The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-02-26
vILLAINOuS FALLACIES.
SCALPEL AND SCALPING KNIFE
DISSECTION AND HAIR
LIFTING.

A friend sends US some clippings
from the Toledo, Ohio, Blade. Here
Is a specimen.
S. E. S., Carson City, Mich, writes:
with free coinage of silver at ratio of
10 to 1, would there not Immediately
spring up a demand for silver with
which to pay mature debts and would
not the scramble for silver with which
to pay such debts be so Immediate and
SO great as to at once cause the silver
In silver dollar to be worth as much
as the gold in the gold dolar?" z
We have answered this fallacy so Of
ten, in various ways, that we are weary
of the repetition. No man could pay his
debt with silver bullion. If a free coin
age law was passed, every holder of bull
lion would rush it to the mint for coin
age. OF course but a small part, COM
paratively could be coined at once but
you will note that all the free silver bills
which have been introduced carefully
provide that the holders of bullion need
not wait for coinage, but may deposit
their bullion and receive silver certii-
Gates for as many dollars as it would
make at Is to 1.
But you fail to see that the damage
would be done before the government
could get ready to coin the silver, and
before the silver certificates could be
engraved and printed. The very day
that free silver law would be passed.
the silver dollar, the present silver
certificates, the greenbacks, and the
Sherman notes of 1890, as we'll as all
national bank notes, would drop to the
silver level. A dollar in amy of them
would be worth only as much as the
market price of the silver in a silver
dollar
Do you suppose merchants and bust
ness men are fools? They would at once
take advantage of the situation. You
would go in to buy pair of shoes. You
would be told ''the price was So in gold,
or Sc in silver or paper" You would go
in and ask for a dollars worth of gran
ulated sugar. How do you wish to pay
i'm gold or not?" would be the question.
If you said gold" you would get %
pounds; if you said greenbacks, or other
paper money, or silver, you would get only
IL pounds And so it would go every
where.
Think a moment and you will see the
reason. The merchant paid gold value
for his stock; his prices are gold prices;
and he would be a fool indeed if he
would take silver or paper at gold prices,
and thus sell his goods at half price.
We wonder often how it is that people
do not look at this question from the
standard Of everyday business rather
than moonshine theories.
The very devil is in these knaves.
Note the fallacy Of all this.
If million solvent men owe hun
dred million dollars of debt, and the
government puts out some thing, we
care not whether it be paper, silver
Or gold, that will pay that hundred
million dollars of debt, that some
thing becomes at once worth a hun
dred million dollars, because it is ex-
changeable as the equivalent of that
lum. Suppose that currency is at the
start, worth ten per cent or five per
cent less than its face value, will not
there be rush, by the million debt
prs, to secure it, to pay their debts
and save that discount; and will
not the demand thus created imme-
1ately wipe out the discount? If not
why not? If A owes B, and he comes
to B with something, we care not
what it is, that is legal-tender for all
debts public and private, will not B
readily accept it, because he knows
that G., D. e, + and the whole al
phabet, will have to take it from him,
for it's face value, for what he owes
them? And as the debts of the peo-
pie of this country many times exceed
the whole volume Of currency will not
that which is able to pay those debts
be worth as much as the debts? And
if piece of silver is worth one hun
dred cents to pay debts will the owner
sell it for cent less for any Othe r
purpose? Let the fool stand up and
have his photograph taken, for the
comic papers: who would perpetrate
such an idiotic trick.
1t is bosh-sheer, unmitigated, bot
tomless bosh-and the knave who ut
ters it knows it. But he is hired to
preach such guf to the fools who by
reading his paper for years have been
reduced to such condition OF de-
cadence and softening of the brain as
to accept it,
And then the same paper prints
this:
j. S. c., Salina, Kan, quotes what is
said in the last paper of our discussion
of COINS Financial School, that if
there was conspiracy by wall Street"
and Lombard Street to pass the COIN
age law of 1873. there must be a reason
for it, and asked what that reason could
be, J. S. C. goes on to say:
wall street and Lombard street are
money aising districts. That is money
is sown Thereon to be more correct
loaned out with the expectation it will
return with an increase-the larger the
better. Out here we are in the wheat
district We SOW wheat with the ex-
pectat:on it will return us an increase.
Nov, my dear sir, don't you believe if
we farmers could by legislation or any
other means, crush out one-half Of the
wheat production of the world, it would
enhance the value of our production
ereatly?'
Certainly it would. No doubt about
that. J. S. C. then goes on:
at Is the same with the non-producer
the money owner and lender. By less
ening the quantity of available money
real money, not credts-he gets more of
the worlds products in exchange for his
money.
rs this not good reason why we
farmers Gf we were that heartless)
should desire to see other wheat produc-
ing sections than our own suppressed,