Smyrna times., 1896-09-30
SOME MYSTERIES Mr.. BRYAN
DOES NOT EXPLAIN.
From the Baltimore Sun:

HIS lIoo COludSo prescription IOf PROS
perity which the millions of honest
and as yet uncOnvinced voters are anx-
ious to have him explain to their salts
faction, if he can. His letter of accept
ance would have been a most fitting
channel through which to clear up
these dark enigmas that puzzle the
popular mind, and his neglect to make
use of it for that purpose will greatly
strengthen the suspicion, already quite
strong, that he is not able to clear
them up.
The grand mystery of all to which
Mr.. Bryan should try and furnish a
key, touches the very heart of his free
silver logic. He said, in his Madison
Square Garden speech, that two things
would happen together as result of
free coming silver at 16 to 1: First,
the prices of all products, save gold,
would be raised and all producers
would thereby get more money for
what they had to sell; second, the de-
mand for silver would be SO greatly in
creased that the price of it all round
the world would rise at once to par
with gold; that is, to $1.29 per ounce.
The mystery that battles the general
understanding is how these two results,
each absolutely opposed to the other,
could both flow from the same cause at
the same time. One of them might
happen and so might the other, but
how could both happen at once?
Examine these two contradictory
promises closely for a moment On
the one hand Mr.. Bryan says that the
prices of all goods, except gold, would
advance under free-silver coinage.
That could only happen because, rela-
lively to the present dollar of 100 cents
in gold, the new free-coinage dollar of
silver would be of less intrinsic and,
therefore, of less exchangeable value;
that is, it would be worth less itself
and for that reason would buy less of
cotton, or grain, or meat, or clothing,
or any of the other things that man
kind must buy. That is all plain
enough and probable enough to hap
pen. Indeed, it is what would surely
happen under free-cOinage at 1G to l.;
the dollars being of less value, all the
people with things to sell would de-
mand more of them for the same
amount of those things, and all the
people who had to buy things would
have to find more of those less valu-
able dollars to pay for them with.
All that is easy to believe; it is what
has always taken place in every country
where the experiment has been tried of
making a currency of cheap money
with coined or face value far above
the actual value of the bullion in the
coin and without any bullion in re-
serve to redeem it. We may be quite
sure that it would happen again with
use if we were to coin SO cents worth
of bullion and stamp it as a dollar
without putting the other AZ cents
worth of face value somewhere in the
treasury or in the banks, to be handed
out when called for.
Nobody, not even a free-silver orator.
would take a dollar thus made-53 per
cent. of it real value and AZ per cent.
of it make-believe, with nothing back
of the pretense-in exchange for the
same amount of food, or fuel, or cloth
ing, or other valuable articles as he
would be willing to part with in ex-
change for dollar with 100 cents of
real value in it, or back of it, ready to
be paid over whenever called for.
Therefore, prices would rise. Mr..
Bryan is reasonable and right in pre-
dieting that prices would rise-aOt
t0dgeS, remember, bit prices.
Remember, too, that rise in prices
is not a rise in values. Prices and
values are different things. The price
OF thing is only a statement of its
value in the terms of the standard by
which we measure it, whether it be a
standard of gold, or of silver, or of
copper. If the standard used is itself
more valuable than another standard,
things measured by it will have their
prices stated by a fewer number of
standard units; if the standard used is
less valuable, then the things measured
by it will have their prices stated by a
larger number of units. But thatis all
a mere matter of statements; the real
value is the same by whichever stan
dard the measuring is done and the
price stated. If we should make the
one-fOot measure consist of six inches,
a room that is now called twenty feet
wide would have to be called forty feet
wide, but there would be no more
space in it than before. So if the
Bryan party should make so cents the
legal measure of dollars worth, the
price of thing that now sells for one
dollar would become two dollars, but
the value would be unchanged and
the price would be unchanged, too, ex.
cept for the way of stating it.
Right here is the kernel of the free
silver nut, the central deception of the
whole humbug - the confounding OF
price with value, and attempting to
cheat the farmer and the planter, and
everybody else who produces things
to sell, into the belief that by a change
in prices, by merely making half as
many cents worth of mental the stan
dard to measure by as are now used
for the purpose, thereal values of things
will be doubled and they will all be SO
much better off. As if collecting two
dollars, each worth fifty cents, from q
purchaser of goods would be more
profitable than collecting one dollar
worth one hundred cents.
Would a man really live any longer
by changing the legal length of a year
to six months and stating his age in
standard years containing each one.
half the present amout of time? Would
the Atlantic ocean be made any wider
between New York and Liverpool by
having the standard length of marine
mile and stating the number Of miles
with twice as many figures9 Is any.
thing made any longer or wider on