Griggs courier. (Cooperstown, Griggs Co., Dak. [N.D.]) 1885-1902, 1896-08-07

7. G.
To T. G.
In reply to T. G's article in last
weeks Courier in which he endeavors
to pull to pieces an article written by
me under the head of "Free Coinage
l have this to say: The gentleman
seems to be as we'll posted as most of
the advocates of free coinage of silver
and am glad that he has the courage
to come out and try to defend - tinan-
cial system that needs all the support
that it can possibly rally to give it
semblance of being right. The learned
gentleman becomes very technical when
he talks about intrinsic value and
claims that nothing is of intrinsic value
only SO far as it goes to supply the
primary necessities of man. Accord
ing to. him if we have an extra coat it
is of no intrinsic value for we would
be both warm and comfortable |
without it but no one will believe this.
The fact about the matter is that labor
supply and demand regulate values
and that one dollar in gold is of in
trinsic value to man to the extent of
the exchange value of it in other COM
modities. So much for intrinsic value.
Now as to what gives gold this value
the gentleman is right to a certain ex-
tent. The use of it by all nations of
the world as money creates q demand
which perhaps would not be he if it
were not used internationally. But
this is no argument in favor of free
coinage of silver. There is scarcely
anyone who would not favor free coin
age of silver under the same condi-
tions,, If the world used silver as q
standard money there would be no
fault found with it. His next statement
in regard to the amount of grains of
pure gold in one dollar is wrong and
If he will read the financial history of
the United States he will find that the
gold dollar was reduced in 1884 to 23.-
q grains pure gold, but probably this
is just a slight mistake of the gentle-
mans and does not cut much figure in
the argument, though he wrote. at
some length on what any reasonable
person must have known to be slight
typographical error which occurred
in mine and which the editor kindly
corrected in his next issue: The next
argument advances the old cry of all
the silverites that gold is increasing
in value and everything else dccrcas-
ing. This is not true, gold today is
of the same value whether coined or
uncoined as is was in 1884. Other
commodities from that time until now
have increased and decreased accord
ing to that great regulator of trade
cost of production, supply and de-
mand. Taking for instance the wheat
market here at Cooperstown, in 1886
varied from sic to Csc during the fall
and in 1891 as the gentleman says was
Soc and at the present time 1t is about
SOC. If the gentleman will look up the
statistics he will find that gold had
nothing to do with the prices, it was
the supply and demand of the wheat
crop. In 1894 when wheat was low
and fax was exceedingly high the
silverites in speaking of this would
say in the case of wheat "gold is go
ing up'' and in case of the flax ''there
is a shortage in the crop creating
demand for it," We have never heard
them say that gold was going down.
In fact how could they say both at the
same time unless they use the absl,rdity
':a poor rule which won't work both
ways" There would be several illus
trations of this kind pointed out
where gold must do both increase and
| decrease at the same moment. Again
he talks of people being out of en-
ployment and starving and lays it to
the gold standard, bnt here again he
is far wide of the mark as we'll as his
class are and it really seems too bad
that men should get SO fanatical on a
subject as to lay all the evils of the
earth at the door of their pet theory.
Let us throw aside our prejudices for
a moment and see where the trouble
lies. In the first place great deal of
the hardships and poverty in the land
are due to the separate individuals
that are in this condition, most of us
can look back and If we are honest
with ourselves we can see wherein we
! have been to blame for our conditions.
but it is natural for men to try to lay
the blame upon some one else. Again
there are a large class of men in this