if you can at the same time
contract the volume of money and in
grease prices; that is, the money-eet-
ting power Of commodities. 49,,
p: Again: All the gold would leave the
country, says Mr.. Carlisle, because it
would no longer be in demand for
monetary purposes. ALI the monetary
demand of 100000 of the most active
money-seekers in the world, for pay
ing many hundred million dollars of
debt, for carrying on the vast industry,
trade and commerce of this great
country, would be withdrawn from
gold and concentrated on silver Yet,
according to Mr.. Carlisle this stupen-
dous influence would not affect the
value of either metal by the fraction
of a cent! And this is monetary
science as expounded by one of it's
most famous. savants. + Mr.. Carlisle
refers to the operation of the mint
laws of 1899 and 1884 esta blishing the
ratio of coinage in this country to
prove that legislation cannot affect
the value of money metals. If any,
thing is demonstrated by the operation
of these laws it is that the value of
the metals was fixed and controlled by
coinage laws. The most learned and
the most candid gold monometallists
admit that the coinage ratio of the
French minis dominated the relative
values of gold and silver for three
quarters of a century. Throughout
the most extreme fluctuations in their
relative production the values of gold
and silver kept substantially steady at
the French legal ratio of 1511 to l.
When two countries open their mints
to the coinage of two metals at vary
ing ratios the result will be that the
country whose law places the higher
value on gold will get the gold
and the country packing the high
er value on silver will get the
silver. =. But both countries will
have the full benefit of both
IN regulating the volume of their cur
rency. This was what happened nn-
der the laws referred to. II a gold or
a silver dollar went out of the country
it put another and as good dollar in
its place. That was substantial BIZ
metallism. Now, when a gold dollar
goes out, as they. have been steadily
going for several years, there is no
way to fill its place, except by mort
gaging the country to buy back the
gold. There is the difference between
mon ometallism and bimetallism. An
other difference Mr.. Carlisle ignored is
that prior to the decentralization of
silver the debtor always had the OBJ
tion to pay his debt in the cheaper
money if one became cheaper than the
either Now he 10 ooYro r,a11n7 r., 49,. =.