The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1896-08-29

usL platIOrInS De feal1eu'
But you have heard from our free
coinage friends here that other nations
have lone this. And there are many good
people who believe that France is dong
It, and that the Latin union-so-callei-is
doing it. Now, I would like to know why
they can't tell the entire truth about this
matter; let US not deceive each mSa f 'sin
union is composed of France, Belgium,
Italy, Switzerland and Greece. 1t was
formed in 1865 by treaty between those
powers. whereby each agreed until the
year 1880 to take the coins of the other
powers at the ratio of l5@ to ]; ho
had ceased to coin it, and 80. in 1873,
those great nations, headed by France
1.-THE most acknowledgements country
in the world, and the one which has the
most accurate financial ideas), | say those
f;2ad s;ixer after fl SIS Gsr% 9;m;{ed had the; Se% a;57er
coinage, and by 1876 they suspended it
entirely. They, those great European
nations-France, the strongest monetary
nation in the world. with her allies-un-
dertook with all their power to do pre-
cisely what the free coiners of the Unit
to undertake in the light of such con-
sDicuous failures of other nations.
Invariable Standards Needed.
Now, everybody admits-I think the
most rampant free-coiner declaimer
would admit-that the money unit should
remain as nearly invariable as possible.
yer has fallen commercially. like other
articles. This is denied. They say sill
yer has not fallen, that gold has risen;
Now. that is the way YOU look at it.
You can look ut it through the deluding
glass of idealism, and it may appear that
WOW hut - 80 ~, on+;oo1 :l1,,o:or Nou,
let me put an illustration from nature.
The waters of Lake Superior, that great
inland sea which floats SO much of our
commerce and is such an element in our
prosperity. have for many years been
falling. until now they are lower than
years, and everything on their surface
has fallen. The waters of Lake Supe-
rior. like the universal, spread-out plane
of humanity, bearing everything upon its
surface-those waters bear the fleets,
vessels and craft of all kinds. and YES
sells and craft and fleets Of all kinds have
think of a man standing on the deck Of
one of those vessels saying. '"This YES
sci has not fallen; this vessel stands just
where it did, but the universal shore of
Lake Superior has risen" Laughter
and %applause.1 80
Now, l say, my friends, that since the
Latin union, from 1873 to 1876, ADAM
doned free coinage, there has existed in
European nations and the United States
the only practical bimetallism. Let me
repeat this. | feel that 1 cannot bear it
into your minds too often or too urgently
that these nations, including ours, are
that have any bimetallism whatever.
And why? Because they went to the
danger line. as we went, and then
stopped. [Applause.l The universal
teaching of history demonstrated that
there was a dead line, beyond which
immediate humiliation of it's companion,
gold, as a useful, working money medi-
UNI. And when any man gets up and
dreams and soliloquizes and philosophers
before me II tells me he knows it won't
be so if we try where others failed, I,
a ton of theory, and that something bodi-
~ is worth a million of disembodied
ghosts. [Applause.]
What is Ratio?
And yet these gentlemen favor. in the
face of these historical examples and
warnings, that the United States shall
make the unit of coinage the silver dol
lar at the ratio of 16 to /.
Now, what is ratio? 1t is not SIG to
s. Ks,t; as m sems f 6SsiGple f slain; there Ga sSsa1t T.
1Aul1V A1CNAo AAo L uuL lAClC Suukl NC
sixteen times more silver in weight in a
silver dollar than there is weight of gold
in a gold dollar. Or, to put the definition
in another form, that sixteen ounces of
silver, when coined, shall be the equiva-
lent of one ounce of gold when coined.
When gold measured by. silver is worth
-$16 per ounce, no disparity in value can
ounce of gold is worth $31 an ounce COM
mercially, disparity results. Such is the
present condition, and yet the free silver
men assert that it will be no such thing
in case legislative fiat endeavors to make
two and two FIVE instead of the old
The trouble is that our friends have
confused the ratio of weight with the
ratio of value, and are trying to confuse
the people with it. The ratio of weight
and the ratio of value were once the
same, but they have changed. They
changed more than thirty years ago.
perial behest Of that change before we
did, and the ratio is now throughout
the world 50, or about 80, to 1.
Now I say that no legislative fiat what
ever-it does not lie in the power of man
II was about to say something more ex-
IRENE than that, which it would not be
power of man to enact that a given di-
mension, volume or capacity shall be a
hairs breadth greater than the laws of
the Almighty have fixed it from the be-
ginning. (Applause.)
It is necessary that the ratio or proper
ton of value should be invariable. 1t is
necessary for the production of the thing
itself called money, speaking of it in its
/ aren't volume, US the volume of money in
| the United States. We see a~nalogies
everywhere; we see IN analogy in nature.
Take the air we breathe. 1t is a com
mound substance, made up from oxygen
md nitrogen at the ratio of about. u
to %. and while this ratio lasts it is from
it we all draw our lives and have our
being. But change to any material de-
gree and, instead of being the vital, life
giving air, it becomes a deadly and de-
| structive miasma.
But the free.coiners assert that nnlim-
parity with gold. 1t has been tried by
many nations of tn world. Has it done
RI in a single instance? Not one. They
said the same thing when Congress
lDassed the Sherman net of 1890. They
said buy of us freely 100000 ounces q
month. or 54,OOO,OO0 ounces q year, and
YOU will see that silver will go up to
Sl.29 an ounce Immediately. In the face
Inf clnmor. in doubt as to what might be
1.-The result, in WILLINGNESS, lit went too
far) to give such claims every Oppor-
ltunity to be. demonstrated whether they
were correct or incorrect, that legislation
WAS enacted. And, silver did so in the
course of about ten days to $1.19 nm
ounce Applause by one many and the
free-coiners were exalted. and said Il
told you 3d." But, my friends who ap.
plaud at that delusiye statement. it last.