Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1896-05-29
Silver.
what We Have Done for IL, and the
Result.
from the New York World

from the New York World
Silver demonetized itself in 1873. It
was left out of the coinage act of that wear
because the silver in dollar was worth
more than a dollar. Nobody wanted to
waste money by coming at 10 to / silver
which was worth for every Is. 92 as mere
metal.
BY 1873 silver had so increased in pro-
duction and so fallen in price that it would
have required ratio of 1894 to to make
good money of it. The "friends of silver
called upon the government to restore the
value OF the metal by passing the Bland
Allison act, and Congress did so. The
government for twelve years bought and
coined $24 100000 worth of it each year.
But so far from restoring its value the re-
suit was that at the end of the twelve years
the ratio between silver and gold was 1916
to 1.
Then came the demand for larger pur-
chases. The Sherman law was passed re-
quiring the government to buy "a, 900, 900
ounces of silver each year and put it into
circulation in the form of full legal-tender
notes. This the silver leaders declared
would at once put silver back to its old
ratio with gold by absorbing the whole
American product. But it had precisely
the opposite effect. BY 1894 the value of
silver had so far declined that its ratio to
gold was 1886 to l, and the distrust of our
finances which these concessions to silver
had aroused caused disastrous panic, the
export of 5000, 100000 of gold, the enor-
nous return of American securities and a
distressing paralysis of business from which
we have not yet recovered.
The country is now asked to make
nnnthnr nj IL
is asked to throw its minis open to the free
and unlimited coinage of all the silver in
the world at 16 to l when it is worth about
to 30, with prospect of still further de-
cline.
The demand is made upon the plea that
the country should "do something for sill
ver." Yet it has already done more for
silver than any other country ever did and
more than it could afford to do. 1t has
put 5000, OOO,0 900 of silver into circulation.
1t has choked the vaults of the treasury
with bullion for which it has neither use
nor a market and which it could not sell
today for nearly what it paid for it. 1t has
issued in payment for this metal a great
and embarrassing volume of treasury notes
which it has constantly stood ready to re-
deem in gold on demand. In order to do
this it has issued some hundreds of mil
lions of bonds on which it must pay inter-
est.
All this has been done for silver, with
panic and Frustrated industry for results.
The only effect, so far as silver is concern
ed, has been to reduce its value by one
half.
Yet we are now asked to invite financial
chaos by doing more, by making silver our
only money at fifty cents on the dollar by
repudiating half our Indebtedness, national,
state, municipal. corporate and individual.
We are asked to drive all the gold out of
the country, to destroy our foreign credit,
to endure such currency contraction as the
world has never known in any country,
and to sink our nation to the level of
South American state, all for the sake of
enabling some silver miners to enrich
themselves and some dishonest debtors to
defraud their creditors.
The World does not believe that the
American people will listen to such coun-
sells of the winds. 1t does not believe that
either Of the great parties can win upon
such a. program.