Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1896-08-29

But you have heard frou oar free
coinage friends here that other nations
have done this. And there are many good
people who believe that France is doing
It, and that the Latin union-so-called-is
doing 1t. Now, | would like to know why
they can't tell the entire truth about this
matter, Let us not deceive each other
and let nobody deceive us. The Latin
union is composed of France, Belgium,
Italy, Switzerland and Greece. 1t Was
formed in 1865 by treaty between those
powers, whereby each agreed until the
year 1850 to take the coins of the other
powers nt the ratio of 151a to 1.
But Germany demonetzed silver; she
had ceased to coin it, and so, in 1873,
those great nations, headed by France
!the most scientifically-gov country
in the world, and the one which has the
most accurate financial ideas) l say those
countries, after Germany had demone-
tized silver in 1873. limited their silver
coinage, and by 1876 they suspended it
entirely. They, those great European
nations-trance. the strongest monetary
nation in the world. with her allies-un-
dertook with all their power to do pre-
clseiy what the free coiners of the Unit
ed states are asking this government
to. undertake in the light of such con-
splcuous failures of other nations.
Invariable Standards Needed,
Now, everybody admits-I think the
most rampant free-coiner declaimer
would admit-that the money unit should
remain as nearly inyariable as possible.
Now. l say gold has so remained. Sill
YER has fallen commercially like other
articles. This is denied. They say sill
yer has not fallen, that gold has risen;
Now, that is the way you look at it.
You can look at it through the deluding
glass Of idealism, and it may appear that
way, but it is an optical illusion. Now
let me put an illustration from nature.
me waters of Lake Superior, that great
inland sea which floats so much of our
commerce and is such an element in our
prosperity, have for many years been
talllng, until now they are lower than
they have been at any time for fifty
years, and everything on their surface
mas fallen, The waters of Lake Supe-
nor, Ike the universal spread-out plane
OF humanity. bearing everything upon its
surface-those waters bear the fleets,
vessels and craft of all kinds, and ves-
sells and craft and fleets of all kinds have
fallen with the water. What would Won
think of a man standing on the deck of
one, OF those vessels saying, "This ves-
sci has not fallen; this vessel stands Just
where it did, but the universal shore of
and applause.l
= Now, l say, my friends, that since the
Latin union, from 1873 to 1876, aban-
doned free coinage, there has existed in
European nations and the United States
the only practical bimetallism. Let me
repeat this. | feel that cannot bear it
INTO your minds too often or too urgently
that these nations, including ours, are
the only nations on the face of the earth
that have any bimetallism whatever.
And why? Because they went to the
stnnnad SangeF nne' nn,,n as we went, and then
teaching of history demonstrated that
there was a dead line, beyond which
silver could not be pressed without the
immediate annihilation of its companion.
gold, as useful, working money medi-
9m. AND when any man gets up and
creams ana soliloquiZes and PHILOSOPHERS
before me and tells me he knows it won't
be so If we try where others failed,
tell MIN that an ounce of fact is worth
q ton of theory, and that something bodi-
ly IS worth n million of disembodied
ghosts. [Applause.l
What is Ratio?
And yet these gentlemen favor. in the
face of these historical EXAMPLES and
warnings, that the United States shall
make the unit of coinage the silver dol
lar at the ratio of 16 to l.
Now, what is ratio? 1t is not SIG to
81, as some people claim. Gaughter.5
Ratio means this: That there shall be
sixteen times more silver in weight in n
silver dollar than there is weight of gold
in gold dollar. Or, to put the definition
in another form, that sixteen ounces of
silver, when coined, shall be the euuiya-
lent of one ounce of gold when coined.
When gold measured by silver is worth
SIG per ounce, no disparity in value can
exist; but when measured by silver the
ounce of gold is worth $31 an ounce com
mercially, disparity results. Such is the
present condition, and yet the free silver
men assert that it will be no such thing
in case legislative fiat endeavors to make
two and two five instead of the old
fashioned result two and two four.
The trouble is that our friends have
confused the ratio of weight with the
ratio OF value, and are trying to confuse
the people with it. The ratio of weight
and the ratio of value were once the
same, but they have changed. They
changed more tkan thirty years ago.
Other nations saw it and obeyed the i'm
perial behest of that change before we
dld' and the tn ratio is now throughout
the world 81, or about 81, to l.
Now say that no legislative fat what
ever-it does not lie in the power of man
u was about to say something more ex-
treme than that, which it would not be
proper to say)-it does not lie in the
power of man to enact that a given di-
mension, volume or capacity shall be a
hairs breadth greater than the laws of
the Almighty have fixed it from the be-
ginning. (Applause.)
1t is necessary that the ratio or propor-
ton of value should be invariable. It is
necessary for the production of the thing
itself called money, speaking of it in its
great volume. as the volume of money in
the United States. We see analogies
everywhere; we see sn analogy in nature.
Take the air we breathe. 1t is a com
pound substance, made up from oxygen
and nitrogen at the ratio of about n
to %, and while this ratio lasts it is from
it we all draw our lives and have our
being. But change to any material de-
gree and instead of being the vital, life
giving air, it becomes deadly and de-
miasma.
But the free-coners assert that unlim-
tied coinage of silver will restore it 10
parity with gold. 1t has been tried by
many nations of this world. Has it done
it in single instance? Not one. They
said the same thing when Congress
passed the Sherman act of 1890. They |
said buy of us freely 100000 ounces a |
month, or 54,000,000 ounces year. and |
you will see that silver will go I'D to |
S1.29 an ounce Immediately. In the face |
Of clamor, in doubt as to what might be |
the resuk, in WILLINGNESS, Gt went too
far) to give such claims every oppor- |
itxyS Sn hn nctp taI n,