The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-03-31

Is against US our trade with foreign
peoples whom we cannot compel TO
take deprecated money, nor paper
promises of money; whenever our GUS
toners abroad send over more mer-
chandise and more Of our own securi-
ties than they are taking from us, the
government furnishes the gold for the
difference by Fedeeming its greenback,
and then reissues its greenback so that
the operation may be repeated.
An Artificial Party.
Under these conditions, it is obvious
that the parity existing between these
several components OF what may be
called our legal tender currency, is
purely artificial and forced one, main
tained only by costly strain; and that
the government is bank Of issue TO
the extent of the amount Of these de-
mand notes which it cannot pay Off ana
retire, but must reissue and therefore
keep prepared to redeem endlessly III
gold.
The problem is to put an end to Sit
uation which. under existing condi-
tons, and sooften as they recur, is not
only taking and will take the world
money out of US with great rapidity,
but is running us and will run us still
more deeply and very deeply into DEBT,
simply to get more and more OF that
same money to put up where it can be
reached by that same immortal green
back, to be sent abroad and to be Dor
roWed again.
The Simple Solution.
1t would seem as if the best solution
of the problem would be the simplest
one, the one which any individual SO sit
uated would be expected to adopt: Let
the government get rid Of the deprecia-
ton in our silver dollars, either by an
arrangement, if such a thing be posi-
ble-and it isn't-which will put an
hundred cents worth of perpetually
tiuctuating silver into them, or-which
is the only practicable way--by substl-
tuting for them dollars of worlds only
standard metal so that we are not
crippled by trying to maintain at a nc
titious value in our own domestic COM
MERGE a mass Of money which the
world we trade with cannot use at our
valuation and the actual value of when
changes from day to day; and then let
the government call in its demand debt
and cancel it, borrowing so much as is
necessary to fund it, and go out of the
banking business, leaving the banks to
furnish as much of the retired volume
of paper currency as the business of the
country demands. For with a continu-
ance of existing conditions we shall
soon have borrowed enough to pay and
1+,, entire
greenback debt, and yet it will not be
dollar less On December l, 1885, we
had already paid gold for 1927 900 900 of
our greenbacks, and yet every dollar of
the s346, 6S1, 016 is outstanding. The APP
petite of Oliver Twist was not harder to
satisfy.
Three Objections Exposed,
But this solution is opposed by so
many interests which can and do pow
erfully affect legislation, that we must
consider their remedy. which in sub
stance is this: Stop trying to pay in
gold, and pay in silver and compel all
creditors of the government to receive
their claims in silver; that is, let the
government resort to the legal tender
use Of silver dollars; and in order to
furnish silver dollars enough, enact the
free coinage of silver at the present
nominal ratio of sixteen to one, which,
although adopted by the ''daddies' for
their dollar when silver was worth S1.3O
an ounce, Is alleged to be just as eood
a ratio when silver is worth only half
as much.
| To the objection that such a step
81 nf al 10 ipp in,
| stantly and place our whole remain
| ing currency on silver basis, at its
actual market value of only fifty cents
on the dollar, we get three answers
| One is that that is just what is wanted.
The second answer is, that the legal
| tender function of our silver dollar
will keep it at par; that. because you
| can compel a man to take a silver
dollar worth only fifty cents in pay
ment of debt due him of one hundred
cents, therefore that flfty-cent dollar
will everywhere buy one hundred cents
worth of property; forgetting, appar-
emily, that our fifty-cent silver dollar
| has then got to come into competition
with the money of the great world OF
| trade Of which we are great and per-
petual part.
| The third answer is from those who
see this fatal error and assert that tc
keep silver at parity with gold at six
teen to one, or at any ratio other thar
their exchangeable market value, al
| the great commercial nations whose
| citizens trade with each other mus
| deal with silver in the same wise: that
what one nation cannot do by itself
that is, make the legal debt-payins
power of a dollar the permanent basis
and measure of its purchasing power
all the nations agreeing together, ant
legislating identically, can do. So alb
solutely does this theory dominate the
United States Senate to-day and bal
the way to any other mode of relic
from a situation which Is simply de
structive, and so obstinately is thi
theory asserted by some political con
ventions and by men holding appar
emily different personal relations to tn,
subject matter, that I beg your patien
attention to certain fundamental facts
What Money Is.
Trade exists before money. Money il
born of the necessities of trade, and il
simply it's instrument. And trade, NJ
matter how complex it's forms, how
narrow or how wide its field, what tn,
range of it's objects or the number o.
character of its inStrumentalitieS anC
incidents, is nothing else but the free
willing exchange of one mans property
for that of another. The Fundamental
-