The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1896-08-18
How Free Coinage Would
Affect Wage Farmers.
A Plain Statement for All
Thinking Men to Read.
Valuable Booklet Which Will Be
Given GOrham Employees.

Tomorrow is pay day at the Gorham
Manufacturing Company's works In
Elmwood, and the army of employees
who work with silver six days week as
a commodity for the arts will be given
together with their "envelopes," neat
ten-page pamphlets containing good
deal of interesting information relative
to silver as a money metal.
IT Is entitled "Free Coinage of silver
at the Rate of 16 10 1--What 1t Means
and What 1t VIII Do; Plain Truths for
Plain People," printed by permission OF
the author, Frank X. Lawrence.
The book is written in the elementary
style and does not make the usual mis-
take of assuming that the general pub
lie knows all about the .echnicalities Of
the currency system.
1t says, in the first place, that the
proposed change should not be made
simply because 16 grains of silver are
not worth one grain Of gold, and can't
be made so by law.
One grain OF gold is worth 31i2 grains
of silver in every market OF the world
where gold and silver are dealt in.
''There is not man in the country
who would give up one ounce of gold
for sixteen ounces OF silver, because BIO
would be getting only half the value OF
his gold.
"Yet that is what those who favor Is
to are trying to make the government
do; they are trying TO get laws passed
4 Of afl lya
equal TO one ounce of gold.
"Supposo that IS done, what thenf
Well, then we shell have silver dollars
that contain only about fifty-two cents
worth of silver, and IL that takes place
it is quite certain that those who have
gold dollars won't pass them away In ex-
change for silver dollars worth nalf the
money.
"Those who have gold will hoard 1t,
keep 1t out of sight, because of its greater
value.
"Feople VINO have things to sell-the
butcher, the grocer and others-will iu-
sist on getting just as much money as
before for their goods. They will pnt
their prices up and will sell their goods
20 that it will take two of the new fifty
cent dollars to buy as much as one OF tbe
old one-hundred cent dollars would
buy.
"The price of labor will not be
doubled. Nobody claims that the man
who now gcts $50 month will get $50
when we have free silver.
"The man who gets one dollar day
will get one dollar day under the new
order of things; or perhaps trifie less.
The real difference TO him will be tnat his
dollar won't go as tar, won't buy as
much as his present dollar does, and SO II
will be the man who works for wages
on whom the loss must fall II '16 to II
wins, and IL man is elected President
of the United States WHO stand pledged
to make the Government take piece
of silver that'is worth 81 cents in the
market, and stamp IL as being worth
dollar, and to pass 1t of on the people as
being worth dollar.
"Gold snd silver only have value
through the common consent OF man
kind. II ever men give up using them as
money, they Will Lave very little value
left, for either gold or silver arc very
much less useful in other ways than
iron, copper or other metals.
"Suppose somebody should discover
somewhere whole acres of solid gold, SO
that IL became common and everybody
could get all they wantej. 1t would lose
it's value. That is what has happened TO
a certain extent with silver. SO much
OF 1t has been discovered and dug out Of
the earth that ii is not worth as much
as II used to be, and that Is the reason
why the United States and all the other
great commercial nations in the world
have stopped its free coinage into n>,ney."