The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1896-07-04
AS to Standards.
A 16 to / silver organ denies

United States has been on tho gold
standard since 1894, but neglects 10 say
on what standard we were during that
period. 1t certainly wasn't the silver
standard, since the silver dollar coin was
worth more as metal than as coin down
to 1874. Nobody disputes that Prior to
1894 we had a single silver standard, gold
coins being used at their metal value.
We have had the single silver standard
at one time and the single gold standard
for the last half century, but never the
double standard, although the law from
the beginning down to 1873 provided for
free coinage of gold and silver, limiting
coinage first to the ratio of Is to l, and
then to 16 to 1. But although the law
provided that anyone in the world hay
ing gold or silver could bring it stamped
free of charge into coins at one or the
other OF those ratios, nobody was free to
bring 1t; silver alone being brought to
the mint during the first forty years Of
our history and gold alone when the
ratio was changed to l6 to /. In the
former period silver alone was used, be-
coming the sole standard. and in the
latter gold alone. In the former gold
coin was measured Ill silver and in the
latter silver was measured IN gold. That
is to say. it has been found impossible,
so far IN the history of this country, to
mako the two coins correspond to their
bullion value, the one or the other rising
above or falling below it. and according
ly going out Of circulation or becoming
the sole standard. 1t is d familiar fact
that only 100000 Of the standard silver
dollar coins were struck off at the mint
down to 1873, the metal in these coins
being underyalued at the mint stamp on
The ratio of 16 to during that period
and consequently going out OF circula-
tioD, or, If circulating, passing at bull
lion value, and not at mint stamp. So
long as the fractional silver was of even
weight and fineness with the standard
dollars, so that two halves, four quarters
or ten dimes contained the same amount
of metal as one standard dollar, it shared
the fate of the latter: being melted
down, boarded, exported or passing to a
limited extent as metal and not as coin.
Therefore, the act of 1853 reduced the
pure silver in fractional coins, limiting
their legal tender potency. But as a
matter OF fact silver as limited fraction
al currency, as we'll as standard silver
dollars, which from 1884 till after 1873
was undervalued Ill the coin, was not a
stardard OF value, but commodity,
whose price, like that of other commodi-
ties, was measured by the gold standard.
The United States, like other countries,
has been unable to have more than one
standard at one time. 1t has had, as
other nations have, one standard at one
time and another at different time, but
never two colncident standards of differ
ent metals used indifferently, or the
double standard at the same time-cer
tainly not for any considerable time. A
divergence of one or two per cent. in the
market values from the legal ratio has
been sufficient to establish the one metal
or the other as the sole standard or to
drive it out Of circulation at the coin
value; and this, too, at a time when near
iy all the great nations were doing their
best to promote the equal use of both
metals as coin of full weight and equal
value. The proposition now before this
country is not really to establish this
condition. however some OF its advocates
may believe that it is or guess that it
would have that result, but to change
from gold to silver.-Sioux City Journal