The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1896-09-04
CANNOT STAND ALONE
FoolishnesS Of the Declarat on in
Favor of Monetary In
dependence.
P0PULIST IDEAS OF FINANCE.
Feeble Attempt to Invoke the Ma.
tons Fathers in Support Of
Free Coinage.

Among all the crazy assumptions of
the Populistc platforms, perhaps the
most foolish is the one that we can Gre
ate and maintain monetary system in
dependent of that of other nations. To
make this stroke of idiocy more prepOs-
ferrous. the spirit and the example of the
fathers of the republic are invoked TO
sustain it. The efforts of the fathers
were most earnestly and steadily directed
TO bringing the young republic within
the commercial brotherhood of nations,
and nothing was further from their
thoughts than the idea that the progress
of the country could be facilitated by
declaration of financial independence.
For sixty years after the passage OF the
mint act English, French. Spanish and
Portuguese coins were freely circul lated
in the United States, and were legal
tender for the payment of debts ut GER
tain values fixed by act of Congress. In
his celebrated Mint Report, Alexander
Hamilton endeayored To coordinate our
monetery system with that of other ma
tions-not to make any violent departure
from European practice. The only strik-
ing departure that was made in the legis-
lation framed on Hamiton's recon-
mendatiOns was in fixing the coinage
ratio between gold and silver at ID to l.,
and the result of this quickly demon
strated what the Populistic Democrats
1
to say, il showed that while the minis
of France were open to the free coinage
of gold at the ratio of 15l5 to l. we could
not keep our gold from going where II
would have most value. The difference
was only about 3 1-3 per cent. but it
country, so that in the words of Senator
Benton its extinction was complete.
III the establishment of n ratio of their
own was strike for financial independ-
ence OF Europe on the part of the ia
| theirs. IL was manifest failure. and
| established for the first generation of
| the republic regime of silver mono
| metallism. But this was not in the
| least what they desired: i'm fact. so little
were they impressed by the necessity for
| Keeping silver as part of the clrcua-
! ton that the coinage of silver dollars
| 1905 and was. for domestic purposes at
| least. never resumed. That is TO say,
| the fathers were so determined to get
| back the gold that for thirty years they
had been shunting into European mints
| that they fixed n new ratio, which Of
| fered 3 per cent. more to the possessor
| of gold bullion than he could get in
! France or Holland. That the bullion in
| the silver dollar thus became more valua-
| BILE than the bullion in the gold dollar did
not trouble them much. for they, appar-
| emily. did not want the silver dollar
| halves quarters and dimes of this metal
| being sufficient for their wants-and all
! the subsequent coinage of that much
| talked-of but little known piece. ''the
| dollar of the fathers" was for export TO
| the East. Here. again. il monetary in
| dependence was what they are aiming
| at the result was n failure. for Europe
| diverted into its own minis the silver
of the United States as peremptorily as
| it had done the gold. for the simple rea-
son that no law could compel the own
| or of bullion not to take il where he
| got most for il in returned coins.
| But the Populists are determined 10
| have IAN economic and financial system
which shall make us masters of our own
affairs" Among the preliminaries of
| such condition of things they are at
| least logical enough TO recognize the ne
cessity of interfering with the freedom
| of private contract. That was q cure
| for financial lameness not thought of by
the fathers of the republic. and is one
| generally deemed to be contrary TO the
letter and spirit of the constitution which
they framed. But the transformation of
the Democrat into the Populist seems,
among other changes, to work surpris-
| ing Indifference 10 the value of the safe
| guards of the constitution. From old
habit. there is the customary profession
of allegiance 20 ''those great essential
principles of justice and liberty upon
which our institutions are founded" only
10 be followed by n series of propositions
destructive alike of the principles and
| institutions. On whatever other points
| the makers of the constitution may have
| differed. they were entirely AT one as to
| the obligation both of nations and of in
| dividuals to make an honest provision
| for paying their dphts-Rochester Post.