The record-union., 1896-10-23

IiS IL price uiIlGIit 0Ii1 Is dQuToSSeI
to the farmers and so-callad debtor
class. Their second proposition is that
free coinage will not make cheap or de-
preciated money, but will raise the
value of the silver dollar to an equality
with the present value of the gold dol
lar, and of course it requires no argu-
ment to convince an intelligent audi
ence that if this is true prices will be
no higher than they are now, and pro-
ducers and debtors will get no more dol
lars than they get now. This is the ar
gument addressed to the more conserv-
ative classes who do not believe in
deprecated currency, but who have
been persuaded that there is not a suffi-
cient amount of money in the country.
Their third proposition, which appears
to be a compromise between the other
two, is that free coinage will not in
crease the value of the silver dollar to
an equality with the present value of
the gold dollar, but that it will raise the
value of silver up and bring the value
Of gold down, so that the two metals
will meet at some intermediate point
and consequently establish parity at
the ratio of Is to l. This argument is
addressed to those who are supposed
to be in favor Of d deprecated currency,
but are not yet quite ready to accept
dollar worth only fifty cents.
Driven away from the advocacy Of
the first proposition in many parts of
the country by reason of it's manifest
and gross injustice to the laboringman,
to depOSitOrS in savings banks and
other institutions, and creditors gener-
ally, and forced by the unanSWerable
arguments of their opponents in other
parts of the country to abandon the
second one on account of its demon
strated absurdity, they have resorted
to the third as a compromise between
the advocates of absolute fatism and
the advocates of partial or modified
fiatism, but the contention that the
United States alone can, by the free
coinage of silver, increase the value
OF that metal, and also reduce the val
Ee of gold, simply doubles the diff
culties which our opponents have en-
countered in this discussion.
ITO believe the free coinage by the
United States alone would accomplish
either of these results requires a faith
in fiatism which would remove mount
aims, but to believe that it would ac-
ccmplish both exhibits degree of
credulity unparalleled in the annals of
human affairs
Taking up in detail each of these
three propositions, Mr.. Carlisle went on
to show how the law of supply and
demand and the recorded experience Of
the world for at least six centuries re-
futed each Of them THE natural law
on the subject" he said, (which we
could neither repeal nor alter, seemed
to be that when the production and
coinage of either gold or silver into
legal tender money were increased in
proportion to the production and coin
age of the other metal, the relative
value of the coins thus disproportion-
ately added to the circulation de-
creases, and the rule was the same
whether the increase consisted Of gold
coins or silver coins.
ITO protect themselves against the
evil effects Of a threatened deprecia-
tion of their currency, and to enable
them to maintain the parity of their
silver and gold coins already in use,
Holland, France, Belgium, Italy,
Switzerland, Greece and Venezuela
have all been compelled since the year
1915 to suspend the coinage of legal
tender silver Spain was forced also
to stop the coinage in 1879, except on
Government account, and in 1893 the
Government of British India, a silver
nsonometallic country, after an ex-
haustive examination of the subject in
ali it's aspects, suspended the coinage
on individual account for the aVoWed
purpose of preventing the further fall
of the silver rupee and establishing a
| fixed par of exchange with London
and other financial centers in Europe.
| But according to the free silver advo-
Gates, the statesmen and financiers of
all those countries moved in exactly
the wrong direction, and if they had
wanted to maintain parity or to estab-
| lish parity they ought to have opened
| their mintS to the free coinage of all
| the silver in the world, insead of clos
| ing them
THE increased coinage of legal ten
| der silver at ratio which overvalued
| that metal relatively to gold would no.
diminish the demand for gold anywhere
or terminate the struggle for its pos
session, but would greatly increase the
| demand and intensity the struggle, be-
cause if two kinds of money of the same
! denomination but Of unequal value
We're in existence, everybody would
| strive to get the most valuable, and as
the number of silver dollars increased
| their value relatively TO gold would de-
| crease.
| Turning to other parts of The platform
| Mr.. Carlisle said if the free and unlim-
| tied coinage of silver at the ratio of 10
| to l were the only issue presented,
every oldline Democrat in the country
would be fully justified in refusing TO
support the nominee of the Chicago and
| st. Louis Populist Conventions, but it
| was not the only issue, and it might in
| the end prove to be not even the most
| important one.
When was it ever before declared by
! any convention ever pretending to be
Democratic that the Federal Govern
ment had the constitutional authority
to interfere with private contracts be-
| tween individual citizens OF the same
! State?
/ In view of the facts that it was also
proposed to have the Government pur-
chase and operate all the railroad and
| telegraph lines and issue paper to pay
| for them; that il was to coin at the
public expense all the silver in the
! world, if the owners of the bullion saw
proper to present i: at our mints: that
| it was to inauguiate and maintain a
system of public works, whether needed
or not, sufficient to give constant en-
ployment to laborers. who were not
4 otherwise occupied, and that it was to
establish postal savings banks in every
| part of the country to receive idle
money on deposit and pay interest on
not. it is not extravaga1t to say that
| a 1xrith ia1