The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-03-30
The War on Silver.


There are two fundamentally differ
ent bases of operation with reference to
the question of silver coinage, as illus
trated in the contemporary discussion
Of this problem. The one position is
irreconcilably hostile to the use of sill
yer in any but subordinate relation
L. gold. 1t is willing that silver shall
hc coined as Il token money. so long as
it rests for ultimate redemption ON
gold but at any suggestion of the pos
sibility, by either independent action or
international agreement, of return TO
that old-fashioned form of bimetallism
in which the two metals together
formed the so-called double" but real
ly single because conjoint standard of
value, those who maintain the attitude
we have described Immediately become
encourage such Il possibility are trying
to defraud their creditors and debasc
the currency. These men are gold
monometallists. who want all values
WI sSNitl NY i''' - ~
control the gold of the world, and the
more difficult they can make 1t for
debtors to procure gold in payment of
debts. the greater will be their wealth
when those debts are paid.
The gold monometallists are united
by common interest; they are aggres-
| s.ve in the hope of foreseen profit; they
are powerful with the strength of ac-
cunulated great wealth. But on the
| other hand. the bimetalists are divid-
ed. Some want to rush at once to the
experiment of free and unlimited silver
| coinage. regardless of consequences.
| Their position is as absurd as would he
| that of the sick man who should want,
while weak and debilitated, to get up
from his bed without any intermediary
| stages of convalescence and start at
once to do the hardest kind of work.
| Others suggest that it would be prudent
| to await international cooperation be-
| fore undertaking to do anything more
| for silver than has been done for it in
are the conservative bimetallists, and
| their position Is sound provided they
will agree to work for such an agree
| ment among the nations and not strive
| to make it more difficult. The danger
| to be feared from this class of bimetall-
lists is that they will gradually, under
| the cunning pressure of gold mono
| metallists, despair of achieving silver s
| restoration on a broad scale and will
thus by tacit consent perpetuate a plan
of campaign which has for its deliberate
| purpose the doubling of the debts of
the world by the subtraction of half
| the basic coin of the world.
There is, however, third position.
not very popular as yet, but destined,
we believe, to fulfil in course of time a
| large usefulness in the arresting of the
tide toward the single gold standard.
1t may be roughly outlined to involve
the coinage in this country. at COM
promise ratio. of the American silver
product only. coupled with a tariff on
|
would be kept out, and supplemented
it may be, by series of retaliatory
tariffs on countries which refuse to join
with the United States In plan for in
| ternational bime :allism As the case
now stands. or. rather. as it used to
stand when Republican protection
| formed the law of the land. every in
dustry in the United States had pro-
| lection from foreign competition save
the silver industry. 1t alone has had
no protection, and today the curious
of the United States his secretary OF
the treasury and most of the leading
statesmen and journalists of the coun.
try trying to kill the demand for Ameri-
can silver, which is one of the princi-
pal of our ore resources. If such q raid
| We're made on Pennsylvania $ coal and
iron we should expect to hear quick pro-
test: but since II is made ostensibly on
the silver interests of the far west ana
sweetened by the euphonious fiction OF
sound money" the wage earners and
productive interests generally, whom
gold monOmetailism compels to do dOu.
BILE work for single pay. are expected
apparently. to take an appreciative in
terest in their own undoing. and ever
to get mad at every economist who
warns them of their peril